Good points all.
----- Original Message -----
From: Alice Dampman Humel
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Saturday, January 09, 2016 12:32 PM
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Wall Street Journal Says $19,000 a Year Is
Adequate Middle-Class Retirement Income
Yes, many of us live on a lot less, but the objectionable thing here is that
some right wing hack gets published in the WSJ as saying that this constitutes
an adequate middle-class income for a *household* of unstated size of retired
people, he therefore wants to cut social security so whatever retirement
savings they have would count for nothing, and they should be grateful for
the $19,000, not to put too fine a point on it.
And one of the Re-thug-li-KKKrap candidates wants to impose a VAT, so those
retired people who were taxed on earnings and savings all their lives will now
be slapped with a regressive tax in addition, thus diminishing further their
available funds.
On Jan 8, 2016, at 12:14 PM, joe harcz Comcast <joeharcz@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On the other hand, and not being snarky, I mean it here many of us
currently live on much less. Again not being snarky here but simply pointing
out the facts And yes I think that $19,000 per year is far too low. I really
do, but would love personally to have that much per annum.
It would be a marked increased in my personal standard of living let alone
hundreds of others I know who make less than that.
I hope all catch my point here.
Shit I know of many and know personally many who don't make that much per
year while working. Thus the high poverty rate in this county (Genesse County,
Michigan).
BTW I work full time in a variety of capacities. I just don't get paid one
thin dime for my work which includes full time advocacy, legal work and
parental care giving.
But, the state sure finds ways to extract its pound of flesh from me with
its retaliatory treatment of me and others relative to my whistleblowing and my
bogus arrest for exercising or trying to exercise my First Amendment rights and
my rights under the ADA/504.
Again I turned down "disorderly conduct" for the September 17 ADA
"Celebration" fiasco here in Michigan on our State Capitol grounds. I'm not
guilty of that either. But the State of Michigan is guilty of violations of all
PWD civil rights and, in fact Snyder is guilty of creating more PWD with his
exposure of thousands to lead poisoning in Flint.
Bottom line is the wrong people are often charged with crimes and/or are in
jail/prison.
Sorry for the ramble here, but I've already spent a few thousand dollars in
direct payments or in costs to fight, on principle, charges that should have
never been made in the first place.
And in fact I'm not the criminal here but, rather, in documented fashion,
state actors here are so.
And, once again I agree that $19,000 per annum isn't enough to live
appropriately with.
It sure isn't enough for the people in nearby Flint Michigan to personally
remediate the plumbing to their homes or other abodes for the dasterdly and
infamous man-made disaster to its whater system. That is for sure.
----- Original Message ----- From: "Carl Jarvis" <carjar82@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Friday, January 08, 2016 11:50 AM
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Wall Street Journal Says $19,000 a Year Is
Adequate Middle-Class Retirement Income
Andrew Biggs should be the poster boy for the 1%.
Biggs demonstrates total ignorance, and total contempt regarding the
Real World faced by middle and working class retirees. We could send
Biggs long lists of reasons why $19,000 a year is not a comfortable
income, but he really doesn't care what we think. His wagon is
hitched to the 1% Corporate folks, who would starve to death on
$19,000 a year.
Carl Jarvis
On 1/7/16, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
Home > Wall Street Journal Says $19,000 a Year Is Adequate Middle-Class
Retirement Income
________________________________________
Wall Street Journal Says $19,000 a Year Is Adequate Middle-Class
Retirement
Income
By Dean Baker [1] / Beat the Press
January 6, 2016
While economic debates can often get into complex questions of theory or
statistical methods, many hang on more simple issues, like the right
adjective. We got a great example of one such debate in a Wall Street
journal column [2] by Andrew Biggs, an economist at the American
Enterprise
Institute and former Deputy Commissioner of the Social Security
Administration under President George W. Bush.
Biggs looks at some recent evidence, most notably a new study from the
Congressional Budget Office (CBO), and dismisses the idea that there is
a
retirement crisis. At the center of this assertion is the CBO projection
that a typical household in the middle quintile, born in 1960, can
expect
to
get $19,000 a year from Social Security. Biggs sees this $19,000 as
replacing 56 percent of pre-retirement income and says this is not far
from
the 70-80 percent usually viewed as adequate. He then touts data on
total
retirement savings and pronounces everything as okay.
If we step back from replacement rates, we can ask a rhetorical
question,
is
$19,000 a year a middle class income? Odds are that most people would
not
consider $19,000 a reasonable income for a middle class household, hence
the
basis for the claim about a retirement crisis. Biggs does point to the
record amount of retirement savings. This is indeed good news for those
who
have these savings, but unfortunately most middle class households don't
fall into this category.
