Not only are Republicans and conservatives refusing to let a global crisis such as the COVID-19 pandemic divert them from the long-term campaign to undermine Social Security, they’re using the crisis to justify cutting benefits, writes columnist hiltzikm.
Earlier this month, a group of scholars at the Wharton School of Business attempted to
“The lump-sum payment of Social Security benefits will hasten the depletion of the Social Security trust fund by a few years,” they wrote. “Thus policymakers will be forced to weigh entitlement reform, like increases in taxes or cuts for beneficiaries, sooner.” The truth is that proposals to raid Social Security to pay for coronavirus relief would hit the most vulnerable Americans the hardest — they’re the people who are most desperately in need of money now, and would pay the relatively highest cost to get it. As the Wharton paper observes, “access to Social Security serves the needs of workers made vulnerable by the crisis, but does not increase the overall liabilities of the federal government.
Another subtle subtext of these proposals is that many recipients of the latest stimulus checks— up to $1,200 per adult in households earning up to $150,000 — are undeserving. Checks will go not only to workers who have lost their jobs, but retirees whose income is unaffected by coronavirus lockdowns or government workers and others who haven’t been laid off or suffered cutbacks in hours.
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