In a questionnaire for the AFL-CIO completed this spring, Hillary Clinton
said that she would consider increasing Social Security benefits, or "enhance it to meet new realities."
"I'm especially focused on the fact that we need to improve how Social Security works for women," she wrote in the questionnaire, which was seen by Reuters and confirmed by three union sources.
"I also want to enhance benefits for our most vulnerable seniors," she wrote, adding that she will have proposals on retirement security for Americans "in the weeks and months ahead." […]
Clinton said this month that she would consider raising the cap on the amount of earnings taxable for Social Security, but has otherwise said little about the program.
However, her main rival for the Democratic nomination, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, has proposed expanding the program's benefits.
And, of course, every Republican candidate besides Mike Huckabee who has offered an opinion on Social Security says it has to be cut in some way. That Clinton is focusing on women is important, because more women than men are relying on Social Security entirely for their retirement—
nearly 3 in 10, and the average annual Social Security benefit for women is $4,000 less than what men receive. That's a factor both of lower wage earnings for women—the wage gap Clinton has talked about in the campaign—and women taking time out of the workforce. An encouraging sign in Clinton's thinking about the issue are her advisors including Teresa Ghilarducci, a professor of economics at The New School, who advocates for raising the minimum benefit to the poverty level for all seniors, and Ann O'Leary, who "wrote a Center for American Progress report in 2012 partly on 'caregiving credits' within Social Security to help mitigate penalties in the program for years of unpaid family caregiving."
We haven't seen the specifics on Clinton's plans yet, but by all indications she's moving in the right direction, particularly when contrasted with Republicans. Fewer and fewer Democrats seem to be hewing to the old Third Way conventional wisdom that the only way to "save" Social Security is to hurt old people by taking benefits away from them. That's good news for Social Security, and good news for Democrats' prospects in 2016, as well.