Cutting A Hole In The Safety Net

When Republicans say they want to "reform Social Security" it means they want to cut benefits as much as possible so that the rich don't have to fund America's growing retiree flood of Boomers.  Republicans, to their credit, know full well the financial disaster is coming.

The percentage of American workers with virtually no retirement savings grew for the third straight year, according to a survey released Tuesday.

The percentage of workers who said they have less than $10,000 in savings grew to 43% in 2010, from 39% in 2009, according to the Employee Benefit Research Institute's annual Retirement Confidence Survey. That excludes the value of primary homes and defined-benefit pension plans.

Workers who said they had less than $1,000 jumped to 27%, from 20% in 2009.

Confidence in ability to save enough for a comfortable retirement hovered at 16% of respondents, the second lowest point in the 20-year history of the survey. 

Only one in six believe they will have enough money to retire.  $10k won't get your average retiree through one year, let alone another 20.   Think of how many companies have stopped 401k matching in order to save money.  Think of how many people have simply stopped contributing to their 401k period.

Republicans know that there are going to be some angry people here pretty soon in the Social Security shell game.   And they want the Democrats to have be the ones to make the cuts.  Republicans never will when they are in power:  The Bush years were proof of that.

Then again, it's not like Democrats are going to make those cuts either, but "bipartisan entitlement reform" clearly means "Democrats need to make the cuts, get thrown out of office, and the the GOP takes over."