Amazon's outage, anxious retirees, and LA brings the Heat, too

Hello.

And rounding out the indicators, happy trio, fellow co hoster with the Moster, Darian Woods.

I think you've just invented a new word, by the way, Moster.

Uh, yeah. Look at me inventing words here on indicators of the week. Oh, I spoiled it.

That's right. We have looked at interesting numbers in the news this week, and we are here to tell you all about them.

Americans chomping at the bit for Social Security checks.

And don't let yourself get attached to anything you're not willing to walk out on in 30 seconds flat if you feel the heat around the corner after the break. Break.

And that becomes a problem when Amazon Web Services goes down.

Yeah, I feel like my email at work wasn't working right. And I don't know if that was aws. And then I got. I saw a message in a local Facebook group that was like, no one go to the grocery store. Their whole point, point of sale system was down. And I don't know if that was aw, but there was definitely a lot of funky stuff happening.

Oh, probably prorated down to the minute. So it's basically $3 off your bill.

Maybe everyone just realizes the switching costs are too high. So it's like no matter what happens, we're stuck.

cushions, my indicator is a about Social Security, which is the income safety net program a lot of older folks rely on in retirement. And the number is 44%. It comes from this survey of US workers conducted by a financial management company called Schroeder's. And when they asked U.S. workers, 44% of those they surveyed said they plan to file for Social Security benefits before age 67, even though most of them know that would incur a financial penalty.

Right. The earliest that you can collect Social Security benefits is actually age 62. But any age before 67 is actually considered kind of collecting on Social Security early. If a person collects Social Security at age 62, their monthly payment would be about 30% lower than if they waited until 67. So that's a pretty big spread. And it would be 45% lower than if they waited just a few more years until age 70, which is what a lot of financial planners would recommend. So 45%? Yeah.

Oh, geez.

Time, value, money, life, circumstances. But the reason that a lot of people in the survey said that they wanted to collect early was that they're actually worried that Social Security will run out of money or that it'll stop making payments.

Yeah. And while Social Security does have a sort of piggy bank of reserve funds it can draw on without any further changes of the program, those reserves are actually expected to run out in less than a decade. And if that happens, it does not mean that Social Security will just disappear, but it does mean that people might not receive full payments that they're entitled to and that Social Security might only have enough money to pay about 81 cents on the dollar of the benefits they owe.

Well, I feel like if I get to 62, 67, 70, whatever it is, and I'm only getting 81 cents on the $5, I'm going to be pretty unhappy.

It's true though. If you essentially take a 30 or 40% penalty for drawing down early compared to like if you could have waited longer, then doesn't seem like a great move. Even if you are only collecting 70

This is way more math than I want to be doing in my twilight years. I will say

again, all this assumes that policymakers don't really take any other actions to shore up the program. And it's worth noting that in recent months, some Republicans have expressed at least a sort of openness to raising the retirement age, which could help solidify the program a little bit.

Not if everyone withdraws early.

It's a race, it's a run on Social Security. So that's my indicator. Something to look forward to, I guess. Way of the cheerful math, yes.

Maybe we should all disassociate with some good old fashioned Hollywood entertainment. That's what my indicator is about. My indicator is 52. That is the number of film productions that are getting tax credits from the state of California to shoot their movies locally. The California Film Commission announced the projects this week and this was the first round of credits awarded since the state government doubled its incentive program. So it went from $330 million to $750 million.

Yeah, the state says that these 52 projects will employ around 9,000 cast and crew. And that's really the idea behind these tax incentive programs. Right. Studios promise to spend money locally and then they get some money back from the government as a reward.

52 is a lot of projects. That's one project a week. Are there any on the list that you're excited about?

I will tell you the one that I am super pumped about. And this one is Heat two. It's the follow up to the Michael Mann action movie Heat from 1995. It stars Robert De Niro and Al Pacino and there's actually an econ lesson in the movie. So I'm going to play this for you guys. This is Robert De Niro robbing a bank.

We want to hurt no one.

We're here for the bank's money, not your. Your money is insured by the federal government.

You're not going to lose a dime.

Yes. Robert De Niro in the midst of robbing a bank. Takes time for a little PSA about FDIC deposit insurance. Let's see.

Yes, well, Robert Dinard didn't have time for the fine print. He was too busy taking that bank for all it was worth and then doing a super stressful, extremely violent shootout in the streets of Los Angeles. So, yeah, so, I mean, that's the whole thing. The original movie was shot on location in California, and this shootout in downtown LA is absolutely iconic. So hopefully the sequel has some equally iconic California scenes.

I know. What more do you need? This episode was produced by Angel Carreras with engineering by Debbie Daughtry. It was fact checked by Julia Richie. Kate Cannon edits the show, and the indicator is a production of npr.