Bean knew about proposals to raise the Social Security retirement age. “When I read it, I thought it was great news that we’re living longer, but it’s not great news financially,” he told me. “It’s not great news that they’re forcing people to work more years.” Then he talked about his father. “If they had made my father work another five years, it would have killed him.” He worked as an electrician who helped build nuclear power facilities. “He’s seventy-two now and retired seven years ago. To force someone like that to work five more years seems like a crime.”
Yet Bean said he could see both sides of the issue. But he did worry about fairness and changing the rules of the game: “To tell people at the end, we’ve changed the rules, that’s not fair at all.”
For more from Trudy Lieberman on Social Security and entitlement reform, click here.
I hope this is not the type of article you wish MSM would run. It's very sympathetic, but if the rest of the series is like this, it's pretty worthless. How about some context and facts about how many people who have manual labor jobs who can't work longer?
And no mention of the fact that the increase of one year in the retirement age doesn't occur under the commission leaders proposal until kids age 16 today reach retirement?
#1 Posted by Bob Griendling (NewsCommonsense.com), CJR on Thu 18 Nov 2010 at 02:13 PM
Wow, the Wall Street Journal seven years ago, and now Trudy Leiberman. This fellow gets a lot of voice. College town? . . . As usual, Trudy neglects to point out that, though Bean's income is modest, he must pay almost 8% (not counting his employer's constribution) in FICA taxes from dollar one - the most regressive tax there is - so that a lot of folks can tool around in their RVs. How about interviewing Social Security recipients who don't need it, but take it anyway? Branson, Mo., isn't that far from Champagne-Urbana.
#2 Posted by Mark Richard, CJR on Fri 19 Nov 2010 at 12:44 PM
"Social Security in the Heartland: Jim Bean
What Social Security means to real people"
two myths in one headline
first myth - there is a land that is the "heart" of america and it is the land that is not anywhere near the east, west or even southern coast of the country
second myth - "real" people live in the heartland, whereas "less real" people live in the eastern western and even southern coastal lands
metaphors are useful except when they are cliches
#3 Posted by jamzo, CJR on Sun 21 Nov 2010 at 08:50 AM
Thanks for your willingness to help other which is greatly appreciated. I'm 60+ years old and have about 11 months before i begin to collect my s/s benefits, I'm do to receive $1,653 monthly, I worked for 34+ years and now unable to fine work, I need to start collecting now this will be my only income. my question is if i start my benefits now how mush will i lose.
Thanks,Need to start my benefits now
#4 Posted by Nathniael Hunter, CJR on Sat 16 Apr 2011 at 11:06 AM