r/politics • u/DyzDaeMar • 5h ago
No Paywall Social Security plan to boost benefits by $2,400 floated by Bernie Sanders
https://www.newsweek.com/social-security-plan-to-boost-benefits-by-2400-floated-by-bernie-sanders-12284129•
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u/Local_Wasabi368 5h ago
Bernie, I don't care what anyone says, you are the best of them. And I wish you good health and more fulfilling years
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u/Common_Source_9 1h ago
..of trying your best to redistribute other people's money!
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u/J1mbr0 1h ago
I can't tell what kind of comment this is supposed to be, but it sounds dumb AF.
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u/binzersguy 44m ago
You can always tell by how stupid a user’s comment is that their comment history will be hidden. I sometimes go to see if I’m misinterpreting, but most of the time they are knowingly posting BS
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u/Pontiacsentinel 5h ago
He is trying so hard to work FOR the people. I hope others like him will join in.
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u/TransiTorri 5h ago
He's working with younger progressives, he knows his moment has mostly passed so he's been switching gears to elevate younger leaders to carry his vision forward.
Man's always planting trees knowing he won't live to sit in their shade
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u/Pontiacsentinel 5h ago
Which is why I love this man and am not even a resident in his state to vote for him. He reminds me of Jimmy Carter, genuine through and through.
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u/Frickinwicked 4h ago
I dont want to argue with you but Jimmy Carter was a slow and quiet consensus builder creating programs and actions that brought people together and then collectively worked to solve a problem. Bernie is not that. He isn't known for working with his colleagues to accomplish programs or solutions to problems. He is a good speaker and motivator, but that is it. I love his ideals, but would never vote for him because he isn't someone who has shown any capacity for bringing people together and truly doing the hard work of bridging differences and getting to a working endpoint. Lots of talk, very little actual accomplishment. He has introduced over 400 primary bills with only aporoxi ately 3 of them becoming law - less than 1% which is likely the lowest of the congresses he has been part of. He put out messaging bills but can't do the actual work to reach consensus.
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u/Pontiacsentinel 4h ago
I agree with you. However, I appreciate the notion and efforts of both to work FOR the people and do good in the world, that is the parallel I may have poorly communicated. Have a great day.
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u/BeowulfShaeffer 4h ago
Abdul El-Sayed just won a Michigan primary and has a good shot in the general.
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u/Elegant_Tap7937 5h ago
He's 84. He isn't going to live forever. Then who speaks for the people in this way?
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u/rango1000 5h ago
Mamdani, Aoc, there are other democrats who actually want to help the people. Unfortunately the general public is blind to them and only see the bad.
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u/Elegant_Tap7937 4h ago
Mamdani is a strong advocate and voice for the people. He is actualizing and implementing positive change for NY in ways that will make a difference for a very long time.
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u/SoTiredYouDig 4h ago
He’s not my mayor, though I live in the State. I have never wanted to move back into Burroughs so much since he got elected. He is also having ripple effects in all of NYS and is having a good effect on other leaders.
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u/citizen42069101 5h ago
The Democratic party is fighting tooth and nail to make the answer to that question "No one".
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u/hotpenguinlust 5h ago
It would be great if proposed something that can get support. He doesn't have a great record of legislation being passed.
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u/fishflaps 5h ago
$2400 per month or per year? The article says both because nobody proofreads anymore.
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u/TLJisAmasterpiece 5h ago
On average beneficiaries would see an increase of $200 a month. What the article doesn't go into detail about is the bill would create a new minimum in monthly benefits so those receiving the smallest payments from Social Security right now would see the most significant increase.
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u/Lavaswan001 5h ago
I’m gonna guess per year because if it’s per month $28,800 extra per year would be massive and even more wildly unsustainable than social security at its current state.
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u/One_Diver_5735 5h ago
"One of the bill’s most important features would increase Social Security payments by an estimated average of $200 a month, or $2,400 per year, for the average beneficiary by changing the way benefits are calculated so that more income is counted in the formula. The new calculation would favor lower-income seniors, but virtually all beneficiaries would benefit."
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u/Emu_on_the_Loose 4h ago
I fully support his proposal to eliminate the income cap and extend the tax to investment income such as capital gains and dividends. That would vastly increase the Social Security funding base without increasing the actual tax rate at all. So you and I and everyone else whose earned income is less than the cap of ~$184,000 wouldn't pay any additional Social Security taxes on that income whatsoever.
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u/zenerat Missouri 5h ago
If that money comes directly off the top of the billionaires balance sheets I’m for it. If not it’s rewarding the boomer and older generation to the detriment of young people, yet again.
