Over 50% of black males ineligible for Social Security under new proposed rules,

[SunnySong]

The so called bi-partisan Catfood commission (which is a misnomer cause decent cat food ain't cheap) is proposing to raise the retirement age to 70 years. Without coincidence the life expectancy of an African American male in the United States is 69.8 years.


So the new rules would allow 50% of African American males to pay into the system and yet never collect a dime.

I know I have seen people chuckle over the fact that illegal aliens pay social security taxes and never collect (invariably this is supposed to be a selling point to illegal immigration. Hey they work for free. Nobody seems to care about the outcome for said illegal when they are too old and sick to work. Sucks to be them seems ironically to be the reaction from their so-called proponents no less.)

Now apparently we can chuckle at the fact our African American citizens can also contribute to our retirement without worrying about them taking from the larder when it comes time to collect.


We should be lowering the retirement age with chronic unemployment and widespread age discrimination, not raising it.


Maybe if we framed the issue as I have in the headline the Obama White House might be less inclined to throw yet another group under the bus.

[scheming daemons]

1. The *average* is 69.8.... not the *median*

It doesn't mean 50% die before 69.8 and 50% after. The average is skewed downward because of the inordinate amount of blacks that die very young (black males are 4 times as likely to die before age 24 than white males).


The average is 69.8.... but much more than half of black men live past that age.

[nebenaube]

4. ahem...

deleted since you fixed it.

[coti]

12. Here's some relevant data.

http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr54/nvsr54_14.pdf

Check out Table B.

You're right, 50% of black males that should have turned 70 in 2003 did not die. 44.3% did, by the CDC's estimate. Which I guess only looks worse when you compare it to the 18.2% of white females who should have turned 70 in that year who had already died.

Further down in the study, they mention that the median age expectancy for a black male in the U.S. is 72 (page five, right-hand side). So, that 5.7% of black males the OP didn't account for will get a full two years' worth of SS benefits before they pass on.

Or am I splitting hairs?

[SheilaT]

2. When social security first got its start,

the retirement age was set at 65 because some significant majority of all people died before then.

[Number23]

3. Sweet Lord in Heaven

It takes some serious dedication (or medication) to come up with this type of foolishness.

PROUD to unrec. Wish I could do it more than once!

[truedelphi]

17. You are unrec'cing a topic that you are in agreement with, but as a sign that

You are not happy with the issue at hand?

Is that what you are doing?

I mean, I don't like the Catfood commission, but it is important tha we have the information in this OP, not htat we hide the facts from one another...

[blondeatlast]

5. Wonder how Cesar Chavez's UFW feels about immigrant labor?

Not the way you do...

http://www.ufw.org/

[SunnySong]

8. So you don't believe we should allow illegal immigrants to retire? nt

[Hello_Kitty]

9. I don't understand what you're saying

Are you arguing that cheating immigrant workers out of SS is a good thing?

[blondeatlast]

10. Quite the opposite. The UFW supports rights for all workers--

and I agree with them.

[SunnySong]

13. And the only way to insure those rights is to enforce overtime laws and unemployment laws

and retirement pensions and the only way to do that is if the work force is legal.

You cannot have a subclass of workers with no rights. It reduces wages and is akin to modern slavery.

[blondeatlast]

14. So you DO support the UFW stand on immigrant labor. Good. Me too. nt

[notesdev]

16. Me three

unfortunately open throated advocacy of such common sense will get your comments deleted from many a thread here.

[frazzled]

6. No, John Boehner said that

Good effing lord, the Fiscal Commission hasn't proposed anything yet, and your math skills are poor.

Here are some things said at the fiscal commission:

Bowles floated several ideas that Democrats would be more receptive to.

He took aim at defense spending. “I personally am not crazy about being the world’s policeman, nor do I think we can afford to be,” he said.

He also called for tax code reform, singling out costly tax breaks that haven't had their intended effects.

“The greatest contribution we can make to that is to work to simplify it, broaden the base and make it so that America is more competitive in a knowledge-based economy,” Bowles said.

Liberal Democrats on the commission, including Reps. Jan Schakowsky (Ill.) and Xavier Becerra (Calif.) and Sen. Dick Durbin (Ill.), have said scrutiny on tax expenditures, especially those for corporations, should precede any push to cut entitlement programs.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/106525-obama-fiscal-commission-chief-eyes-spending-caps-entitlement-reforms?page=1#comments

[Overseas]

7. Lower the age to 60. Why not get More Compassionate over time

instead of less and less for human needs while war profiteers make their private billions on warfare.

[scheming daemons]

11. We can only do that if we drastically increase the amount that people pay in....

....which I'm not against.... but it would never pass congress.

[notesdev]

15. Actually that's how SS was originally structured

the original retirement age was above the average life expectancy... they never planned on having a huge segment of the population living for decades on SS, it was supposed to be for the elderly. These days, it's a ways after retirement age before people are really elderly, due to advances in nutrition and medicine.

