Dear Friends and Colleagues,

Since the beginning of the year, approximately 10,000 baby boomers per day have been crossing the line into retirement at the age of 65, and this veritable tsunami of retirees is expected to continue in the years ahead until all 76 million of us have crossed over.  That's a heck of a lot of new retirees, and it will take a lot of strategic planning to make sure that this huge group of seniors is well-served by the government they helped put in place.  There is one federal policy that we've identified that affects seniors negatively which we think needs to go as soon as possible to alleviate the undue economic burden it places on this group. 

Steven Moore, currently a senior editor at the Wall Street Journal, wrote a terrific article twelve years ago (when he was the director of fiscal policy studies at the distinguished Cato Institute),  which appeared in the Washington Times (Oct. 22, 1999) entitled, Tapping the Senior Resource".  This article is as true today as it was then, if not more so.

In it he highlighted the grossly unfair American policy of punishing anyone over 65 who earns more than 15K per year to give up $1 of Social Security benefits for every $3 earned.  In this difficult economic environment where so many of our seniors are struggling to manage their retirement with their often inadequate savings accounts, it seems incredibly unreasonable for the government to punish people who have worked all their lives in our country and now are facing a devalued dollar, plummeting prices for their homes, less than .5% interest on their bank accounts, a global recession, etc.

Their social security accounts should be left alone.  They put the money in to a supposed government held "locked box" and they should be able to get the money out.  Just because our Congress members squandered the account doesn't give them license to penalize seniors with such a heavy tax rate, which discourages them from getting jobs and continuing to contribute their wide experience and knowledge to our society.

Please read his article, which appears below to better understand why we support the elimination of this outdated and unreasonable 60 year-old law.  And you should also check out Alex Jones's The New Reality for Baby Boomers, (the second article reprinted below), which appeared in yesterday's online magazine The Economic Collapse, and which is  filled with tons of facts and stimulating commentary about the future this great wave of seniors are expected to face.

Have a happy and safe Labor Day weekend!  

Shirley Cohen 

Founder & CEO  

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