published Oct 7th 2016, 4:00 am, by Suzanne Woolley

(Bloomberg) —

It’s the economy again, stupid.

The presidential race has been dominated by debate over job creation, retirement, and other tenets of economic security, along with looming questions over race in America and threats from abroad. The future of Social Security makes up two of the top 10 crowdsourced and crowd-voted questions the public would like moderators of Sunday’s town-hall-style debate to ask the presidential candidates.

The questions on the Open Debate Coalition’s website are pointed: Do you support expanding, and not cutting, Social Security’s modest benefits? Social Security is not an entitlement or a handout, how are you going to save it? What’s your plan to target the large public health crisis: Alzheimer’s disease? Jobs, taxes, Social Security, child care, health care, and Alzheimer’s are among the topics likely to come up in this second of three debates between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Here’s a cheat sheet summing up their positions on some of these issues and, since there’s no time like the present, ways you can improve your finances no matter who moves into the White House in January.

Jobs

Clinton

The Democratic candidate vows to narrow the income gap. Her campaign promises “the largest investment in good-paying jobs since World War II,” including a $275 billion plan to rebuild U.S. infrastructure, the creation of jobs in alternative energy, and support for small manufacturers and startups. Clinton would pursue “smarter, fairer, tougher trade policies that put U.S. job creation first,” work with organized labor, gradually raise the minimum wage from $7.25 to $12 an hour, and support efforts by cities and states to raise that minimum further, citing the “Fight for $15.”

Trump

Trump also talks of raising the standard of living and says his policies will make America “the best place in the world to get a job” but stresses getting out of the way of economic growth. That means rolling back regulations on energy and other industries, reworking trade agreements that “create a smaller economy for everyone,” overhauling the tax code, and raising barriers to immigration. Trump wants to spend more than $500 billion on infrastructure. He has said the minimum wage should be up to the states but has also talked about a $10-an-hour federal floor.

You and your money

Raising the minimum wage could cost us jobs, some argue. The Congressional Budget Office, in a 2014 analysis, noted that “business owners would see reductions in real (inflation-adjusted) income, as would consumers, who would face higher prices as a result of the minimum-wage increase.” The article “Minimum Wage Mythbusters,” on the U.S. Department of Labor’s website, says raising the minimum has “little to no effect on employment as shown in independent studies from economists across the country,” citing research showing that “higher wages sharply reduce turnover which can reduce employment and training costs.” Moody’s Analytics concluded in a macroeconomic analysis (pdf) of Clinton’s economic proposals that the “negative employment affect” of a higher minimum wage would be modest, since the floor would be phased in over five years.

Whether or not you are directly affected by the minimum wage, its role in the economy and the candidates’ broader prescriptions for wage and job growth have implications for your working life and your retirement.

What you can do

Guard against lifestyle inflation that can easily creep into your spending. Tamping it down early on, to add to your savings, can pay off handsomely in the long term, since most big raises come earlier in your career. Gains slow in your 40s and 50s, and in your 50s income growth, adjusted for inflation, generally turns negative, according to financial planner Michael Kitces. With less earning power ahead of you and your options to deal with savings shortfalls narrowing, you may have to make painful spending cuts or reduce your expectations for retirement.

So if economic growth picks up, and with it your pay, try to keep your spending the same. Kitces suggests setting a lifestyle spending target—how much you want to be able to spend per year in retirement—rather than framing it as saving 10 percent or 20 percent of current income. Because he aims to save the equivalent of his annual spending times 30, he looks at everything he thinks about buying as costing 30 times as much as it does.

Taxes

Clinton

Clinton would raise taxes on high earners in a variety of ways. Her plans include a minimum rate of 30 percent for anyone with income of more than $1 million, a 4 percent surcharge on gross adjusted income over $5 million, a $1 million limit on the lifetime gift exemption, and a new tax schedule on capital gains rates. A cap on the amount of savings from itemized tax deductions would limit them to 28 percent of the value of the deduction. So those in higher tax brackets wouldn’t get a greater benefit from, say, taking the mortgage interest deduction, the Tax Foundation notes.

Clinton would lower the starting point at which estates are taxed to $3.5 million ($7 million for married couples) and raise the top estate tax rate to 45 percent from 40 percent. Estates valued at over $1 billion per couple would pay a 65 percent rate. She’d also seek to limit the ability to pass on appreciated assets to heirs free of capital-gains taxes before death, though she’d protect “small and closely held businesses, farms and homes, and personal property and family heirlooms.”

