WASHINGTON – Raising the retirement age for Social Security would disproportionately hurt low-income workers and minorities, and increase disability claims by older people unable to work, government auditors told Congress.
The projected spike in disability claims could harm Social Security's finances because disability benefits typically are higher than early retirement payments, the Government Accountability Office concluded.
The report, obtained by The Associated Press ahead of its scheduled release Friday, provides fodder for those opposed to raising the eligibility age for benefits, as proposed by the leaders of President Barack Obama's deficit commission.
"There's more to consider than simply how much money the program would save by raising the retirement age," said Sen. Herb Kohl, D-Wis., chairman of the Senate Special Committee on Aging. The report shows an unequal effect on certain groups of people, he said Thursday, and many of them "would have little choice but to turn to the broken disability program." --
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Comment: Social security is the other field where the economic doctors excel in malpractice. The simple truth is, and you can get from any solid textbook, to cure the social security problem, one needs economic growth and in order to have economic growth, one needs technical progress. Technical progress flourishes in free societies and is suffocated by the burdens of suppresive laws and high and unfair taxes. The formula for economc growth was spelled out long ago by the great masters such as Adam Smith and Ludwig von Mises: big government get off from our shoulders and let us prosper.
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