|
NATIONAL JOBS FOR ALL COALITION
%
CIPA, 777 UN Plaza, Suite 3C, NY, NY 10017
UNCOMMON SENSE 22 February
1998
Women
and Social Security: Statement
and Checklist
By
the National Council of Women's Organizations. Reprinted
with permission from the Institute for Women's Policy Research.
The statement
is at http://www.iwpr.org/ssheart.html
The
National Jobs for All Coalition works for enough living wage
jobs for everyone who wants to work, and adequate, secure
income support for others such as the elderly, the disabled,
and persons caring for very young or infirm family members.
Social Security provides a measure of basic income security
for most workers and their families, and keeps millions out
of poverty. Despite the widespread misconception, there is no
impending crisis of Social Security nor must it be drastically
altered to be "saved". And good jobs for all would contribute
mightily to the health of Social Security because more people
working means more Social Security taxes flowing into the Trust
Funds. The Coalition's Social Security packet aims to insure
that workers, advocates, policy makers, and the media are better
informed about these issues. In this Uncommon Sense, the National
Council of Women's Organizations, made up of leaders of more
than 100 organizations representing more than 6 million women,
stresses the special significance of Social Security to women,
and warns that privatization and some other proposals could
impoverish millions.
Social Security
is a woman's issue. Since its inception in 1935, Social Security
has often been the only income source keeping women from living
out their days in poverty. Today while women's lives have changed,
they are still over-represented in the lowest wage jobs and earn
only 74 percent of what men earn. Women leave the labor force
for an average of 15 percent of their working careers, primarily
to fulfill responsibilities as caregivers to their children, spouses,
or elderly family members. And, in addition, they live an average
of seven years longer than their male counterparts.
Social Security has
worked for women because it is a program where every worker pays
in, and every retired worker receives a benefit she can count
on every month for her entire life, with the added comfort of
knowing that benefit will be increased regularly to meet inflation.
Women also greatly
benefit because lower earning workers receive a larger proportion
of their earnings in benefits than those who earn more. In addition,
many women also receive spousal and survivor benefits based on
their husband's (or former husband's) earnings record. These benefits
protect many retired wives, widows, and divorced women from poverty.
Retired workers' minor children also receive benefits.
The Social Security
system also provides life and disability insurance that protects
workers and their families. Disabled workers receive benefits
and children (and the parent who takes care of them) receive benefits
when a working parent dies prematurely or becomes disabled before
retirement. Two out of five of today's 20 year olds will face
premature death or disability before reaching retirement age.
Proposals to divert
workers' current payments from the Social Security system into
individually-held, private accounts would significantly damage
women's retirement income. The returns on individual accounts
would be dependent on the risks of volatile investment markets
and would not be guaranteed to keep pace with inflation nor provide
spousal benefits, widow's benefits or benefits for divorced spousesŤall
of which are special features of the current Social Security system.
Since Social Security provides the core of women's retirement
income, without the guarantees of a shared insurance pool, cost-of-living
increases, and spousal and lifetime benefits, many women could
easily outlive their assets.
We believe that women
must play a significant role in shaping Social Security for future
generations. All proposals to address the future solvency of the
Social Security Trust Fund must be viewed through the eyes of
women and assessed for their impact on women, the majority of
Social Security recipients.
Remaining inadequacies
for women in the current system also must be addressed. If we
strengthen the Social Security system so that it works well for
women, we will have a system that works well for all Americans.
WOMEN'S
CHECKLIST ON SOCIAL SECURITY REFORM
Keep
the HEART in Social Security
Social Security is
the heart of our nation's social insurance program, providing
universal coverage for workers and their families through the
pooling of resources that guarantees benefits to all. Check each
reform proposal to see if it meets the women's check test.
DOES
THE REFORM PROPOSAL . . .
- Continue to
Help Those With Lower Lifetime Earnings, Who are Disproportionately
Women?
Social Security's
benefit formula is structured so that the lowest paid workers
receive benefits that replace a higher proportion of their pre-retirement
earnings than higher-wage workers. Many of the lowest paid workers
also have no pensions from their jobs. Any reform must retain
this feature benefiting lower-paid workers.
- Maintain Full
Cost of Living Adjustments?
Social Security's
annual cost-of-living increase (COLA), which is indexed to inflation,
is a crucial protection against the erosion of benefits. Because
women live longer than men, on average, and rely more on Social
Security since they often lack other sources of retirement income,
this provision is particularly important to women. Even when employment-based
pension income is available, it is rarely inflation-protected.
- Project and
Strengthen Benefits for Wives, Widows, and Divorced Women?
Social Security's
family protection provisions help women the most. Social Security
provides guaranteed, inflation-protected, life-time benefits for
the wives of retired workers, widows, and many divorced women,
many of whom did not work enough at high enough wages to earn
adequate benefits on their own accounts. (Similarly low- earning
men married to higher-earning women also have these protections;
however, while 63 percent of female Social Security beneficiaries
aged 65 and over receive benefits based on their husbands' earning
records, only 1.2 percent of male Social Security beneficiaries
aged 65 and over receive benefits based on their wives' earning
records.)
