Social Security with Dan Fleak
Our Program on April 10th was a talk about Social Security presented by Dan Fleak. Dan is a home office representative of Protective Insurance Group. His career is to instruct and help people with their retirement plans.
He said that there are two questions that every client asks him. The first question is w hen is the right time to start receiving social Security benefits. With 94% of the people in America in the plan and qualifying for payments when they retire, he said the right time is controlled by the date that you die so there is no way to predict when an individual should start. Because of the increase in the lifespan of people, more people are getting payments for a longer period of time.
The second question that every one asks is will the system run out of money. The trust fund holds 3.2 trillion dollars at the present time. If nothing is done to change the system, it will run out of money in 2037. To date, only in 2009 did the system pay out more than it received. By the year 2016 the program will pay out more money each month than it receives in payroll taxes. Congress can easily fix the system, but will delay until the last minute because it is a fix that requires an increase in payroll taxes.
There are two dangers in the projections for the future of Social Security. One problem will be if there is a long period of unemployment. In 2009, results were bad because of unemployment. And the second fear is low interest rates. The growth of the trust fund is predicted using assumed interest rates, and if the actual rates are lower, the trust fund will be less.
(Story by Tad Shaw and photo by Steve Frazier)
Next Week: Camp Tanadoona