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Privatizing Social Security
Social Security is a vital safety net for women and their families at all stages of their lives. Social Security provides secure, lifetime, inflation-adjusted benefits that women are more reliant upon than men in retirement. Social Security also provides benefits to spouses, surviving spouses, and children if a worker dies or becomes disabled. These family protections are especially important to women and children: 95 percent of adults who receive benefits as a family member of a disabled, deceased or retired worker are women, and over five million children live in households that rely on income from Social Security. Diverting resources from Social Security to private accounts would undermine this vital social insurance system.
Attempting to resurrect its failed privatization effort, the Administration again proposes to take resources from the Social Security system to fund private accounts and, as part of the plan, cut Social Security benefits for the middle class. The privatization plan neither strengthens Social Security nor the overall federal budget; according to the Administration's estimates, privatization would cost $647 billion over the 2009 to 2018 period, even though implementation would not begin until 2013.
