MQ: “We should not privatize Social Security.” - Senator Barbara Mikulski
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Max Ritchman, President and CEO of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare: “America’s seniors understand all too well that our nation faces a retirement crisis and improving Social Security benefits is vital to keeping millions from poverty. Rep. Linda Sanchez’s ‘Strengthening Social Security Act’ makes several important improvements for seniors by: phasing out the payroll tax cap so that the wealthy pay their fair share, creating a Cost of Living adjustment for the elderly and boosting benefits for all retirees including widows/widowers. NCPSSM strongly supports this legislation and applauds Congresswoman Sanchez for doing the right thing for America’s seniors and their families.”
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![Earlier this week, Members of Congress and allies met to discuss Social Security and the GOP Congress’ manufactured crisis.
““Seniors, I stand with you all the way [on Social Security].”
- Rep. Jan Schakowsky
“We are in a crisis right now. A...](https://64.media.tumblr.com/93d9258801da499ce7712598d0be22b4/tumblr_njo11hjqsI1qd3gmvo1_1280.jpg)
Earlier this week, Members of Congress and allies met to discuss Social Security and the GOP Congress’ manufactured crisis.
“Seniors, I stand with you all the way [on Social Security].”
- Rep. Jan Schakowsky“We are in a crisis right now. A retirement crisis. Not a Social Security crisis.” - Rep. Jan Schakowsky
“Stop manufacturing a crisis with the Social Security disability trust fund.”
- Senator Bernie Sanders“This week anyone earning a million dollars a year will have paid 100% of their payroll taxes for 2015.”
- Max Richtman
But, in what may be an example of political prescience — or, at the very least, reason for political relief — given Monday’s stock market swoon, they’ve been mysteriously silent about one issue that many conservatives support: privatization.
via Bloomberg.
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- What If Your Social Security Was Riding the Wall Street Roller Coaster too?
- No doubt, conservatives will remind us that over the long-term the market has been good to us. Maybe so, but as previous market collapses have shown, retirees don’t have the benefit of the long-term to rebuild savings now lost.
When we hear “reforms” and “cuts” in Social Security, proponents actually mean using the money for tax breaks for the rich and commissions to Wall Street brokers for partial privatization. At the upcoming debate and beyond, listen carefully, because those are giveaways that neither seniors nor the nation must endure.
In Congress, Pence has consistently voted in favor of legislative efforts to cut benefits in Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid and is one of Congress’ biggest proponents of privatization. The National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare scored Mike Pence at 0% on issues important to seniors during the 2011-2012 Congress since he voted for multiple pieces of legislation that would cut benefits and programs that protect senior’s health and financial security.
via Jewish Journal.
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Discussions about Social Security in politics and the media often focus on its role as a retirement program that provides vital protections to seniors. But the fact is that Social Security provides vital retirement, disability, and survivors’ insurance for all generations of Americans. In addition to significantly reducing senior poverty, Social Security is the nation’s largest children’s program and lifted 6.9 million Americans under age 65 out of poverty in 2014. And no generation has a greater stake in the fight to protect and expand Social Security benefits than today’s young workers, the millennial generation.
via Talk Poverty.
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There is a misconception that Social Security is just for “old people” when in fact, about 4.4 million American children receive approximately $2.7 billion in Social Security benefits each month because at least one of their parents is disabled, retired or deceased.
Learn more here.
The most serious attempt to privatize Social Security took place in 2005, when President George W. Bush decided to expend political capital from his successful reelection campaign on this longheld conservative goal. Seniors’ advocates beat back Bush’s privatization scheme through intense grassroots activism.
Privatization slunk away with its tail between its legs. Since then, most Republicans have been hesitant to advocate too loudly for privatizing the program, but it remains part of the party’s ideological DNA, the current administration and leadership in Congress included.
If the GOP were to once again find itself in control of both houses of Congress and the White House after the 2018 elections, privatization may snake its way into the forefront of the Republican agenda.
A 2008 report from Center for American Progress Action Fund made plain the risk of gambling Social Security contributions on Wall Street. In the report, a hypothetical worker who diverted a portion of her Social Security contributions into a Bush-style private account (over 35 years) — and retired just after the stock market crash of 2008 — would have lost $26,000 in retirement income, compared to what she would have received by keeping her money in traditional Social Security.
Read more from this op-ed by clicking here.
The future of Social Security is shaping up to be a major contention in the 2016 presidential campaign and women, who depend more heavily on the system, have much at stake.
“Social Security is often women’s only asset,” said Sylvia Allegretto, a labor economist…
Eleanor’s Hope
To alleviate the retirement crisis, the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare launched a national initiative in October to modernize the Social Security system. Called Eleanor’s Hope, in honor of first lady Eleanor Roosevelt who championed passage of the Social Security Act in 1935, the initiative takes a comprehensive long-range approach to reflect women’s contributions as breadwinners as well as family caregivers.
In addition to public retirement credits for people who take time off from paid employment to serve as family caregivers and for retirees who have worked in low-wage occupations, the plan also calls for strengthening the Social Security cost-of-living allowance and boosting benefits of all current and future beneficiaries.
via Womens E-News.
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The other day, the Dem-aligned Senate Majority PAC made a splash by going up in Kentucky with a very harsh ad hitting Mitch McConnell over his previous support for Social Security privatization. The ad linked that stance to an assertion that McConnell had “rearranged his portfolio” after private calls with a top Treasury Department official, implicitly suggesting McConnell had milked inside connections to bolster his own retirement security while gambling with that of others.
Seniors went to Capitol Hill earlier this month to tell Congress why their current #SocialSecurity benefits are inadequate. Boost Social Security Now! https://www.ncpssm.org/campaigns/boost-social-security-now/ @RepJohnLarson