Trump

The number of income-tax brackets would shrink from seven to three in Trump’s tax-reform plan—12 percent on income up to $75,000, 25 percent for $75,000 to $225,000, and 33 percent on income over that. So top earners would no longer face a 39.6 percent tax bracket.

The standard deduction for single filers would be $15,000, and $30,000 for joint filers. Itemized deductions would be capped at $100,000 for single filers and $200,000 for married couples filing jointly. Trump would kill the estate tax and keep the popular mortgage interest deduction.

You and your money

Clinton’s approach would cost wealthy families the most, while they would appear to benefit under Trump. Whatever happens in the end, the debate over taxes is a good reminder to pay attention to the tax treatment of your investments. Vigilance can boost your income in what could be a low-return environment if the economy continues on its current path.

What you can do

Start thinking about year-end moves to lessen the pain of paying income taxes next April. For the longer term, calculate what your total annual income from Social Security and other sources would be in retirement, and what the federal and state taxes on that income could be. The first of the baby boomers just hit 70 and a half, when they have to start taking required minimum distributions from IRAs. These annual withdrawals can push people into a higher tax bracket.

Financial planners suggest strategies using a variety of retirement accounts to try to minimize the tax bite. To use that strategy effectively, you have to explore it well ahead of time. By shifting money between traditional IRAs and Roth IRAs and other accounts, and paying tax on some accounts at opportune times, you can lessen the tax bite and add years of retirement income.

Social Security

Clinton

Social Security would be modestly expanded, increasing benefits for widows and giving credits to workers who take a job leave to care for family members. To raise funds for the program, Clinton would increase the level of annual wages subject to payroll taxes; in 2016, wages aren’t taxed after $118,500. According to a 2014 analysis (pdf) by the Center for Economic & Policy Research, the wealthiest 6.1 percent of workers would pay more if the payroll cap were removed.

Changes to Social Security that Clinton opposes include reducing cost-of-living adjustments, attempts at privatization, an increase in the retirement age, and any attempts “to close the long-term shortfall on the backs of the middle class.” She has vowed to fight any Republican plans “to privatize or ‘phase out’ Medicare as we know it” and has said she would work to drive down drug prescription costs.

Trump

Trump tweeted in May of last year that he was “the first & only potential GOP candidate to state there will be no cuts to Social Security, Medicare & Medicaid.” Growth from implementation of his economic policies would “shore up our entitlement plans for the time being,” he has said. Yet he has also noted that “as our demography changes, a prudent administration would begin to examine what changes might be necessary for future generations.”

You and your money

With defined-benefit pension plans fast receding and many workers without defined-contribution plans such as 401(k)s, Social Security income is more important than ever for more people—even as it isn’t nearly enough for most of us to realize our retirement plans. Clinton’s plan for payroll taxes would mean a pay cut for anyone making over $118,500; right now, anyone making $237,000 a year, or twice the cap, stopped paying payroll taxes on earnings on July 1.

But if changes aren’t made to shore up the program’s finances before 2034, automatic reductions in benefits will kick in, with claimants getting just 75 percent or so of their scheduled benefits.

What you can do

Many people aren’t clear on how to get the biggest benefit from the Social Security program. That’s why “Get What’s Yours,” a guide to maxing out Social Security benefits by the economist Laurence Kotlikoff, became a bestseller. One of his co-authors, Philip Moeller, has the same sort of book coming out in early October, on getting the most out of Medicare.

Studying the rules can ensure a more comfortable retirement. For example, if you were born after 1943 and wait to claim benefits after the full retirement age (67 for anyone born in 1960 or later), benefits rise 8 percent a year until age 70. Try finding a safe 8 percent return anywhere else.

One of the smartest moves to prepare for the cost of retirement, even if you can’t save much now, is something many younger savers are already doing—simply staying fit and healthy. Unexpected health-care costs can derail the best-laid retirement plans. (And, though it’s just a correlation, men who worked out three or more times a week made about 6 percent more than men who didn’t, according to a 2011 study from Cleveland State University. The gap was about 10 percent for women.)

