When You're Cutting Social Security, 'Wealthy' Begins at $25K

by Jim Naureckas

Here's a proposal for Social Security that was on the New York Times' op-ed page Wednesday (2/20/13):

The top third of beneficiaries (by lifetime income) [would] receive no annual cost-of-living adjustment in retirement. The middle third would get half of today’s adjustment, and the bottom third would receive the same annual increase they do now. Such a reform…would reduce Social Security spending by more than a tenth over a decade and fix the program’s long-term financing.

This is part of Paul Ryan adviser Yuval Levin's attempt to find "common ground" on the entitlement issue: "Both sides should agree at least to spend less money on the wealthy." So who are these "wealthy" people who would be getting a benefit cut equal to the rate of inflation every year? According to the SSA, about 34 percent of people over 65 have family incomes of $50,000.