PODCAST: Is a Fix Coming Soon for Social Security?
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Links and resources mentioned in this episode:
- Big Changes Likely for Social Security, Medicare Under a Biden Presidency
- What Is the Social Security COLA?
- More Social Security information from Kiplinger
Transcript
David Muhlbaum: While Social Security won’t ever go broke – and we’ll explain why that is – it faces real funding problems, and the pandemic hasn’t helped things. Catherine Siskos, the editor of Kiplinger’s Retirement Report, joins us to talk about potential fixes and what they mean for your benefits and taxes. We also look into the latest version of buy now, pay later plans, and what to do with an old pair of shoes.
David Muhlbaum: Welcome to Your Money’s Worth. I’m kiplinger.com senior editor David Muhlbaum, joined by senior editor Sandy Block. Sandy, how are you doing?
Sandy Block: Doing great, David.
David Muhlbaum: I know you and my boss, Robert Long, did a show some time ago on credit versus debit cards. Smackdown, you called it. And that was funny in part because Robert’s fixation on debit cards is kind of a yeah, okay, okay, we know, thing among the staff. But anyway, being old and firmly set in my ways, that is, my way is to use a rewards credit card for just about everything and then I pay it off monthly. And as a result, I feel like I didn’t pay enough attention to something that kind of got big during the pandemic when so much shopping shifted online. I’m talking about these buy now, pay later options, Affirm, Klarna, those sorts of things. Have you used any of those, Sandy?
Sandy Block: Well, now, I am really old because I remember when you would put things on layaway at the local department store.
David Muhlbaum: Oh, that’s still around.
Sandy Block: Yeah, that’s still around. And this is sort of the modern version of that. And I’ve been sniffing around over them, thinking about writing about them for the magazine, because I seem to be hearing about them all the time. And our colleague at The Kiplinger Letter, writer Rodrigo Sermeño, did an item on buy now, pay later for a recent Letter. And it mostly it’s about how they work, which I will summarize for you.
Basically buy now, pay later is exactly that, you buy now and you pay later, which is something people have been doing since before money, but there’s something new or newish going on here. The credit being extended by these third-party payment processors, not this merchant like I remember, the department store and not your credit card. And that’s a big part of the appeal because you can buy stuff both online and in stores without having to put it on a credit card or having to pay cash upfront. It’s
