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January 04, 2005
Social Security formula weighed
The Bush administration has signaled that it will propose changing the
formula that sets initial Social Security benefit levels, cutting
promised benefits by nearly a third in the coming decades, according to
several Republicans close to the White House.
Under the proposal, the first-year benefits for retirees would be calculated using inflation rates rather than the rise in wages over a worker's lifetime. Because wages tend to rise considerably faster than inflation, the new formula would stunt the growth of benefits, slowly at first but more quickly by the middle of the century. The White House hopes that some, if not all, of those benefit cuts would be made up by gains in newly created personal investment accounts that would harness returns on stocks and bonds.
Posted by Tom Troceen