This is a tale of challenging the narrative, the way I think about Social Security, thanks to the relentless repetition of talking points. It began with a commenter on Daily Kos, the precise comment I cannot remember; but it was a simple idea. The notion that rising average life expectancy, the message produced by the GOP to support raising the retirement age, doesn't apply to everyone equally. If only this counterpoint was presented as consistently.
This is, after all, the Republican narrative -- one I can find easily.
When President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Social Security into law in 1935, it was a lifeline to poor seniors and an easy promise to keep – the retirement age was 65 while life expectancy was 63, noted Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., a member of President Obama's fiscal commission.
"The numbers added up pretty well back then," he said with a chuckle. "It was never designed to be a program that would last 25 or 30 years and so that's one of the reasons why there is so much fiscal pressure on it."
Paul Ryan, of course, of the dubious roadmap to demolish the social safety net, cut taxes for the rich, not actually resolve the deficit for decades, etc.
How well does his chuckling rendition of Social Security circa 1935 mesh with the facts? It has a certain...truthiness to it, but it's amusing to compare it to what the SSA actually has to say about it.
Life expectancy at birth in 1930 was indeed only 58 for men and 62 for women, and the retirement age was 65. But life expectancy at birth in the early decades of the 20th century was low due mainly to high infant mortality, and someone who died as a child would never have worked and paid into Social Security. A more appropriate measure is probably life expectancy after attainment of adulthood.
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Also, it should be noted that there were already 7.8 million Americans age 65 or older in 1935 (cf. Table 2), so there was a large and growing population of people who could receive Social Security. Indeed, the actuarial estimates used by the Committee on Economic Security (CES) in designing the Social Security program projected that there would be 8.3 million Americans age 65 or older by 1940 (when monthly benefits started). So Social Security was not designed in such a way that few people would collect the benefits.
So there's the magic trick, the abuse of statistics like 'average life expectancy' to support the Republican talking point. As I often find with issues like this, the truth is more complicated than the lie. But this part, about how many people it applied to even in 1935, and how infant mortality skews the statistics, is just the beginning. I found it to be much more complicated. And in picking out just a couple more variables to consider, I'm still not doing it justice.
The narrative, supported by that life expectancy figure, is that we're all living longer and so it's proper to raise the retirement age. It's been 70 years. It's like inflation. Sure. Aren't we? What matters is not so much that simple fact itself (the simple lie, of omission perhaps). The devil is in the details.
--Although overall life expectancy is rising, lower-income groups have seen very little increase in post-65 life expectancy in recent years, and some research suggests that lower-income women may be losing ground.
--Slow wage growth and rising inequality are bigger problems for Social Security than increased life expectancy. Longevity gains for younger generations account for only one-fifth of Social Security’s projected 75-year shortfall, while slow wage growth and rising economic inequality account for more than half the projected shortfall.
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In 1984, the payroll tax captured 90% of all income, but that rate had fallen to 84% by 2008.
Polls show that most Americans do not even know there is a cap on the Social Security payroll tax, although lifting the cap could fill a large portion of the projected shortfall, said Heather McGhee of Demos.
How is it that after all this time, most Americans don't even know the payroll tax cap exists, much less how well it protects the rich from higher taxes, or how the gap between rich and poor has made this funding problem worse? It's not even on the table. Not even a point to be negotiated away. Don't even discuss it. Well, it does make that bit of wealth-preserving inequality easier to hide.
Another narrative-breaking issue seldom under discussion, of course, is race, and how life expectancy changes when that variable is thrown into the mix. Although this source is dated, so I won't harp on old numbers, it seems to capture the reasons why. Higher death rates. Higher infant mortality. More accidents, more violence. And the income differential.
The income differential is the most obvious overall explanation for the gap in life expectancy — because it translates into less disposable income available for the more expensive medical, nutritional, care-providing, and educational services that produce health, safety, and well being for the larger population of the U.S.
I'm used to hearing how Republicans want to raise the retirement age and how Democrats oppose this. What I don't hear much of, is why. When I do hear why, it's usually the simple lies of the GOP. I don't know how to present information like this with the same chuckling simplicity as Paul Ryan's misinformation. But it made for an interesting bit of research, anyway.