[Vision2020] Fw: [News-releases] Women Answer the President on Social Security

[Joan Opyr]

From: "NOW Media Relations" press at now.org
Subject: [News-releases] Women Answer the President on Social Security
Date: Tue, 08 Feb 2005 09:58:37 -0500

Women Answer the President on Social Security
  
 Statement of NOW President Kim Gandy  
  
 February 8, 2005
  
 The National Organization for Women (NOW) warns that the plan to
privatize Social Security will undermine women's financial security.  
  
 Women are more vulnerable to the reduction in benefits that will
accompany privatization because we have smaller benefits to begin
with, and because women are less likely than men to have a pension or
other means to supplement those reduced benefits. Playing the stock
market always creates winners and losers, and women will end up on the
losing end when Social Security falls prey to the boom and inevitable
bust of the stock market.  
  
The existing system is progressive, in the sense that lower lifetime
earners have modestly higher proportional benefits relative to their
earnings. This increased benefit is critical for women because of our
lower average earnings and time out of the workforce for caregiving.
Those pushing for privatization want us to take money out of that
progressive system and deposit it into a so-called personal account,
which is just the opposite — it is a regressive system. Since earnings
from private accounts would be dispensed through annuities, women
would pay a higher price or receive lower benefits than a man with the
same size private account because we live longer.  
  
Here's the bottom line: If you're a woman, you're being asked to take
your money out of a system that offers guaranteed retirement,
disability and survivor benefits, and move it into a privatized system
that will discriminate against you in the amount it pays out because
you are female. Women weren't born Democrat, Republican or yesterday.  
  
 So much of the discussion to date has focused on retirement, but
Social Security is also a disability and life insurance program.
Privatization puts at risk disabled women, widows, single and divorced
women and the children of a working parent who dies or becomes
disabled.  
  
Instead of scrapping the current system, NOW suggests we fix it and
fund it. Some improvements towards that end have been made, but more
adjustments to this basically sound program must be undertaken. The
following suggestions would address the needs of certain groups of
women who live out their final years almost entirely dependent upon
their modest monthly Social Security check:  
  
* Reduce the Child Care Penalty in one of two ways: provide up to ten
   years of Family Service Credits, with a maximum of $5,000 per year,
   for a single parent or the lower earner of a couple staying home to
   care for children under age six, or alternatively drop out some of the
   zero-income years;
  
 * Increase the Widow's Benefit to 75 percent of the couple's joint
   benefit, capped at the maximum earner's benefit;
  
 * Raise benefits for Disabled Widows and Divorced Disabled Spouses to
  100 percent of the retired worker's benefits;
  
 * Increase the Divorced Women's Spousal Benefit to 75 percent and
   increase eligibility for divorce benefits after seven years of
   marriage, as long as there is a total of 10 years in combined marriage
   and work history;

* Revise the current Special Minimum to lower earnings required to 50
   percent of minimum-wage earnings for full-time, year round work.
   
These improvements would bring more equity into the system. These
suggestions recognize patterns of pay discrimination, uncompensated
child care, today's marriage and divorce trends and women's increased
participation in the paid workforce which result in higher numbers of
women drawing Social Security worker benefits, instead of spousal
benefits.  
  
To cover the costs of improved benefits and assure long-term financing
for generations, we suggest two simple changes: (1) beginning around
the year 2020 when Social Security begins to draw down on the surplus,
a modest increase in the payroll FICA rate-for both employees and
employers, and (2) an increase in the taxable wage base at the same
time. We challenge the assertion that an increased payroll
contribution — especially since it would be only a slight increase —  
would depress economic growth.  Ideally, the payroll rate should be made
progressive since the heaviest burden falls on women, persons of color
and other lifetime low-income workers, while those at the top feel the
impact far less.  
  
 With these few changes, we can make our guaranteed insurance and
retirement program the envy of the world and assure that all women who
have given so much to society live out their later years in economic
security.  
  
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE  
CONTACT: LISA BENNETT, 202-628-8669 x 123</B> </FONT>  
  
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