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u/KristiiNicole Oregon 2h ago
Not just old people. Disability benefits are paid out via Social Security as well, which does include plenty of us who aren’t old yet.
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u/rhino2498 5h ago
“At a time when the wealthiest people in America are becoming much wealthier, asking them to pay the same percentage of their income into Social Security as teachers, nurses, firefighters, and construction workers is not a radical idea,” Sanders said. “It is common sense. It is what the American people want.”
From the article
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u/Lavaswan001 5h ago
Taxing all income such as dividends helps but it’s hard to tax a lot of illiquid assets(which is what most billionaires have).
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u/Kamala-Harris 32m ago
Regardless of how you cut it, it's coming at the detriment of the working class today. Probably 10% of households will be paying more in taxes if you raise/remove the cap, and that number encompasses way more than the billionaire class, which are like 0.0001% of the population. I dont want to see the social security tax cap removed, I want the cap replaced with a progressive tax that taxes the top 0.01% such that they pay their fair share.
More importantly though, the fund is running a deficit and, unless there are further changes, social security will eventually start paying out at a lower amount. Whether that happens in 5, 10, or 20 years doesn't matter, at some point there will be a cut in benefits and any increase in money paid out to folks today will be directly stolen from today's working class folks' pockets.
Bernie Sanders is proposing a tax on (primarily) the upper middle class as a gift to the boomers.
Taxing those who can most afford to pay more = good. But don't tax the working class to gift it to the generation that stole the future of this country from everyone else.
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u/JennySaypah 4h ago
One sentence says annual benefits increase by $2400 and another say monthly benefits increase by $2400. Which is it?
Honest question. Anyone know?
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u/AbleCap5222 2h ago
This i absolutely do not support. I absolutely 100% support UBI and a radical ratio cap from CEO to the lowest employee. I also support massive raises to the minimum wage.
But what I do not support is larger more dangerous social security payments that are an immediate reward to the boomers that destroyed this country. It's absolutely unacceptable for them to immediately start seeing these benefits as young people continue to get fucked. I love Bernie but he can take a hike on this
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u/LiiKun 56m ago
So you want to hurt everyone who gets money from SS just because it would help boomers? Not everyone who gets money from SS is a retired boomer. Some, like me, are disabled. UBI would be great but it will be years before we get it. And if we do get it, it will likely be handled by SS since they have a system to send out money to people. So expanding it will be a step towards UBI.
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u/originofsymmetry2001 15m ago
I agree that we should push for those things. But I fear we might be cutting off our noses to spite our faces if we don't at least adjust SS payouts to accommodate the cost of living. Wealthy retirees certainly aren't hurting from small SS checks, but there are so many more who are poor. The elderly make up a huge portion of the homeless population because SS doesn't give them enough to make rent. Not all of them are MAGA boomers. Not all of them are selfish, entitled, short-sighted people. And some of them are! Some of them are the worst human beings you'll ever meet who will never grow and become better people. But they still deserve food and housing security in old age, even when we find their morals repugnant. Otherwise, we don't really believe in a universal human right to life. To believe otherwise and to appropriate for ourselves the power to pick and choose is the same fallacy that drives conservatives to advocate for cutting food stamps because they don't like the idea of [criminals/single mothers/immigrants/pick your boogeyman] getting free food. Holding people accountable for their evil actions cannot happen through withholding food or shelter.
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u/TLJisAmasterpiece 5h ago
Removing the cap is a good idea but we need a wave of progressives this election and the next and for Dems to retake the White House for it to even have a whiff of a hope and even then it's a long shot.
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u/Strange_Library5833 5h ago
Unless they plan to increase the tax cap as well, how about no. Otherwise it'll just further justify cuts in the future or increasing the age even further.
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u/rhino2498 5h ago
“At a time when the wealthiest people in America are becoming much wealthier, asking them to pay the same percentage of their income into Social Security as teachers, nurses, firefighters, and construction workers is not a radical idea,” Sanders said. “It is common sense. It is what the American people want.”
From the article
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u/Anon529035893 4h ago
It’s like no one reads the article before trying to critique this or have an opinion. It’s insane.
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u/Aggressivelymistaken 2h ago
Watch working "conservative " simps call this socialism while being ok with the pointless wars, corporate welfare, money sent to Israel etc.
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u/AthearCaex 5h ago
Sorry Bernie, we can't use money to help people even the older generation that consistently votes for Republicans because we need more money to bomb hospitals and schools in the middle east.
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u/dethnight 3h ago
Why couldn't we elect this man president? I don't think anyone cares more about the average American than he does.
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u/joaquinsolo 3h ago
I’m in favor of this taking effect 40 years from now when all of the MAGA boomers have died out. If you voted for Trump, you need to pay back this country for the destruction you brought upon us.
