Social Security will be the primary means of support for millions of workers after they retire. But many corporate leaders with vast amounts of wealth have come out in favor of raising the retirement age and making other cost-saving measures to Social Security. Why don't the rich want to preserve Social Security's current benefits?
In the following video, Dan Caplinger, The Motley Fool's director of investment planning, explains why high-income earners don't care as much about Social Security. Using Social Security's benefits calculator, Dan notes that for a 62-year-old worker making $250,000 a year, Social Security benefits will replace only 10% to 17% of a typical year's pre-tax earnings. Moreover, Dan points to a study showing that the CEOs of ExxonMobil (XOM -0.05%), General Electric (GE -0.69%), and Procter & Gamble (PG 0.65%) all have sufficient pensions to generate hundreds of thousands of dollars in monthly retirement income, making Social Security look tiny by comparison. Without a stake in the system, the rich are better able to weather any cuts than less wealthy Americans.