[DCBob]

18. The "catfood" commission did NOT propose raising the retirement age to 70..

Boehner said that. I would suggest getting your facts straight before posting next time... or was this intentional?

[sabrina 1]

19. They certainly have it on the table. They didn't want it to get out

as you could see when reporter Alex Lawson confronted Republican Co-Chair of the Commission, Alan Simpson, on the issue last week. This is what Simpson, who was extremely rude and abusive throughout the interview, had to say to Laswon:

Alan Simpson In Profanity-Laced Confrontation With Social Security Activist (VIDEO)

The White House's Deficit Commission has been operating mainly behind closed doors, coming up with a way of cutting entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare that's politically palatable enough to prevent any lawmakers from losing their seats in Congress.

But Alex Lawson of Social Security Works, recently made something of a breakthrough, getting commission co-chair Alan K. Simpson on video. The two have a frank, detailed and often contentious conversation about what the commission plans to do about Social Security benefits.




LAWSON: Thanks for being so frank. My question is: raising the retirement age, is actually an across-the-board benefit cut?

SIMPSON: There are 15 different options being discussed in here today, and why nail one of them……if you would like to get one of them that pisses your people off.

LAWSON: Alice Rivlin was just on CNBC saying that that was one of the favorite methods.

SIMPSON: There are 15 of them in there. All of them have to do with stabilizing the system, which we are told is insolvent, it’s paying out more then it’s taking in.

LAWSON: Right now?

SIMPSON: Yes.

LAWSON: But what about the $180 billion in surplus that it brings in every year?

SIMPSON: There is no surplus in there. It’s a bunch of IOUs.

Aside from his anger at having their little plot to raise the retirement age revealed, (which he whines will 'make people angry'!! lol, you bet it will Alan!) he demonstrates a complete ignorance, or he's lying, take your pick, about the Social Security Fund. Every word he said about people only getting 75% of their benefits is a lie, it is a Republican scare tactict they've using for decades trying to get their grubby little hands on that enormous fund.

The truth is that SS IS Solvent, and that is according to the best economic minds in the country, none of whom are ON Obama's 'let them eat catfood' commission. And the question is 'why not'?

I give credit to everyone who is exposing what they are doing, who is challenging them like Lawson did despite the abuse he took from Alan Simpson who calls old people 'old geezers' and 'lesser people'. Because we would not have known and could not have fought them on this if we didn't, and which needs to start now.

I have not yet received an answer to my call to Nancy Pelosi's office asking her to verify the story that she has slipped a vote on recommendations from this disastrous Commission into a rules bill for war funding. No one seems to be able to get an answer to that question.

Anyone who cares about stopping the Republican wet dream of rolling back all New Deal programs better be ready to fight starting now. It's sad that our Democratic Majority even approved of this Commission.

You have to wonder why anyone in their right mind who cared anything at all about the elderly or disabled or the New Deal programs that Republicans haven't yet managed to ravage, would put these people on a Commission of any kind where they might have any influence over the financial security of America's most vulnerable citizens.

[DCBob]

20. But they did not say 70. that came from Boner.. the OP is full of inaccuracies..

it should be deleted.

[SunnySong]

21. Which part is inaccurate the raising of the retirement age

or the sheer volume of black workers that will never live to collect their money?

[sabrina 1]

23. Why do you think Boehner said it? The Commission is

has some rightwing radicals on it who would like to eliminate SS altogether.

Why are they lying about SS claiming that it is part of the reason for the deficit, when nothing could be further from the truth? SS has NOTHING to do with the deficit, NOTHING. So, why are they lying? That is the question. I am glad Boehner said what he said, because now they have to be more careful about what they do. He unwittingly forced them into having to defend against it and that is a very good thing as they were trying to do all this behind closed doors.

There should be outrage over them making any suggestion whatsoever on raising the retirement age, even if it's just one year. SS is solvent for decades to come, Obama's co-chair has lied and lied about this, for years. So, why is he even on this Commission?

Frankly I don't care if it's 70 or 66, the real problem is that there is NO PROBLEM with SS and if they continue to lie about it and Democrats go along with those lies, they will face the anger of the entire country.

It's interesting that you are more outraged over a number, than over the outright attacks on SS and the elderly and disabled who depend on it. I think your priorities are a little out of order.

[whistler162]

25. Shhh...... don't interupt the prelude to the weekend POUTRAGE!!!

[Unvanguard]

22. A lot of that is from infant mortality differences.

So nothing to do with who does and does not pay into Social Security.

[Liberal_in_LA]

24. true. African Americans who reach a certain age live longer than whites

I remember a study about that... maybe someone knows what I'm talking about.

[SunnySong]

26. African American woman live longer than white men...

been that way for a while... but at no age do African American men live longer than any other group.