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President Roosevelt’s vision has most certainly endured. Today, Social Security provides some 61 million Americans and their families with basic financial security upon retirement or disability. For older Americans, Social Security can mean the difference between financial well-being and poverty. Two out of three seniors rely on Social Security for most of their income, and one-third of seniors depend on it for at least 90% of their income. Public polling consistently shows that Social Security enjoys overwhelming support from majorities of Americans across party lines.
Over the years, Social Security has been modified (with bipartisan support) to expand benefits and keep the system financially sound. This year, Social Security has come under new threat from budget hawks in the Trump administration and on Capitol Hill. But as generations of Roosevelts have
shown us, Social Security is worth fighting for. On this, Social Security’s 82nd anniversary, we at the National Committee recommit ourselves to preserving this landmark program for current and future generations of Americans.
Read more from our blog post here marking this anniversary by clicking here.
Social Security kept 22 million people out of poverty in 2015, the center analysis shows, including 15 million seniors. Without their Social Security benefits, 40.5 percent of elderly Americans would have had incomes below the official poverty line; with Social Security, only 8.8 percent did (see chart).
via US News.
Related Reading:
Congress needs to BOOST Social Security benefits for all working Americans.
Older Americans are the country’s largest voting bloc, but during the first four Democratic presidential debates, the moderators didn’t ask even one question about Social Security. This makes no sense.
How long do seniors have to wait until they hear the Democratic presidential candidates’ positions on Social Security during a primary debate? Older Americans are the country’s largest voting bloc, but during the first four Democratic presidential debates, the moderators didn’t ask even one question about Social Security. This makes no sense.
The father of Social Security is one of the most revered Democratic presidents. And yet not a single mention of the program during debates by the party of Franklin Roosevelt? The 63 million citizens who currently rely on their earned benefits to remain financially healthy want to hear the candidates answer at least one debate question – and provide some real answers. The next Democratic debate on October 15th provides yet another opportunity to raise this crucial topic.
Read more from our newest op-ed by clicking here.
In an online survey by the National Academy of Social Insurance, 64% of respondents favored an increased COLA ‘to more fully protect seniors against inflation.’ In fact, majority support for a COLA boost cut across income groups, age brackets, and party affiliations.
While the government shutdown has not affected Social Security or Medicare, low income seniors receiving food assistance remain at risk. Some five million older Americans receive grocery vouchers from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which is funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and administered by the states.
USDA is one of the federal agencies affected by the government shutdown. Fortunately, January’s SNAP benefits were paid, and the agency issued February’s payments ten days early before it officially ran out of funding last weekend. But this leaves all SNAP beneficiaries – including low income seniors – in a bind for two reasons.
Read more from this blog post by clicking through.
PROMISES BROKEN:
- Oh, yes: the Trump Budget Definitely Does Cut Meals on Wheels.
- Anyone looking at the actual numbers can plainly see that the Trump budget does, in fact, slash funding for Meals on Wheels. In addition to cutting Older Americans Act home-delivered meals by $1.5 million, the President’s budget eliminates the Community Services, Community Development and Social Services Block Grants, upon which some Meals on Wheels programs rely for funding.
Donald Trump’s immigration plan may now be changing and his the latest TV ad gets it completely wrong on Social Security.
Do older Americans want bigger Social Security checks and expanded Medicare coverage – or do they want their benefits cut?
That is the fundamental question for seniors and their families with less than two weeks until the mid-term elections. The majority party in Congress has proposed time and again to slash Social Security and Medicare benefits under the guise of ‘entitlement reform.’ Leader Mitch McConnell just attributed the swelling federal debt to retirees’ earned benefits – when the real culprit was the 2017 tax package that mainly benefited the wealthy and big corporations.
The majority party’s 2018 and 2019 budgets would have taken a $500 billion bite out of Medicare and $64 billion from Social Security. And make no mistake – conservative tropes like raising the eligibility age, imposing a more meager inflation formula, and means testing are benefit cuts.
Read more from our op-ed by clicking here.
But they also call for switching COLAs to the Consumer Price Index for the Elderly or CPI-E, designed by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The CPI-E would boost Social Security payments without worsening the system’s deficit.
via The Social Security Fix That Could Help the Poorest Retirees.
Related Reading:
Why Seniors Need a CPI-E.
But if the CPI-E determined the Social Security COLA, the expected average COLA would increase about 0.2 percentage points per year.
Instead they want to tie benefits to the consumer price index for the elderly, or CPI-E, an experimental index that gives more weight to the health care and housing costs that typically account for a larger share of older Americans’ budgets. The CPI-E also puts less value on transportation costs, since seniors are less likely to have to commute to jobs.