The greatest progressive triumph of 2016 has been the wholesale adoption of Social Security expansion, from President Obama all the way down the ranks of our elected officials. One of the people who's responsible for this turnaround has for decades been a leader in the defense of Social Security. Nancy Altman is founding co-director of Social Security Works and co-chair of the Strengthen Social Security coalition. She is the author of The Battle for Social Security: From FDR's Vision to Bush's Gamble (John Wiley & Sons, 2005), and co-author, with Eric R. Kingson, of Social Security Works! Why Social Security Isn't Going Broke and How Expanding It Will Help Us All (The New Press, 2015). She's taught both at Harvard University's School of Government and Law School, and served as Alan Greenspan's assistant in his position as chairman of the bipartisan commission that developed the 1983 Social Security amendments. Ms. Altman chairs the Board of Directors of the Pension Rights Center, and serves on the board of the Economic Opportunity Institute. In the mid-1980's, she was on the organizing committee and the first board of directors of the National Academy of Social Insurance, together with Bob Ball, Wilbur Cohen, and Bob Myers, whom she discusses below, in the latest in Daily Kos's Five Questions feature.
1. Can you tell us a little bit about Social Security Works and how it was formed? What is your personal journey that led to your activism with this group?
At the beginning of my career, around four decades ago, I had the privilege to work with and become close to three men who began working on Social Security at its start. They had continued their Social Security work, in increasingly high levels of responsibility and influence, for the remainder of their long lives. Two of the men, Wilbur Cohen, who became Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare (now, Health and Human Services), and Bob Myers, who remains the longest serving chief actuary in the history of the program, began working on Social Security a year before its enactment! The third, Bob Ball, started in 1939, at a Newark, New Jersey field office, in the lowest level job at the lowest college-graduate level pay and eventually rose to the top job, becoming the nation's longest serving commissioner of Social Security ever.
Though none of the three were religious, it was clear that Social Security was their calling. All understood the value of Social Security, how essential it is for all of America's working families. All spent their last decades trying to educate those in power that Social Security works extremely well, that its benefits are modest but vital, and that the question of whether to expand it or cut it is a matter of values, plain and simple.
All led long, productive lives, and all worked tirelessly as advocates for Social Security.. Wilbur Cohen died just a month shy of his 74th birthday while attending a professional conference in South Korea. Bob Ball died in 2008, just shy of his 94th birthday. Bob Myers died two years later in 2010, at age 97. All three remained active in Social Security work until their deaths. Indeed, just months before his death, Ball wrote an op ed for the Washington Post in which he argued that, in contrast to the Post's editorial position, "It's the essence of responsibility…to insist on no benefit cuts [to Social Security]." All three inspire me to this day.
I, together with a colleague, Eric Kingson, who also knew and had worked with all three, recognized that their deaths left a profound hole. We decided that if we could bring together other advocates who shared their and our passion for Social Security, train the next generation of expert defenders and truth-tellers, and all work as hard as we could, perhaps we could accomplish a fraction of the good that they had done.
We decided to form Social Security Works, a group that, in the tradition of Ball, Cohen, and Myers, seeks to educate and speak truth to power. Social Security Works staffs a broad-based coalition consisting of over 350 leading national and state organizations, including netroots and grass roots groups, and groups representing, among others, working families, seniors, women, people with disabilities, veterans, people of color, and those of low income.
We are committed to revealing to policymakers, the media, and the American people how distorted the debate about Social Security has been. For decades, the conversation has been falsely premised on the lies that Social Security will not be there for young workers, and that the program is unaffordable, and therefore must be cut or, worse, radically transformed into savings invested on Wall Street.
2. The movement has made great progress in turning around the narrative on Social Security in just a few years. How do you think it happened that we went from President Obama advocating what amounted to cuts to the program, to his call for expanding it?
Although Ball, Cohen, and Myers did their best, they were no match for the billionaire-funded campaign designed to undermine the confidence of Americans in the future of Social Security. Although the campaign against Social Security has not resulted in benefit cuts, it did succeed in convincing young people that they would never see a penny in benefits and convincing policymakers of both parties that Social Security had to be cut or even radically transformed in order to "save" it.
The truth, of course, is that Social Security's benefits are extremely modest by virtually any standard, and the program is extremely efficiently run, spending less than a penny of every dollar on administration. As the wealthiest nation in the world, at the wealthiest moment in our history, there is no question that the United States could have a vastly expanded Social Security program if it chose. The issue is one of values, not affordability.
At the start, Social Security Works and the coalition it staffs spent most of its time fighting cuts to Social Security as part of a misguided Grand Bargain. But we always recognized that the right policy was to expand Social Security as a solution to challenges facing the nation, including our looming retirement income crisis, our perilous and growing income and wealth inequality, and the financial squeeze on families.
