Peanut Gallery (Social Security)

I’m almost 54 and my wife is almost 52. From everything I’m reading about the “new and improved” plan for social security it will be like when you wait in a long, long line for something and then just when the guy in front of you gets his ticket, a sign goes up, “sold out!” I’m flattered that the President refers to anyone not 55 or older in the work force as “young” workers. However, I don’t quite feel like a young worker when I’ve already been at it full-time 35 or so years. We know enough to not count on social security as our only retirement plan but we did at least expect to get what we have been promised all this time. It sounds like we can expect to get our benefits cut by about 40% and at the same time will not have near enough time to build up our new “hooray for wallstreet” (sure worked great for all those Enron investors) private accounts. I’m not afraid of work and would rather increase the retirement age a few more years and be able to count on what I’ve got than this kind of a risky proposition. I’m looking forward to a great deal more details about this plan but what we already know certainly seems very bad for middle age workers.

Dan of the County