women

Two Birds with One Stone: Strengthen Social Security and Lower Unemployment at the Same Time

Natale Zimmer — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 18:45:56 -0400

Cross posted from the Huffington Post

The recession has had victims across generations, from retired Americans who have lost value on homes and stock investments and need to go back to work, to those planning to retire soon, who now find they can't, to recent graduates, who are looking for jobs, but find there are no openings. The President and some members of Congress are sounding alarm bells about the deficit, and targeting Social Security for cuts. But cutting Social Security will not solve any of the above problems.

Social Security is not in crisis, despite the alarmist rhetoric. Don't be fooled. The Social Security surplus, often referred to as the Trust Fund, is $2.4 trillion dollars. It's enough to continue to pay out benefits through 2037, without a single change, and the funding was planned this way because we knew the boomers would create a bubble when they began to retire, requiring a surplus. In the recent past, the federal government has borrowed from the surplus, which is counted as part of the national debt. It's been used to pay for wars, bank bailouts, and Bush-era tax cuts. But we can't reduce the debt by defaulting on those notes. It's our money, we paid in, and the government owes it back to us.

It's the recession, stupid. Some are trying to use recent Congressional Budget Office numbers to heighten overreaction. It's true that this year, Social Security is paying out in benefits more than it is taking in (it's a tiny amount - 0.012% of the surplus). This isn't because of poor planning, it's because of the recession. We all know many people have been laid off or had hours cut. Fewer people working means fewer paychecks from which to make Social Security contributions. Some people who were planning to retire now are finding they can't afford to - with 401(k)s having lost so much value, homes having lost value, and banks being out of the business of lending, the funds people planned to use in retirement aren't there now. Others who planned to retire in a few years found themselves forced into early retirement or unemployed. Those forced into early retirement are drawing from Social Security earlier than planned, which contributes to this year's imbalance between contributions and payouts. This isn't because the formula is bad, or the program is underfunded, but because of the recession. As the economy recovers, this problem will resolve itself.

Because of the recession, those who are still employed are finding they cannot retire as planned. The money just isn't there, and Social Security payments averaging $13,800 per year - about $11,000 for women - just aren't enough for many people to survive on. So Americans who would have retired aren't. That results in fewer jobs being available to the next generation of workers. They can't get in, especially in a market with fewer jobs to begin with, if older workers don't retire, letting others move up, and creating new openings at the entry level.

Two birds with one stone: We can strengthen Social Security and reduce unemployment in one go; by lowering the retirement age and modestly increasing benefits, older workers who were hoping to retire will be able to, and this will open up job opportunities for recent graduates desperate to enter the labor market. We can pay for all of this by eliminating the Social Security income tax cap, which would only impact the 6% of individuals (not households) with over $106,800 in annual income. Lower unemployment. A secure retirement with more money going into Social Security. Steps toward ending the recession. This plan addresses all the problems identified at the start.

Younger Americans want to work. Many older Americans want to retire. We can strengthen Social Security and reduce unemployment by making the above changes, and ultimately, these steps will help reduce the deficit as well.

Check out SocialSecurityMatters.org for more info.

Natale Zimmer, is the Health Policy Director for OWL - The Voice of Midlife and Older Women

Gigi Jones

G Jones — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 22:57:08 -0400

Community developer interested in empowering communities to be their best, providing education and safety for children, decent affordable housing, and good jobs with good pay and career ladders.

I do not put personal information on the web because I never know where it may end up or who may want to use it for some nefarious reason. However, I am a political junkie who loves blogging and writing comments on issues of importance to me. I hope you won't hold that against me.

Ellen Shaffer

Ellen Shaffer — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 17:24:54 -0400

Ellen T

Ellen T — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 13:07:30 -0400

Women's Wages Less Than Men

Armand Biroonak — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0400

Women earn 78 cents for every dollar earned by men. Over the course of her career, the typical working woman loses almost a quarter of a million dollars in wages.

Gender Wage Gap Begins After Higher Education

Armand Biroonak — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0400

A longitudinal study of male and female professionals found that the gender pay gap begins immediately after college, when women take first jobs that pay only 80 percent as much as men’s first jobs do, and continues throughout women’s lives--even though women earn higher college GPAs, are more likely to complete graduate work or advanced training, and spend about as much time at work as men do.

Gender Wage Gap Narrows at Snails Pace, Despite Legislation

Armand Biroonak — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0400

Since the Equal Pay Act was signed in 1963, the gender wage gap has narrowed by less than half a cent per year. At this rate, women and men will have to wait another fifty years to earn equal wages.

Subprime Lenders Targeted Women

Armand Biroonak — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 00:00:00 -0400

Though women on average have higher credit scores than men do, women are 32 percent more likely than men to have subprime mortgages.

New Report: Recession Taking A Toll On Women

Toby Chaudhuri — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 14:00:00 -0400

Americans who work hard and play by the rules deserve the opportunity to succeed and achieve, but that's simply not the case. Women are facing new and heightened risks in this uncertain economy, according to a new report released today by Sen. Kennedy, D-Mass. Key findings of the report follow.

--In the past year, the unemployment rate among adult women workers has gone up more rapidly than for men — rising from 3.8 percent in March 2007 to 4.6 percent in March 2008, an increase of 20 percent, compared with a 17 percent increase among adult men.

--The downturn has caused women’s wages to fall and this decline is significantly larger than what men have suffered. In 2007, the real median wage for adult women workers dropped 3 percent; wages for adult male workers dropped by .5 percent over the same period. Women’s wages are also more volatile than men’s wages, and they face a much higher risk of seeing large drops in income than men do.

--Women are also disproportionately at risk in the current foreclosure crisis, since women are 32 perecent more likely than men to have subprime mortgages.

--Existing pay disparities for women exacerbate the economic strain on women and on households run by women, since women earn only 77 cents for every dollar earned by men

--Women have significantly fewer savings to fall back on in a time of economic hardship. Non-married women have a net worth 48% lower than non-married men, and women are less likely than men to participate in employer-sponsored retirement savings programs.

The full text of the report can be found here.

Laura Walker

Laura Walker — Mon, 24 Mar 2008 22:33:48 -0400