Together with a growing number of champions in Congress, bloggers like you, Joan, and the coordinated work of all parts of our broad-based and diverse coalition, we began to expose the myth of unaffordability and explain the wisdom of expanding, not cutting, Social Security. As in every fight over Social Security from its creation, we had on our side the American people who, poll after poll shows, value Social Security, believe it is more important than ever, do not want it cut, and would like to see it expanded.
The idea of expanding, not cutting, Social Security is an idea that, once spoken and understood as possible, makes sense to people. This year's Democratic Party platform, with its strong Social Security plank calling for expanding, not cutting, Social Security shows how the party now has coalesced around that position. And President Obama announced, in a speech on June 1, that he is in step with the rest of the party in advocating expanding, not cutting, Social Security. The current Democratic position is best seen as a return to the position it has held historically. In some ways, moving away from expanding, not cutting, Social Security was the surprise. After all, expanding, not cutting, Social Security is both profoundly wise policy and winning politics.
The next step is for Republicans to feel the heat, see the light, and join the bandwagon or be voted out of office.
3. What will victory look like to your group and how will you measure it?
Social Security is projecting a modest shortfall which will require legislation sometime in the next decade or so. It will be a victory if that legislation expands and does not cut Social Security while restoring the program to long range actuarial balance. Given where the debate has been, it will be a victory, though smaller, if the program is restored to long range actuarial balance by increasing Social Security's dedicated revenue without cutting benefits. Either way, the victory will not be the end of our work.
In signing Social Security into law, President Roosevelt said that the legislation "represents a cornerstone in a structure which is being built but is by no means complete." Past generations have built on that cornerstone, increasing benefit levels and adding new benefits, including life insurance, disability insurance, health insurance in the form of Medicare, benefits for spouses and divorced spouses, and more. The approach has been incremental. (It is noteworthy that Medicare was designed as a first step toward universal national health insurance.)
Now it is our turn. In addition to increasing benefit levels, we should add paid sick leave, paid family leave, caregiver credits, children's allowances, and more. We should also expand Medicare, including by lowering the age of eligibility from age 65 to age 62 and then to age 55, add a counterpart program for children, and eventually have Medicare for All. These and other expansions will take many decades, particularly in light of the moneyed interests that always have been and always will be arrayed against Social Security.
4. One of the things we've long been pondering over at Daily Kos is how to find and promote common cause between young people—specifically those saddled with huge amounts of student debt—with folks working to secure social insurance programs. What are your thoughts about this?
The old, the young, and everyone in between are natural allies in the fight for improved economic security for all of us. Social Security is stronger and more affordable with a well-educated workforce that has the right to work in well-paying jobs. Consequently, supporters of Social Security should be part of the fight to make college debt free and affordable. Indeed, the right to receive free public education through high school should be extended through the receipt of a bachelor's degree. Social Security supporters should be part of the fight for raising the minimum wage, as well. Those who care about Social Security should be part of the fight to protect workers' rights to bargain collectively, too.
And everyone should be part of the fight to expand Social Security, which is best understood as a family program. Social Security is a program for all generations.
In addition to providing the nation's most secure source of retirement income—income that cannot be outlived—it generally is Americans' most important, and often, only, source of disability insurance and life insurance.
It provides children with monthly benefits when a working parent dies, becomes disabled or retires. Those benefits now stop at age 18 (or 19, if still in high school). Those benefits used to continue until age 22, if the child was in college, university, or post-secondary vocational training. Those benefits should be restored. As I said in response to the last question, paid sick leave, family leave, and other benefits that assist all generations should be added.
President Roosevelt and the other advocates for Social Security had a far-reaching vision. The concept was to provide cradle to grave protection. Those visionary leaders saw themselves erecting a cornerstone to an edifice that would include universal health insurance, temporary and long term disability protection, life insurance, as well as guaranteed employment at good wages, and educational opportunities available to all.
If we, like they, understand that the phrase "Social Security" involves all of these protections—including the ability to start adulthood debt free—all ages will see that, in the words of the Democratic Party, which created Social Security, we are stronger together.
5. What can Daily Kos readers do to help?
The reason the conversation in Washington has changed is because of the American people. I urge Daily Kos readers to go to our website, socialsecurityworks.org, and sign up to receive our emails, which keep everyone apprised of the latest Social Security developments.
It is imperative that elected officials know, through emails, phone calls, letters to the editor, questions at town hall meetings, and in other ways, that you are part of the movement to expand, not cut Social Security. Ask where candidates stand. Don't let them off the hook with empty clichés about "saving" or "fixing" or "strengthening" Social Security. Rather, ask if they will oppose all cuts and will support expanding Social Security. And let them know that your vote will be determined by their answer.