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Bill’s By The Number$

Posted by: Vanessa Guadiana | Posted on: December 19th, 2014 | 0 Comments

  1. CAN YOU WAIT A FEW YEARS? – An individual that has earned income up to the maximum Social Security wage base each year who then waits to take his/her Social Security retirement benefit until age 70 will receive +77% more income per month than if he/she had taken a retirement benefit early at age 62 (source: Social Security).  2/03/14 BTN issue, bullet # 9.
  2. THE BARE MINIMUM – Just 2.5% of American workers (3.6 million out of 143.2 million workers) were earning the minimum wage at the end of 2012 and 51% of them were less than 25 years old (source: Department of Labor).  2/17/14 BTN issue, bullet # 11.
  3. MORE GOING IN THAN COMING OUT – An average high income American couple that retired in 2010 will pay $765,000 of lifetime Social Security taxes but receive just $693,000 of Social Security benefits, i.e., for every $1 paid in taxes, the couple will receive $0.91 in benefits (source: Urban Institute).  2/24/14 BTN issue, bullet # 7.
  4. DISCRETIONARY VS. MANDATORY – Over the next decade (fiscal years 2015-24), estimated discretionary spending of the US government will total $12 trillion, an amount that is dwarfed by the $31 trillion of projected mandatory spending (source: Office of Management and Budget).  3/17/14 BTN issue, bullet # 7.
  5. SKILLED IMMIGRANTS – 25% of US high-tech companies started in the last 20 years (i.e., 1995-2014) have 1 or more foreign born founders (source: Dartmouth University).  4/07/14 BTN issue, bullet # 13.
  6. I’M ENTITLED BECAUSE I PAID FOR IT – Payroll taxes (paid by an employee and his/her employer during an employee’s working years) account for 37% of the total cost of Medicare incurred by an individual during his/her retirement years (source: Kaiser Family Foundation).  4/21/14 BTN issue, bullet # 9.
  7. WE WILL NEED MORE – The United States is expected to require 51,880 additional primary care physicians by the year 2025 over and above the number of primary care physicians that are practicing today (i.e., from 208,807 to 260,687).  The additional doctors are needed because of the USA’s growing population, our aging population and the impact of the Affordable Care Act (source: Robert Graham Center).  7/14/14 BTN issue, bullet # 9.
  8. OFF TO COLLEGE – The average American family anticipates borrowing 26% of the total cost of their child’s college education, either through student loans or loans taken out by Mom and Dad (source: Sallie Mae).  8/11/14 BTN issue, bullet # 11.
  9. MILITARY EXPERIENCE – 4 of 5 current members of Congress (80.2%) are not military veterans.  Only 18 senators (out of 100) and 88 House of Representative members (out of 435 House members) served in the military.  This percentage is a reversal from 1978 when 77% of the members of Congress were military veterans (source: Vital Statistics on Congress).  9/08/14 BTN issue, bullet # 3.
  10. ANYONE WITH A BIRTHDAY TODAY? – If 50 people are in a room, there is a 97% chance that 2 people in the room have the same birthday (source: BTN Research).  9/15/14 BTN issue, bullet # 12.
  11. TEN TRILLION DOLLAR ADDITION – The national debt as of 9/30/04 was $7.379 trillion.  The national debt as of 9/30/14 was $17.824 trillion.  Thus, the national debt has increased $10.445 trillion over the last 10 fiscal years, i.e., fiscal years 2005-2014 (source: Treasury Department).  10/06/14 BTN issue, bullet # 8.
  12. IN THEIR MID-THIRTIES – Former college students take 13.4 years to pay off their student loans, i.e., an average 22-year old graduating senior with student loans will be almost 35 ½ years old before being debt-free of student loans (source: Brookings Institution).  10/13/14 BTN issue, bullet # 10.
  13. JUST A SINGLE PERCENT – The bottom 50% of American households owned just 1% of all assets in the country as of 2013, down from 3% in 1989 (source: Federal Reserve Survey of Consumer Finances).  10/27/14 BTN issue, bullet # 9.
  14. NEVER? – 45% of 2,022 Americans surveyed in September 2014 do not believe in their lifetime that their financial situation will rebound to the level it was before the 2008 global financial crisis (source: Harris Poll).  11/03/14 BTN issue, bullet # 10.
  15. PROBLEM IN TWO YEARS – The Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) trust fund is projected to be depleted by the 4th quarter 2016.  Payroll taxes collected on behalf of the SSDI beyond 2016 would be sufficient to pay disability benefits equal to 81% of scheduled benefits (source: Social Security 2014 Annual Report).  12/01/14 BTN issue, bullet # 13.

 

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