- Preserve Disability
and Survivor Benefits?
Social Security provides
benefits to 3 million children and the remaining care-taking parent
in the event of the premature death or disability of either working
parent. Spouses of disabled workers and the widows (or widowers)
of workers who died prematurely also receive guaranteed life-time
retirement benefits. Two out of five of today's 20 year olds will
face premature death or disability before reaching retirement
age.
- Protect the
Most Disadvantaged Workers from "Across the Board" Benefit
Cuts?
Some proposed "across-the-board"
benefit cuts such as raising the retirement age or the number
of years of work history used in calculating benefits would disproportionately
hurt those with the most physically demanding or stressful jobs
who cannot work more years, as well as those who have low life-time
earnings, including many women (because they move in and out of
the labor force to provide family care), minorities, temporary,
seasonal and part-time workers, agricultural workers, and the
chronically under and unemployed. These workers are also unlikely
to have other employer-provided retirement benefits.
Social Security
has worked for women because.every retired worker receives a
benefit she can count on every month for her entire life, with
the added comfort of knowing that benefit will be increased regularly
to meet inflation.
- Ensure
That Women's Guaranteed Benefits Are Not Reduced By Individual
Account Plans That Are Subject to the Uncertainties of the
Stock Market?
Proposals to divert
workers' current payments from the Social Security system into
individually-held, private accounts, whose returns would be dependent
on volatile investment markets and would not be guaranteed to
keep pace with inflation nor provide spousal benefits (including
benefits to widows and divorced women), would reduce the retirement
income of many women. Without the guarantees of a shared insurance
pool, cost-of-living increases, and spousal and lifetime benefits,
many women could easily outlive their assets.
- Address the
Care-Giving and Labor Force Experiences Of Women?
The Social Security
system is based on marriage and work patterns that have changed.
Currently, the benefit formula, which generally helps those with
low life-time earnings, also favors those with 35 years of labor
force participation, years which many women lack because of family
care-giving. Moreover, the effects of sex-based wage discrimination
during their working years are not fully offset by the more generous
treatment low earners receive. Such issues as divorce, taking
time out of the workforce for caregiving, the differences in current
benefits between one and two-earner couples, and the inadequacies
in benefits for surviving spouses must be considered at the same
time that solutions to strengthening the financial soundness of
the system are being sought.
- Further Reduce
the Number of Elderly Women Living In Poverty?
Social Security
has helped reduce poverty rates for the elderly, from 35 percent
in 1959 to less than 11 percent in 1996. In 1995, the poverty
rate for all women over the age of 65 was 13.6 percent while the
poverty rate among women aged 65 or older who lived alone was
23.6 percent. Without Social Security, the poverty rate for women
over 65 would have been an astonishing 52.9 percent. Nevertheless
unmarried women still suffer disproportionately; single, divorced,
and widowed women aged 65 or older have a poverty rate of 22 percent,
compared with 15 percent for unmarried men and 5 percent for women
and men in married couples.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
The National
Council of Women's Organizations is a non-partisan network comprised
of the leaders of over 100 women's organizations, which together
represent more than six million women. Organizational members
focus primarily on promoting public policy and legislative strategies
affecting women. Membership in the Council is diverse and includes
organizations working on a broad spectrum of issues including
equal employment opportunity, economic equity and development,
education and job training, reproductive health, as well as the
specific concerns of mid-life and older women, girls and young
women, women of color, religious women, business and professional
women, homemakers and retired women
Contact c/o National
Committee on Pay Equity, 1126 16th Street, NW, Washington, DC
20036 Tel: (202) 331-7343 Fax: (202) 331-7406
Womens and Social
Security Taskforce Members: Janice Weinman, American Association
of University Women; Nancy Zirkin, American Association of University
Women; Gail Shaffer, Business and Professional Women/USA; Suzanne
Stokes, Business and Professional Women/USA; Martha Burk, Center
for the Advancement of Public Policy; Jennifer Jackman, Feminist
Majority Foundation; Eleanor Smeal, Feminist Majority Foundation;
Heidi Hartmann, Institute for Women's Policy Research; Shoshana
Riemer, NA'AMAT USA; Susan Bianchi-Sand, National Committee on
Pay Equity; Jane Smith, National Council of Negro Women; Jan Erikson,
National Organization for Women; Nancy Duff Campbell, National
Women's Law Center; Joan Entmacher, National Women's Law Center;
Mal Johnson, National Women's Conference; Deborah Briceland-Betts,
Older Women's League; Roberta Weiner, Older Women's League; Donna
Allen, The Woman Activist Fund; Cindy Hounsell, Women's Institute
for a Secure Retirement
The
National Jobs for All Coalition is a project of the Council on Public
and International Affairs.
|