According to the Federal Reserve Board's 2013 Survey of Consumer Finance
[3], the average net worth outside of housing equity for the middle
quintile
of households between the ages of 55 and 64 was less than $55,000. This
includes all IRAs, 401(k)s and other retirement accounts. This will
translate into roughly $3,000 a year in additional retirement income,
bringing this middle income household's income up to $22,000 a year.
Biggs looks at this and says everything is just fine and we should be
looking to cut Social Security. Those raising concerns about a
retirement
crisis do not see $22,000 a year as a middle class income. We are just
arguing about adjectives here, there is not much disagreement on the
situation.
Dean Baker [4] is the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy
Research [5] (CEPR). His most recent book is Plunder and Blunder: The
Rise
and Fall of the Bubble Economy [6]. He also has a blog, Beat the Press
[7].
Share on Facebook Share
Share on Twitter Tweet
Report typos and corrections to 'corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx'. [8]
[9]
________________________________________
Source URL:
http://www.alternet.org/economy/wall-street-journal-says-19000-year-adequate
-middle-class-retirement-income
Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/dean-baker-0
[2]
http://www.wsj.com/articles/new-evidence-on-the-phony-retirement-crisis-1451
952646
[3] http://cepr.net/documents/wealth-scf-2014-10.pdf
[4] mailto:cepr@xxxxxxxx
[5] http://www.cepr.net/
[6] http://www.amazon.com/dp/0981576990?tag=commondreams-20/ref=nosim
[7] http://www.cepr.net/index.php/beat-the-press/
[8] mailto:corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx?Subject=Typo on Wall Street Journal
Says
$19,000 a Year Is Adequate Middle-Class Retirement Income
[9] http://www.alternet.org/
[10] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
Home > Wall Street Journal Says $19,000 a Year Is Adequate Middle-Class
Retirement Income
Wall Street Journal Says $19,000 a Year Is Adequate Middle-Class
Retirement
Income
By Dean Baker [1] / Beat the Press
January 6, 2016
While economic debates can often get into complex questions of theory or
statistical methods, many hang on more simple issues, like the right
adjective. We got a great example of one such debate in a Wall Street
journal column [2] by Andrew Biggs, an economist at the American
Enterprise
Institute and former Deputy Commissioner of the Social Security
Administration under President George W. Bush.
Biggs looks at some recent evidence, most notably a new study from the
Congressional Budget Office (CBO), and dismisses the idea that there is
a
retirement crisis. At the center of this assertion is the CBO projection
that a typical household in the middle quintile, born in 1960, can
expect
to
get $19,000 a year from Social Security. Biggs sees this $19,000 as
replacing 56 percent of pre-retirement income and says this is not far
from
the 70-80 percent usually viewed as adequate. He then touts data on
total
retirement savings and pronounces everything as okay.
If we step back from replacement rates, we can ask a rhetorical
question,
is
$19,000 a year a middle class income? Odds are that most people would
not
consider $19,000 a reasonable income for a middle class household, hence
the
basis for the claim about a retirement crisis. Biggs does point to the
record amount of retirement savings. This is indeed good news for those
who
have these savings, but unfortunately most middle class households don't
fall into this category.
According to the Federal Reserve Board's 2013 Survey of Consumer Finance
[3], the average net worth outside of housing equity for the middle
quintile
of households between the ages of 55 and 64 was less than $55,000. This
includes all IRAs, 401(k)s and other retirement accounts. This will
translate into roughly $3,000 a year in additional retirement income,
bringing this middle income household's income up to $22,000 a year.
Biggs looks at this and says everything is just fine and we should be
looking to cut Social Security. Those raising concerns about a
retirement
crisis do not see $22,000 a year as a middle class income. We are just
arguing about adjectives here, there is not much disagreement on the
situation.
Dean Baker [4] is the co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy
Research [5] (CEPR). His most recent book is Plunder and Blunder: The
Rise
and Fall of the Bubble Economy [6]. He also has a blog, Beat the Press
[7].
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
Report typos and corrections to 'corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx'. [8]
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.[9]
Source URL:
http://www.alternet.org/economy/wall-street-journal-says-19000-year-adequate
-middle-class-retirement-income
Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/dean-baker-0
[2]
http://www.wsj.com/articles/new-evidence-on-the-phony-retirement-crisis-1451
952646
[3] http://cepr.net/documents/wealth-scf-2014-10.pdf
[4] mailto:cepr@xxxxxxxx
[5] http://www.cepr.net/
[6] http://www.amazon.com/dp/0981576990?tag=commondreams-20/ref=nosim
[7] http://www.cepr.net/index.php/beat-the-press/
[8] mailto:corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx?Subject=Typo on Wall Street Journal
Says
$19,000 a Year Is Adequate Middle-Class Retirement Income
[9] http://www.alternet.org/
[10] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