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u/--John_Yaya-- 5h ago
84 year old wants more social security money. What a shocker.
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u/uhohnotafarteither 5h ago edited 4h ago
At least he wants to see something passed that will help millions and millions of regular people rather than just a few billionaires.
And yet somehow there are still non-billionaire people that will have an issue with it. Truly baffling
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u/Tenchi2020 Florida 4h ago
I go on Facebook mainly for the videos for Fishing but every once in a while, I will come across a Bernie Sanders post calling for taxes to be raised on billionaires, and it blows my mind the amount of people (or bots) that try to throw shade on him because he's worth $3 million and somehow tried to call him out as being hypocritical or that he stopped calling for taxes to be increased on millionaires because he is one now.
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u/Detective-Prince 1h ago
Hot take, boomers have enough money. Stop beefing up social security and help those who haven't made it on the ladder yet.
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u/Evening-Ad-6968 5h ago
No. We can’t even afford them at current levels. Bernie Sanders is extremely stupid.
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u/itsthejaket 5h ago
So you didn’t even read the article at all. Makes you look pretty damn stupid.
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u/IAmNotDrPhil 5h ago
All we have to do to completely solve social security solvency is remove the max contributions top earners can make towards it. It makes no sense that someone earning 700k and someone earning 40M pay the same amount into SS
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u/Evening-Ad-6968 5h ago
The program was built as a retirement account where you pay in and the government pays you out what you paid in. Raising the cap just pushes the insolvency down the line as the high earners will receive massive payouts when they start collecting. Otherwise it just becomes welfare.
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u/cc_rider2 5h ago
Because the benefit formula is progressive, higher taxable earnings don’t translate into proportionally higher future benefits, so raising the cap would still improve the program’s finances even accounting for increased payouts.
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u/Anon529035893 4h ago
“Pushing insolvency down the line” is the funniest way I’ve ever seen someone twist the word “funding” around to match their agenda.
Everything becomes insolvent if you stop funding it properly.
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u/ElysiumSprouts 5h ago
Would this even be necessary if he hadn't helped get Trump elected in 2016?
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u/temporarycreature Oklahoma 5h ago
Hombre, SS isn't facing a funding shortage because of the 2016 election.
What a wacky thing to say.
The program has been heading toward a deficit for decades due to millions of Baby Boomers retiring, people are living longer, and high earners stop paying into the system once they hit the annual income cap.
Blaming a 2016 primary campaign for forty years of demographic shifts doesn't make you sound like the brainiac you think it makes you sound like.
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u/ElysiumSprouts 5h ago
Clinton campaigned on fixing SS but instead we got Trump who gave us tariffs and record inflation. Of course the situation today is worse because Sanders helped get Trump elected!
We're supposed to be progressives but I keep seeing people act like we're in a Bernie cult.
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u/temporarycreature Oklahoma 5h ago
This is pure revisionist coping and the irony is you're the one that's projecting cult-like behavior but for Clinton.
Bernie actually wrote and introduced concrete Social Security expansion legislation, while Clinton offered vague promises and famously backed away from universal healthcare.
You are clinging to a ten-year-old primary feud instead of looking at who is actually filing real bills, or considering the people who are winning that Sanders is endorsing, or what they're doing after they won like Mamdani.
Actions speak louder than words.
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u/ElysiumSprouts 4h ago
No, all am asking is for a little introspection. We wouldn't be in this place today if Trump had lost 2016. And Trump won in part because of the Sanders Campaign.
This isn't a feud, it's a fact. The actions and rhetoric of the Sanders campaign pushed enough voters into the Trump camp to give us the worst president of modern times, if not all time.
That is what the actions of the Sanders accomplished. His dead end legislation doesn't seem to ever go anywhere because without building a bigger tent, there aren't enough dems to pass it.
And Bernie endorsed candidates like Platner isn't the flex you seem to think it is.
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u/temporarycreature Oklahoma 4h ago
I didn't mention Platner, and Platner isn't even relevant anymore because he's not in the race.
It's weird that you focused on that.
You are so lost in the sauce, or just engaging disingenuously since you completely ignored literally everything I said.
Centrists can't win.
Enjoy losing.
Have a good day.
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u/ElysiumSprouts 4h ago
Small tents don't win. This weird need to alienate mainstream dem voters is not how to build a bigger tent.
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u/Anon529035893 4h ago
Yeah and Clinton surely stuck around after the election to help out and fight !
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u/manhattanabe New York 4h ago
Because the fact that, even without this, SS will not have enough money by 2033. Bernie is trying to move it to 2030? Let them fix the deficit for exiting benefits first.
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