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Nikki Haley on Social Security |
HALEY: DeSantis voted to raise the retirement age to 73. When I said the retirement age was too low--and you can go to DeSantisLies.com--I said it's too low, if we're going to look at those in their 20s. We have to go and start looking at what we can do to get out of this. We want to make sure that everybody who was promised gets it.
Q: Just a clarification: should voters in their 20s plan on having to work until they're 70?
HALEY: They should plan on their retirement age being increased, yes. We're going to change it to reflect more of what life expectancy should be.
DeSantisLies.com: "LIE: DeSantis falsely claims Haley wants to raise the retirement age for retirees.
TRUTH: Haley has ONLY called for adjusting the retirement age for younger workers in their twenties.
Fact Check: COLA definition from SSA.gov: Since 1975, Social Security's general benefit increases have been based on increases in the cost of living, as measured by the Consumer Price Index [a measure of the rate of inflation]. We call such increases Cost-Of-Living Adjustments, or COLAs. We determined a 3.2% COLA on October 12, 2023.
Fact Check by UsInflationCalculator.com: The annual inflation rate for the US was 3.7% for the previous 12 months, according to Labor Department data published on Oct. 12, 2023.
Some of the government interventions of that time and of the previous progressive era are things we now take for granted. Social Security as a way to reduce rampant poverty among the elderly. Child labor laws and minimum-wage and maximum-work-hour-laws to curb some of the roughest edges of the capitalist system. The ability to voluntarily join an industrial labor union. We would no more look to undo these innovations than we would seek to return to the pre-civil rights era laws on race discrimination. They have become a part of the American fabric, and it's a good thing they have.
Our current policy of automatically awarding cost of living increases is irresponsible and unsustainable. To protect our pension funds, we must stop granting cost-of-living increases to our retirees in years when the funds are losing money. It may not be politically popular, but it's the only responsible thing to do.
There are a number of other reforms that we must adopt in order to shore up the retirement systems and to curtail further abuses. We need anti-spiking provisions that keep employees from using sick leave and vacation to artificially inflate their pension payouts. For new enrollees, we need to close the doors to the TERI program once and for all to prevent double-dipping.