Child care

Clinton

Clinton would cap the cost of a family’s child care at 10 percent of household income using tax credits and subsidized child care. She has talked about a national system for paid family leave of up to 12 weeks as well as universal preschool for four-year-olds.

Child-care workers would be paid better. (“In many places, dog trainers are paid more than child-care workers,” she has said.) Child care is part of Clinton’s “New College Compact,” which proposes significant improvements for child care on campus and up to $1,500 a year in scholarships to college students who are parents.

Trump

Trump has promised a mandatory six-week paid maternity leave and would let parents deduct the costs of raising a child up to age 13, for up to four kids. To help lower-income taxpayers who may not pay income tax, the Earned Income Tax Credit would be raised to “half of the payroll taxes paid by the lower-earning parent,” with an income limit of $31,200 for single taxpayers and $62,400 for joint filers.

Trump’s plan would let parents create dependent-care savings accounts. Contributions would max out at $2,000 a year, and earnings would accumulate tax-deferred. Balances could be rolled over and used for higher education when a child turns 18. The annual cap on the business tax credit for child care that employers offer on site would rise from $150,000 to $500,000.

You and your money

The cost of child care tops college tuition in many states, according to a 2015 report from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), a liberal think tank, as well as monthly rent. Corporate day-care centers would be ideal for many parents but are far and few between, so any relief would be a big help.

Some employees already have access to dependent care flexible savings accounts (FSAs). The Tax Policy Center has said Trump’s proposal “would mostly benefit high-income families who need government child care subsidies the least” and that “for those who need it the most, such as low-income married couples with a single earner, there is much less to Trump’s plan than meets the eye.”

What you can do

This is a tough one. If you want to gather support among other working parents at your company and raise the prospect of on-site day care, you can show your employer this article about the positive experience that such companies as Patagonia and Goldman Sachs have had with such arrangements. Creative solutions are cropping up for some parents, such as the Workaround, in Brooklyn, N.Y., a co-working space where people earn credits for watching one another’s kids, which they can use when they need child care.

If your company offers a dependent care FSA, try to fund it fully. It lets you pay for child care out of pretax pay, which makes it stretch further while lowering your taxable income. In 2016, the limit on what you could contribute tax-deferred was $5,000 for a married couple filing a joint return. Also, take advantage of any discounted group legal services offered through your benefit plan to make a will, if you haven’t already, and of any elder care programs offered.

Alzheimer’s disease

Clinton

The candidate’s website states that “we can prevent, effectively treat, and make an Alzheimer’s cure possible by 2025.” As president, Clinton would invest $2 billion a year to research the disease and create a team of the “best and brightest” among researchers and health experts. She’d have Medicare cover “comprehensive Alzheimer’s care-planning sessions and the cost of property documenting every diagnosis and care plan.” The Social Security Administration would be directed to inform seniors of “wellness visits, cognitive screenings, and other preventive benefits covered by Medicare.” The campaign hasn’t said exactly how these initiatives would be funded.

Trump

Trump doesn’t mention Alzhiemer’s on his site. In 2015, at a town hall in Hampton, New Hampshire, an audience member asked Trump what he would do about the disease. He said it is “a total priority for me. I have so many friends whose families have been devastated.” His own father was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 1993 and died in 1999.

You and your money

The massive wave of aging baby boomers means Alzheimer’s will soon affect even more lives than it already does. In 2015, there were 73 million voters who had a close friend or family member with Alzheimer’s, according to a survey by the Alzheimer’s Association, and an estimated 18.1 billion hours of unpaid care were devoted to patients by caregivers. The average cost of caring for someone with the disease is more than $5,000 a year, and it will costs taxpayers $236 billion in 2016, the Association estimates.

What you can do

Researching the costs involved will give you a sense of the financial burden of caring for someone with Alzheimer’s, if you need any more motivation to save. The Alzheimer’s Association lists average costs for long-term-care services, based on a 2015 Genworth Financial survey.

More financial advisers are working with clients to prepare for any possible cognitive decline. Certified financial planner Tim Kober, of Beaverton, Ore.-based Cedar Financial Advisors, said he helps clients develop a plan, which they sign, in case they suffer from “diminished capacity.” They decide what to do, and whom Kober should speak with, if he thinks diminished capacity is an issue. “It’s an elegant workaround to privacy issues, and it’s been consistently received positively by clients,” he said.