The Op-Ed Touching the 'third rail' by Nancy Altman and Eric Kingson in Monday's Los Angeles Times deserves a special shout-out. The two are co-directors of Social Security Works. As they see it, deficit commission chairs Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles made proposals about Social Security not because it has anything to do with the deficit but because they have it in for the program.
In releasing their plan, the co-chairs went out of their way to make clear that they were proposing changes to Social Security “for its own sake, not for deficit reduction.” This was an acknowledgement that Social Security does not and cannot contribute to the deficit, because it has no borrowing authority and by law cannot pay benefits unless it has sufficient income and reserves to cover their cost. But Simpson and Bowles just couldn’t keep their hands off the program.
Their proposals, raising the age of retirement to 69 from 67 and the age of early retirement from 62 to 64 would have the effect of cutting benefits for these recipients by 6-7 percent. The proposed cuts have been framed by some as attacks on older Americans. And that's true. But they are a worse assault on the younger generation. As Altman and Kingson point out, 20-year-olds now entering the work force would have their Social Security benefits cut by 36 percent compared with Americans retiring now.
The proposal also attacks Americans who, unlike politicians and other millionaires like Simpson and Bowles, don't have cush jobs.
As a new General Accountability Office report concluded, the people who take early retirement often do so because they work in jobs that are too physically demanding to continue or because they have health problems or can no longer find work. Raising the early retirement age will shut out workers who are disproportionately low income and minority, and it will do it when they are most vulnerable, potentially forcing them to seek disability benefits or welfare.
Many progressives warned the minute the names of the commission co-chairs were announced that we'd be headed down this road. Their reputations preceded them. As if it weren't bad enough that stagnant wages for the working classes haven't plagued us for the past 30 years, reducing their eventual Social Security benefits. As if it weren't bad enough that good jobs are being off-shored to cheaper labor markets and Americans forced to accept lower-paying, less-skilled positions - if they can find them - reducing their future Social Security benefits. As if Social Security benefits averaging $13,000 a year weren't already inadequate.
The folks at Social Security Works are asking that we join them next Tuesday, Nov. 30, in a National Call Congress Day to tell our Reps and Senators. The message: Strengthen Social Security, don't cut it. We urge you to be part of that effort.