RE: [MLUG - DISCUSSION] southpark speaks the truth

[Jonathan King <EMAIL:PROTECTED>]

On Thu, 4 Mar 2004, Mike Miller wrote:

> On Thu, 4 Mar 2004, Ross, Matthew wrote:
> 
> > As for homosexual marriage, I think it's wrong, but I also think
> > it's their mistake to make, not mine to condemn. As long as
> > slides of the honeymoon aren't forced on me, I'm not harmed by
> > it, and see no reason I should have a say in the matter.
> 
> I'm actually for it, but you have to realize that it will be
> expensive. Homosexual partners will be able to get Social Security
> benefits when a spouse dies.

Actually, Social Security is more complicated than that.  There are 
the usual retirement benefits, death (survivor) benefits, and the 
Supplemental Security Income system.  The latter is administered by 
the Social Security people but funded out of general revenue and has 
limited contact with marital status.  (Not zero, though; I believe 
that a spouse's income is taken into consideration to generate a 
benefit level, so that you could conceivably even *save* money on 
SSI if more marriages involving current or future recipients of SSI 
occurred.)

Retirement benefits are calculated from one person's account.  For 
unmarried people, that's really straight forward: what you get is 
based on your own previous contibutions.  For married people, you 
can claim benefits against your account or your spouse's account.  
For couples where only one spouse has done significant work, this 
has usually given the result that wives collect from the husband's 
account.  Money in the other account is, I believe, essentially 
absorbed by the system.  This is key in that if you have more 
couples with more a more balanced contribution profile, I *think* it 
is possible that the system enjoys a cost savings.  But this is 
complicated.

Death is also more complicated.  There is a one-time death benefit
calculated from the account of the one who dies.  There is also the
possibility that a surviving spouse will continue to collect
retirement benefits from the account of the deceased.  Then there is
what happens when a non-retired person dies and there are minor
chilren.  In the generic case here, a husband has died and the widow
and children can collect SS on the husband's account to help support
the kids; this money disappears at age 18.  But then when/if the 
widow reaches retirement age, she can again collect retirement 
benefits on her or her husband's account, depending on how much was 
contributed, etc.  There is a greater chance of more government 
SS pay-out in cases like this if more marriages occur, especially if 
there are children.  That said, in many cases, one or another source 
of government money would be involved even if the couple was not 
married, if the post-death income level were low enough for the 
family now led by a single parent.  On the flip side, some people 
now currently collecting money for dependent children would *not* be 
doing so if they were married.

I'm sure some policy wonks are trying to calculate the exact 
expected costs (under certain assumptions).  I'm also pretty sure 
that the resulting cost (or savings, which I do doubt) will be 
trivial compared to the increase in costs we will experience as the 
baby boomers begin to retire.  

This is, of course, the important point.  Our current fiscal
situation in the US is not necessarily that horrible EXCEPT for the
fact that we are currently doing less than nothing to save for the
costs that will be associated with the imminent huge demographic
changes we will face within 10 ten years, and getting more serious 
for 20 years after that.

Compared to the potential for real pain and suffering caused by that
potential debacle, the gay marriage issue is of almost zero real
consequence, even if you think it is a really horrible thing.  You
would have to value gay marriages at something more than -$1,000,000
apiece for that issue to be in the same ballpark.  

So guess which of these two things is currently the hot election
issue?

Of course, this would not be the first time that an issue of limited
importance had a lot more political impact on a presidential
election when something incredibly important was staring everybody
in the face.  All that said, I do thank my lucky stars that we don't 
have the demographic situation of most European nations and Japan.

jking

_______________________________________________
discussion mailing list
EMAIL:PROTECTED
http://mlug.missouri.edu/mailman/listinfo/discussion