Abby Lane, Fellow

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My Take

Living to 100 Would Be A Little Harder With Stealth Cuts to Social Security, Especially For Women

Posted by
Abby Lane, Fellow
Katherine Gallagher Robbins, Senior Policy Analyst
| Posted on: December 10, 2012 at 06:19 pm

What does it mean to live to 100? People turning 100 in 2012 have witnessed a lot of amazing events. Four states have entered the union – New Mexico and Arizona the year they were born and Alaska and Hawaii when they were 47. Humans landed on the moon for the first time when they were 57. And when they were 23 – right when they entered the workforce – Social Security was created.  That means many of today’s centenarians paid into Social Security their whole working lives – and have relied on it for many decades as well. This reliance is particularly true for women, who are the majority of elderly Social Security beneficiaries – and especially very old beneficiaries. A new Census report released today (PDF) shows that women were a whopping 82.8 percent of all people who were age 100 and older. Social Security has been there for these women and their families for almost all of their lives.

But both current and future centenarians have reason to worry about a stealth cut to Social Security benefits by changing the way the cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) is calculated for Social Security. The annual COLA is a vital feature of Social Security that helps keep benefits from being eroded by inflation. One proposal being discussed as part of the year-end fiscal talks would base the COLA on the “chained Consumer Price Index” (chained CPI), a lower and less accurate measure of inflation which would reduce the annual COLA and cut the value of benefits year after year. The longer you receive benefits, the deeper the reduction from the chained CPI – meaning that the very oldest Americans, 4 out of 5 of whom are women, would be hit the hardest.

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Tags: Chained CPI, COLA, Social Security, Social Security, Social Security & Retirement | Add new comment

November Jobs Numbers Bring a Little Cheer, but Long-Term Unemployment Remains High

Posted by Abby Lane, Fellow | Posted on: December 07, 2012 at 06:33 pm

Today’s release of November jobs data brought a bit of extra holiday cheer to the week. Despite what pundits expected, the new data show a healthy month of job growth and continued declines in the unemployment rate for most groups of workers.

In November, the economy added 146,000 jobs and the overall unemployment rate fell slightly to 7.7 percent, its lowest rate since December 2008. Adult women’s unemployment rate fell to 7.0 percent and adult men’s unemployment rate fell to 7.2 percent. It isn’t the fastest recovery ever, but we continue to be headed in the right direction.

But before we get too excited, there’s a catch. In November 2012, more than four in ten jobless adult workers were still looking for work after more than six months of searching, including 42 percent of jobless adult women and 45 percent of jobless adult men. These rates are about one-and-a-half-times what they were at the start of the recovery in June 2009.

Percent of adult jobless workers who were unable to find work after six months

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Tags: Jobs, Unemployment, Employment, Poverty & Income Support | Add new comment

5 Public Programs That Lift Millions of Women Out of Poverty

Posted by Abby Lane, Fellow | Posted on: November 14, 2012 at 05:15 pm

Did you know that in 2011, Social Security kept 11.7 million women and 1.1 million children out of poverty?

This is just one new fact that we can calculate today thanks to the release of new Census Bureau data that examines a supplemental poverty measure which takes into account the impact of public programs on families' economic security. For more about poverty measurement, see our FAQ.

This past September, the Census Bureau released the official poverty numbers for 2011, which showed that women's poverty remained high after the recession's end, but was beginning to stabilize in 2011. Our report detailed what the numbers looked like and the trends over time. But what we didn't get to see in that data was how many people were pulled above the poverty line by specific public programs. Today, we were able to take a closer look at how many people were lifted out of poverty by these programs and who they were.

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Tags: Poverty & Income Support, SNAP (Food Stamps), Unemployment, Unemployment Insurance, Unemployment, Poverty & Income Support | 1 comment

Women’s Records in the 2012 Election

Posted by
Abby Lane, Fellow
Katherine Gallagher Robbins, Senior Policy Analyst
| Posted on: November 07, 2012 at 03:52 pm

Last night was a historic night for women in American political life. A record number of women ran for Congress in 2012. And while still far from equal, the numbers of women in the next Congress will be historically high.

With a few races too close to call, there will apparently be between 75 and 79 women in the House of Representatives, up from 73 currently serving. There will be 20 in the Senate, up from 17 currently serving. This means that women will comprise about 18 percent of the next Congress, up from under 17 percent in the current Congress.

Other historic achievements last night:

  • Senator-elect Mazie Hirono (D-HI) became the first Asian-American woman to be elected to the Senate and Hawai’i’s first female Senator.
  • Senator-elect Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) became the first openly gay person to be elected to the Senate and Wisconsin’s first female Senator.
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Tags: 2012 Elections, Congress, House of Representatives, Senate, Voter Education, A Women's Agenda | Add new comment

Another Halloween Treat: Jobs Data Show another Month of Strong Growth

Posted by Abby Lane, Fellow | Posted on: November 02, 2012 at 04:59 pm

The October jobs data were released today by the BLS and while it can’t compare to our stash of Snickers and Peanut Butter Cups, we’re happy to say the news is generally pretty sweet.

171,000 jobs were added in October, continuing several months of strong job growth. Job growth has picked up steam in recent months. However, the recovery has still moved more slowly for women: women regained only 39 percent of the jobs they lost during the recession while men regained 45 percent. Although women gained public sector jobs this month, heavy job losses in the public sector over the recovery continue to be a major factor in the weaker economic recovery for women.

Job change in the recovery (June 2009 - October 2012)

Overall unemployment is essentially unchanged from last month – the slight increase to 7.9 percent is due primarily to jobless workers starting (or restarting) their job hunts. This was also the reason for the small rise in the unemployment rate for adult women, up to 7.2 percent in October.

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Tags: Economic Recovery, Jobs, Unemployment, Unemployment, Poverty & Income Support | Add new comment