Social Security

Policy makers have been talking about deficit reduction for months and one proposal keeps cropping up - changing the way that the cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) is made for Social Security and other federal programs.  These policy makers would replace the current cost of living index with another one that will grow more slowly – the chained CPI.

Here are five things you need to know about the chained CPI:

1. It cuts Social Security benefits.  Adjusting benefits for inflation maintains their value over time.  Using the chained CPI would reduce the value of benefits by about 0.3 percent each year.
2. Cuts get deeper every year.  A reduction of 0.3 percent a year really adds up over time.  The cut in the value of benefits would equal the cost of a week’s worth of food each month by age 80 and nearly two weeks’ worth by 95 for the typical single elderly woman.

Senator Alan Simpson wants us to shut up. The Huffington Post reported Simpson's comments at a recent event sponsored by "Face the Facts USA":

"Could you please cut out the babble? Would you quit talking about the poor, the vulnerable, the veterans, the old ladies going over cliffs, the hospices, the bedpans? I mean, what the hell? We all know, all of us know, that that's the people you want to take care of."

You can't blame us for taking it personally. We've had a lot to say recently about women who are still poor, without health insurance, and paid less than men. We've had to point out that cutting programs that serve low-income people especially hurts women and their families, and that the House-passed budget plan slashes these programs in the name of deficit reduction while giving trillions of dollars in new tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans. And we've had to explain the impact of a stealth Social Security benefit cut proposed by the Simpson-Bowles report – reducing the cost-of-living adjustment by changing to a new consumer price index, the "chained CPI." Read more »

NWLC’s analysis of yesterday’s Census data shows poverty rates generally stabilized after three years of increases. But one notable exception is the significant increase in the poverty rate for women 65 and older living alone, which rose to 18.4 percent in 2011 from 17.0 percent in 2010.

We can’t yet explain why poverty increased for this already vulnerable group of women; the poverty rate for all women 65 and older was unchanged from 2010 at 10.7 percent. But we do know that single elderly women are especially reliant on income from Social Security. So we’re worried that policy makers continue to look to the Simpson-Bowles report as a model for deficit reduction, including its proposal to reduce Social Security’s annual cost-of-living adjustment by changing the measure of inflation to the “chained consumer price index,” because this proposal would especially hurt women.

Some politicians seem particularly intrigued by this idea, since it sounds like a technical change that might not be recognized as a benefit cut, and it starts out small. But the cut from the chained-CPI gets deeper every year. That’s particularly harmful to women because they live longer than men. Read more »

What's an American classic? Something that stays fresh and wonderful generation after generation. Something that says, "This is America." Like ice cream cones. The Statue of Liberty. Sunday drives. The March on Washington and "I have a dream." I Love Lucy. And our Social Security system.

On this date in 1935, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act. On its 77th birthday, we hail Social Security as an American classic! Why?

• Social Security has brought Americans together across generations. Working together, we've built a system that provides income and security for workers and their families when they need it — when income is lost due to retirement, disability, or death.

Raising the minimum wage, as proposed in the Rebuild America Act, would help women in a lot of ways. It would help pull women and their families out of poverty, narrow the wage gap, and strengthen the economy. But it would also help women in another way you might not have thought of – by improving their retirement security.

How is it that raising the minimum wage now would help women years down the line when they retire? For starters, lower earnings mean less money available to set aside for retirement. Increasing the minimum wage would give women a little extra money to save for the future. Read more »

The Social Security Trustees just released their annual report on Social Security’s finances. It’s provoked a number of misinformed “the sky is falling” stories from journalists who should know better, as explained by the Columbia Journalism Review.

To get the facts, you can watch this short video which answers the question, “Will Social Security be there for me?” Or you can read on:

• Social Security can pay 100 percent of promised benefits for the next 20 years, until 2033, even if Congress takes no action. And after 2033, Social Security won’t be broke; payroll taxes will still cover 75 percent of promised benefits.
• It isn’t difficult to close the long-term financing gap and ensure that future generations get 100 percent of promised benefits. One way Congress could do it is by requiring high earners to pay Social Security payroll taxes on all of their earnings, which 94 percent of Americans who earn less than $110,100 a year already do.
• Social Security will run a surplus this year—and the year after that, and the year after that, until 2020. That’s right—even though Social Security will take in less in payroll taxes than it pays in benefits this year, it will have money left over to deposit in the Social Security Trust Fund after it pays all benefits due. That’s because Social Security also earns interest on the $2.7 trillion in bonds it currently holds in the Social Security Trust Fund.  

