originally posted at Unbossed
The Bush Administration's onslaught against safety net programs for the poor--whom are disproportionately children--is all too well known:
- $10 billion in cuts to Medicaid over four years
- cutting and underfunding federal budgets for pass-through anti-poverty program state grants
- threats to eliminate the Community Development Block Grant program
- unfunded mandates such as No Child Left Behind which were touted to address achievement gaps for poor students
- shifting program funds to unqualified faith-based organizations
- the privatization of education and social services to reward political allies in the corporate sector over the needs of citizens.
One aspect of the Social Security debate that has been completely under-reported in both the blogosphere and mainstream media is the potentially devastating effect the proposed changes to Social Security tax collections and distributions will have on poor children and the children of disabled or dead parents.
Yesterday, the
Center for Budget and Policy Priorities released a report,
Social Security Lifts 1 Million Children Above the Poverty Line, clearly demonstrating the threats to poor children with The White House's push to privatize Social Security:
A little-known aspect of the Social Security program is its powerful role in providing income security for children. Census Bureau data show that 5.3 million children lived in families that received income from Social Security in 2002. Many of these children qualified themselves for Social Security payments because they were the survivor or dependent of a deceased, disabled, or retired worker who qualified for Social Security. Other children do not receive payments themselves but live in families where someone receives Social Security.
The impact of the majority of traditional government-funded safety net programs on child poverty is dwarfed by Social Security:
When comparing the effect on the aggregate childhood poverty gap--the cumulative dollar amount by which the incomes of all poor families with children fall short of the poverty line--Social Security does more to reduce childhood poverty than any other program, according to the CBPP. In 2002, Social Security accounted for a 21 percent decrease in the poverty gap, whereas the Earned Income Tax Credit and food stamps provided 20% and 15% reductions, respectively. Social Security's ability to reduce the poverty gap was more than triple that of unemployment compensation (6 percent) and more than double TANF (9 percent).
CBPP's analysis also revealed that from 2000-2002, more than 10,000 children were lifted above the poverty line in half of the states because of Social Security benefits. In 2003, the official federal poverty line was $18,810 for a family of four, or roughly a full-time working wage of $9.04/hour.
And remind me what the minimum wage is under George W. Bush? Compassionate conservative, my ass.
Many folks here have rightfully spoken out on the President's misleading statements about Social Security--okay, let's call 'em what they are, LIES--about the risks inherent in privately invested accounts and the fact that middle- and low-income Americans would receive reduced benefits under Bush's plan. Notwithstanding, Bush's most aggregious claim that families of workers who die before retirement age never receive benefits from a system that the wage-earners have paid into without his privatization scheme. That is completely and utterly a bald-face lie.
Currently, spouses, minor children, and dependent parents are eligible to receive survivor benefits under the Social Security program. However, according to CBPP, Bush's proposal penalizes working families:
Indeed, from listening to the President, one might have thought that the only people whose Social Security benefits would be reduced are affluent retirees. One would not know that the minor children and widows of modest-income wage earners who died prematurely also would be subject to benefit reductions.
Most significantly, the President created a highly misleading impression about what would happen to a worker's private account if the worker died early. He portrayed the private account as simply being bequeathed to the deceased worker's family. But that is not how the President's proposal works. Under his proposal, the surviving spouse would inherit both the deceased spouse's private account and the debt that the deceased spouse owes to the Social Security system to pay for having diverting money into a private account.
What this means is that if the deceased worker's account earned less than 3 percent above inflation, the surviving spouse would lose money; the debt she owed to Social Security would be larger than the account she inherited, and she would be made worse off by inheriting the account. This loss would be on top of the Social Security benefit losses that she and her children would suffer as a result of the application of progressive price indexing to survivors benefits.
Once again, the Bush plutocracy is selling the American people a bill of goods that serves only to enrich their political cronies through the blood, sweat, and tears of working people.
Wake up, sheeple!