Individuals and families get aid from social welfare systems via various programs such as healthcare coverage, food assistance, unemployment benefits, subsidized housing, and affordable childcare. When an individual or family applies for help in the United States, a caseworker is allocated to assess and validate the applicant’s requirements. Individuals’ eligibility for assistance varies from state to state. To evaluate eligibility, variables relating to the person’s financial situation and its comparison to the minimum allowed levels in a specific state are considered. The composition of the family structure, present economic levels, and the presence or absence of an assessed handicap are all considerations to consider.
Social Security is confronted with a long-term funding crisis. Many young employees are under the impression that the situation is so dire that they would never get a Social Security payment. The most honest answer to Social Security’s budget crisis is to reduce projected benefits while increasing payroll taxes in a modest manner. Increases in the early qualifying age for pension plans and the standard retirement age for pension schemes are both reasonable ways to minimize future payments. It is justified by the significant rise in life expectancy since Social Security was first founded in the 1930s, which explains this change(Gerard, Imbert & Orkin, 2020). When the average retirement age stays the same, the prevalence is comparable to a significant increase in Social Security payments throughout one’s lifetime. Raising the age of retirement is controversial among the general population. Unfortunately, many other measures that might return Social Security to sustainability, such as tax rises and changes to the formula used to calculate full benefits, are also unpopular with the public.
With a rise in the typical retirement age, we would undoubtedly see an end to the consistent pattern toward early retirement, which has been slowing substantially since the mid-1980s. In contrast, the most current study indicates that extending the typical retirement age would have only a minor impact on the labor participation rate in the long run. If the rise in the usual retirement age were paired with an increase in the early qualifying age for benefits, which is now at age 62, the adjustment in the employment rates of older employees would be much more significant. In the long term, companies in the United States will have no problem fulfilling the desires of more aged Americans to continue working for extended periods because labor force growth is projected to decelerate dramatically over the next century, companies may find themselves under increased obligation to make employment more appealing to older people.
Increases in average lifespan raise the amount of money that a pension scheme must set aside for financing. If participants live a further year retired, the plan will need to find more resources to cover the cost of the additional benefit installments. It will be necessary to increase payments to the pension system, increase the interest rate on assets, postpone the pension age, or reduce monthly payouts to maintain the pension system financially stable(VanKersbergen, 2018). It is important to emphasize that it is valid for all pension schemes, whether municipal or corporate. If Social Security had not been created, the increase in life expectancy in the United States over the past fifty years would have necessitated an increase in private pension plan contribution rates, the search for higher-yielding investments, the deferral of the age of qualifications for retirement benefits, and the reduction of the month – to – month pension payments, among other things.
That is a basic fact that is often overlooked in the present discussion over Social Security reforms. The positive news concerning life expectancy has resulted in a significant portion of Social Security’s protracted budget concerns. Americans live longer lives than their forefathers(Blofield, Giambruno & Filgueira, 2020). It is reasonable to suppose that their descendants will live longer lives than we do. Because of advances in longevity, those still alive will live far longer than they did when Social Security was formed during the Great Depression. Beneficiaries of Social Security get a rise in their benefits due to the increased longevity benefits. If the procedure stays viable, it will be necessary to pay for the compensation increment.
Because of the enormous increase in life expectancy over the age of 65, retired employees may expect to receive far higher monthly pensions than they could in the past. Monthly social security payments have still not been lowered to accommodate this rise; in fact, monthly benefits have grown due to this change. It has been possible to sustain the sustainability of Social Security by increasing the pension contribution imposed on employees and management.
Social welfare systems in various states may have different labels, but they perform many of the same duties in most cases. When trying to link one state’s policy to another, this may lead to a great deal of misunderstanding. Additionally, the qualifications differ from state to state based on the income threshold in that specific jurisdiction. This enables modifications to be made depending on the cost of living, which are not uniformly distributed across the nation. Advocates of raising the retirement age frequently contend that, although the average lifespan has grown, the health of many older people and their capacity to keep working has not changed due to this increase. Improvements in expectancy have raised the issue of whether they have culminated in extended durations of fulfilling life or just prolonged duration of declining health.
While virtually all employment assessments in later life conclude that health has a significant impact on the time of retirement, I have found no credible proof that the general wellbeing among Americans in the 60s significantly deteriorated in recent years. Instead, declining death rates and new findings concerning the decline in physical infirmities imply that health is advancing, at least in the early stages of an old life. Furthermore, studies of the increase in the number of various types of employment and the changes in their physical needs suggest that the physical requirements of labor are today less complex than before. A far lower proportion of jobs requires hard physical effort, whereas a significantly more significant proportion requires medium or light physical work.
Raising the retirement age for Social Security payments would cause difficulty for Americans with lower income and education. This group has not benefited fully from the overall increase in lifespan and health. If we raise the initial eligibility age beyond 62, I believe we should create more humanitarian provisions for people in physically demanding occupations who are in poor health. As a result, I think that Medicare And social Security should be changed to ensure their long-term viability and sustainability.
References
Van Kersbergen, K. (2018). What are welfare state typologies, and how are they functional, if at all? 1. In Routledge Handbook of the Welfare State (pp. 115-123). Routledge.
Gerard, F., Imbert, C., & Orkin, K. (2020). Social protection response to the COVID-19 crisis: options for developing countries. Oxford Review of Economic Policy, 36(Supplement_1), S281-S296.
Blofield, M., Giambruno, C., & Filgueira, F. (2020). Policy expansion in compressed time: Assessing the speed, breadth, and sufficiency of post-COVID-19 social protection measures in 10 Latin American countries.
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