Much of what I read is behind a paywall, but that is the only way to get reasonably reliable news. The New York Times and Washington Post are on my list. I also contribute to the Daily Beast, Daily Kos, Texas Observer, Texas Monthly, and Texas Tribune, and pay for the Houston Chronicle.
The following quote is from an article in the New York Times.
“You can’t stop, because you have to pay your billes,” Ms. Castro said, using Spanglish for bills.
She has never had a break, but she has built a life, she said, and among her grandchildren are doctors and engineers in training.
“In the bank, I keep enough to pay for my funeral,” she said — $10,000, to be precise. “I think I’ll be in the fields to the day I die.” Source
I also received Bill King’s newsletter. Sometimes, he adds too much opinion, but today, I believe he was pretty much on point.
There is also the issue of immigration. Currently much of the public is focused on the burden of the large number of immigrants entering the country. But having workers who are here legally and paying payroll taxes into the system would improve Social Security’s prospects. Ironically, the thousands of illegal immigrates who use fake Social Security cards pay taxes into the system but will never collect benefits. That currently adds about $12 billion to the system’s reserves annually.
Then there are potential unanticipated black swan events like, say, a pandemic. I am not certain that the current projections have fully accounted for the effect COVID will have on the numbers. There were about a million seniors who died prematurely in the pandemic which was about 1.5% of all Social Security beneficiaries. We also have recently seen a decline life expectancies, which few expected. But a reversal of that trend or a medical breakthrough, like say curing cancer, would put more pressure on the system. Source
Sometimes, some things are depressing, and there is nothing like music to remove the feeling.