Thank Senator Harkin for Working to Rebuild America

The Rebuild America Act lays out a vision of a better America for women and their families.

Now this is more like it! You and I both know that we've had to spend a lot of time playing defense to protect critical programs and hard-won rights. But while we've been on the defensive, we've also been advocating for policies that lift up and support ALL Americans and that provide a clear path to a better future.

Now our efforts are paying off. Just yesterday, Senator Tom Harkin introduced the Rebuild America Act, which would improve economic security for women and their families. The Rebuild America Act makes investments to promote widely shared prosperity and finances them in a fair and fiscally responsible way.

This type of opportunity doesn't come along every day. Join us in saying 'Thank you!' to Senator Harkin for introducing this important bill!

What kinds of prosperity are we talking about? First and foremost — jobs. The Rebuild America Act recognizes the need for quantity and quality when it comes to job creation. The bill provides funding to help states and localities hire teachers and other public service workers — an especially crucial sector for women, who have lost nearly 70 percent of the public sector jobs cut since June of 2009. It also invests in infrastructure and manufacturing — and increases support for job training and education to expand access to these jobs among underrepresented populations. Read more »

You've heard of slash and burn, but how about slash and burden?

On Thursday, the House is expected to vote on a budget for Fiscal Year 2013 introduced by Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI). The Ryan budget would devastate vital services for women and their families while giving trillions in new tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans and large corporations — on top of extending provisions of the Bush-era tax cuts that benefit only the very wealthy.

Let's make it clear that we will not stand for a budget that slashes programs for women and families and puts the burden of paying for tax breaks for millionaires and corporations on middle- and low-income Americans.

Tell your Representative to oppose the Ryan Budget. As your Members of Congress start budget negotiations, they need to know that their constituents expect them to protect programs for women and families — and to require the wealthy and corporations to pay their fair share of taxes.

What's wrong with Rep. Paul Ryan's Budget? For starters, it would:

• Repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA). Insurance companies could continue to charge women higher premiums than men, deny coverage to women due to preexisting condition, and refuse to cover maternity care.

The House plans to vote tomorrow or Friday on H.J. Res. 2, a balanced budget constitutional amendment (BBA) sponsored by Rep. Goodlatte (R-VA).  The amendment is not new – it nearly came to the House floor over the summer, and similar amendments have been proposed many times over the years, especially in the 1990s.  But amending the Constitution to require the federal government to balance its budget every year was a terrible idea then, and it’s a terrible idea today. 

So terrible that a group of more than 1,000 economists, including 11 Nobel laureates, issued a joint statement in 1997 that said, “We condemn the proposed ‘balanced-budget’ amendment to the federal Constitution.  It is unsound and unnecessary…[and] mandates perverse actions in the fact of recessions.”

So terrible that five winners of the Nobel Prize for Economics issued a statement  in July opposing a BBA because of the negative effect it would have on an already troubled economy.

So terrible that Macroeconomic Advisers, a private economic forecasting firm, recently concluded that if a BBA had been ratified and were now being enforced for fiscal year 2012, “the effect on the economy would be catastrophic” and “recessions would be deeper and longer.”  According to the report, if the budget were balanced through spending cuts in 2012, about 15 million more people would lose their jobs and the unemployment rate would double (from 9 percent to a staggering 18 percent).  

Still not convinced?  Here’s a recap of my top five reasons why the House should reject the BBA:  Read more »

Do you live in Arizona, Massachusetts, Montana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, or Washington? If so, call 1-866-251-4044 today to tell your senator on the super-committee to oppose cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid in the super-committee.

If you’re a resident of one of the states above, we need your help. Senators Kyl, Kerry, Baucus, Portman, Toomey, and Murray are all members of the very powerful congressional super-committee charged with deciding how to cut the federal deficit by $1.5 trillion over ten years. Time is short — the committee faces a deadline of November 23 — and the stakes are high.

Various proposals before the super-committee would reduce Social Security benefits and cut Medicare and Medicaid by as much as $685 billion. Each of these vital programs provides income security and health care to millions of Americans — mostly women.

Your senator needs to hear from you now! Over the next couple of weeks, the handful of members on the super-committee will decide the fate of these and other vital programs. Read more »