Thoughts about retirement & wealth distribution

CONTEXT

A potential source of wealth for all Americans is government benefits. Most Americans do not have enough accumulated wealth for what they say is a reasonably comfortable retirement. Median Retirement Savings by Age:

• Ages 55-64: $185,000
• Ages 65-74: $200,000
• Ages 75+: $130,000

That is way below the ~$1.26 million that Americans say believe they need for a comfortable retirement. Combined with other retirement accounts (401k, 403b, IRA, pensions), which represent 21% of household wealth, Social Security and retirement accounts together account for approximately 41% of total U.S. household wealth.

Medicare beneficiary financial profile:

• 25% had savings below $18,950 per person in 2024
• 50% had savings below $110,100 per person
• 25% had no home equity at all

For the 25% of Medicare beneficiaries with less than $18,950 in savings, the $230,000-$260,000 Medicare benefit value represents more than 12 times their total other assets. 

Other data: 

• 63.2% of adult Social Security recipients receive at least 50% of their total income from Social Security
• 43.6% receive 75% or more of their income from Social Security
• 27% rely on Social Security as their only source of income

To understand the magnitude, Social Security wealth totaled an estimated $73.3 trillion in 2019. That's about double all other household-sector pension and retirement account assets combined. It's ~75% the size of all conventionally measured household net worth. This makes Social Security the present value of future benefits roughly double all other household-sector pension and retirement account assets.

In other words, Social Security and medical care benefits are a major source of wealth for a lot of Americans.

Blog post

Although MAGA politicians promise to protect Social Security and Medicare, their policy proposals and legislative actions are a sustained effort to significantly reduce these programs. There is a massive disconnect between MAGA rhetoric and its governing reality. If MAGA does what is really wants to do, there would be catastrophic consequences for American households that depend on these programs as their primary source of wealth.

The Republican Study Committee (RSC), 80% of House Republicans (175 of 222 members) and 100% of House Republican leadership, repeatedly proposed dramatic cuts to Social Security. MAGA could not get that passed through congress, but it reflected their intent to gut government benefits. Their FY 2024 budget called for:

• Over $1.5 trillion in cuts to Social Security over the coming decade
• Raising the retirement age from 67 to 69
• Cutting disability benefits
• Eliminating cost-of-living adjustments (COLA) for higher-income beneficiaries
• Using a chained inflation index that would reduce benefit growth

Those changes would result in a 31% benefit reduction for median workers, i.e., those earning around $58,700 annually—and a 40% reduction for workers earning $94,000. 

In July 2025, House Republicans passed a budget bill that:

• Strips health coverage from 17 million Americans
• Cuts Medicaid, Medicare, and SNAP food assistance
• Eliminates Medicare savings programs affecting 1.4 million low-income beneficiaries
• Repeals nursing home minimum staffing rules
• Imposes Medicaid work requirements affecting 5.2 million adults

The Congressional Budget Office projects this legislation would result in over 51,000 additional preventable deaths annually.

MAGA politics is highly focused on (1) transferring both wealth and power from average citizens and the public interest, and (2) capturing and transferring as much of it as possible to political, business and religious elites.

The bottom line: For the bottom 90% of American households, these programs represent their primary source of economic security and wealth. The MAGA agenda effectively transfers this wealth and attendant power from working families to wealthy individuals via tax cuts. That fundamentally restructures American society's approach to economic security and wealth distribution.

An interesting thought --

maybe a bit oversimplified . . . .