Here's an Idea: Instead of Cutting Women's Social Security Benefits, Let's Improve Them

No, the threat to women’s Social Security benefits from the chained CPI hasn’t gone away. After the House and Senate finish voting on their separate budget resolutions this week, the real bargaining begins. And the proposal to cut Social Security benefits by using a lower measure of inflation — the chained Consumer Price Index — to reduce annual cost-of-living adjustments is still very much on the table. Indeed, it's part of the President’s announced plan for deficit reduction, if increased revenues are also part of the deal. 

But after a long week of budget debates that still isn’t over, it’s time to take a break for a little good news. Congresswoman Gwen Moore (D-WI) just introduced the Social Security Enhancement and Protection Act of 2013. Her bill would improve Social Security’s minimum benefit, increase benefits for long-term beneficiaries, restore the student benefit, and strengthen the financing of the Social Security system for decades — without cutting benefits. 

The bill would improve Social Security’s minimum benefit — a change that would be especially valuable to women, who are a majority of low-wage workers and are more likely than men to take time out of the paid labor force to raise children. And, it would recognize the value of childrearing work by allowing credits of up to five years toward the minimum benefit when a parent was raising a child under age six. 

The proposed increase in benefits for long-term beneficiaries also would be especially important to women because they tend to live longer than men, face higher rates of poverty as they age, and become more reliant on Social Security as other resources are exhausted. The increase would also be available to individuals receiving disability benefits for many years: another group at increased risk of poverty. 

Restoring Social Security benefits up to age 22 for the children of workers who died or became disabled, as long as they are enrolled in college or vocational school, would help children who have lost the economic support of a parent get the post-secondary education they need to succeed in today’s economy. In addition, it would ease the financial burden on the remaining breadwinner. 

What’s more, the bill would pay for these reforms and strengthen the financing of the Social Security program for decades to come — without cutting other benefits. No chained CPI. No additional increase in the retirement age. No means testing benefits. No accounting tricks. Just revenues, raised mostly by eventually requiring the highest earners to contribute to Social Security at the same rate as lower earners, and partly by a small increase in the payroll rate: one-twentieth of one percent a year — about 50 cents a week for a worker making $50,000 a year — for six years. 

Polls show that a majority of Americans support strengthening Social Security and improving benefits — and are willing to pay more taxes to do it. Congresswoman Moore clearly understands that; let's hope more of her colleagues join her.