The Dwindling Pot Of Money That Could Plunge Seniors Into Poverty
The NPR Politics Podcast
NPR
4.4 • 25.7K Ratings
🗓️ 11 May 2023
⏱️ 17 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
One bipartisan plan, still in its early days, comes from Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican, and Sen. Angus King, a Maine independent who caucuses with Democrats: an independent endowment seeded by a $1.5 trillion investment from the federal government.
This episode: White House correspondent Tamara Keith, political correspondent Susan Davis, and senior political editor and correspondent Domenico Montanaro.
The podcast is produced by Elena Moore and Casey Morell. Our editor is Eric McDaniel. Our executive producer is Muthoni Muturi.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hi, this is Arlo from Portland, Oregon. I turned 50 years old tomorrow and I decided to spend |
| 0:07.6 | today hiking 50 kilometers to hike my age in miles. This show was recorded at. |
| 0:15.0 | 137 pm on Thursday the 11th of May. Things may have changed by the time you hear this, |
| 0:23.2 | but I'll probably still be treating some blisters. Okay, here's the show. |
| 0:30.9 | Happy birthday. Happy birthday. Are we sure he's not on a horse? I mean that was some galloping |
| 0:36.6 | moving man. Like I've never hiked that fast. That's awesome. I prefer to drink my age announces. |
| 0:43.9 | I think we're gonna have to hold content. It's gonna have to go down as the years go up. |
| 0:47.3 | The water of water. I think we just need to put a cork on some of it, you know, because we have a |
| 0:53.1 | long way to go through 2024. Hey there, it's the NPR Politics podcast. I'm Tamer Keith. I |
| 0:59.6 | cover the White House. I'm Susan Davis. I cover politics. And I'm Dominican Montenar, |
| 1:03.4 | a senior political editor and correspondent. If Washington does nothing, social security will start |
| 1:08.7 | to run out of money in about a decade. If that were to happen, it would be disastrous. Without |
| 1:14.2 | this safety net poverty among the elderly with skyrocket. We often hear about social security when |
| 1:20.6 | politicians accuse one another of trying to cut it. It's something of a third rail in politics, |
| 1:26.1 | but the challenges are real. And that's what we're talking about today on the pod. So Sue, |
| 1:32.8 | let's start with the basics. Why is this program running out of money? I mean, aren't there a lot of |
| 1:39.2 | people paying into the system? Every month on our paychecks? Yeah, social security is funded by |
| 1:44.0 | workers payroll taxes. And that money goes into a trust fund. You pay into it, you get it when |
| 1:49.3 | you retire. But at a certain point, it's gonna have a solvency issue. It's not taking in as much |
| 1:54.9 | money as it needs in order to pay out the benefits that it's owed. And social security by law is |
| 2:00.8 | not allowed to borrow money for itself. So Congress has to do something about it to address the solvency |
| 2:06.8 | issue. The latest forecast, which can shift, but the latest forecast for the program is that right |
... |
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