No Crisis and No Excuse for Cutting Social Security Benefits Women Depend On, NWLC Says

 (Washington, D.C.)  The Social Security Board of Trustees released its annual report on Social Security’s financial condition today. It projects that Social Security can pay 100 percent of promised benefits until 2033, unchanged from last year, and 77 percent of promised benefits after that.  Social Security is running a surplus; including interest on the over $2.7 trillion it holds in its Trust Funds, Social Security will take in more income this year than it will pay out in benefits, and will continue to run surpluses and build up the Trust Funds through 2020.

The following is a statement by Joan Entmacher, Vice President for Family Economic Security of the National Women’s Law Center:

“Today’s report should reassure women that Social Security is still going strong – and lawmakers should not add to women’s economic concerns by threatening to cut the largest and most secure part of women’s retirement income.

 “This report provides no excuse for cutting Social Security benefits that women especially depend on.  Social Security benefits are already modest—less than $13,000 annually for women 65 and older, compared to nearly $17,000 for men 65 and older. But Social Security provides over 60 percent of the income of older women, on average, and women rely even more heavily on Social Security as they age.  As a result, cuts to Social Security benefits – such as reducing the cost-of-living adjustment by adopting the chained Consumer Price Index, raising the retirement age, or changing the benefit formula – would especially jeopardize women’s economic security.

“Social Security can pay 100 percent of promised benefits for two decades and continue paying about three-quarters of promised benefits after that.  That gives lawmakers plenty of time to make modest adjustments in revenues to strengthen and improve Social Security for generations to come.”

For additional information on the importance of Social Security to women, go to http://www.nwlc.org/resource/women-and-social-security; for more on the impact of the chained CPI on women, go to http://www.nwlc.org/resource/obama-plan-fails-adequately-protect-long-term-social-security-beneficiaries-chained-cpi

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