Advice on Social Security

I liked this short little post over at Coyote Blog on Social Security, particularly these last two points:

If you have some control of when you you earn your lifetime income, try to earn as much as you can in the next 10-15 years. After that, taxes are almost sure to go up substantially. It would not surprise me to see top marginal rates back well above 50% again.

Democrats in Congress are pushing for new welfare programs, particularly socialized medicine, right now because they must understand that in 10 years, the window for major new spending programs will be closed. The pressures in a decade will be for program cutbacks as costs really start to balloon, and I can't imagine that new transfer programs will be taken seriously as the old ones eat up a larger and larger part of GDP. Of course, my point is that this is the last time that such a program would be politically feasible. From a financial management point of view, we are past the point where adding major new social programs makes any sense. In fact, adding such a program now would be like a guy who has gotten over his head and knows he can't pay his credit card bills taking his last money out of the bank and buying a plasma TV.

Coyote also points out that if you are under 50 and in the top 40% of earners in this country, simply forget about getting Social Security beneifts.

I had pretty much given up on getting SS about 10 years ago, although only recently has the savings rate in my household gone up. It has taken a hit due to those nasty student loan payments, but we are trying.