American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations
815 Sixteenth Street, N.W.
Washington, D.C 20006
(202) 637-5000
http://www.aflcio.org
AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney Statement
on Social Security
America's working families have a huge stake in the future of Social
Security, and the 72 national unions of the AFL-CIO and our 13
million members will be fully engaged in the drive to strengthen
this, our nation's most important and comprehensive family protection
system.
Strengthening the system demands reasoned, responsible changes -
not phony schemes railroaded by extremists to "save" the system by
scrapping it. While the program's finances must be shored up to
meet its commitments to today's workers, radical changes should be
propelled neither by a false sense of "crisis" nor by questionable
long- term economic projections. Rather, changes to strengthen
Social Security must be guided by a clear and full understanding
of the program's role in the lives of ordinary people and of the
real impact of proposed changes on Americans, both direct and
indirect.
In no case should the program's core guaranteed benefits upon which
a majority of older Americans depend be traded in for risky and
expensive private accounts. Furthermore, most Americans cannot
work to age 70 or older, cannot afford cuts in guaranteed benefits,
and will not tolerate changes that make the system less fair.
- Social Security is the foundation of retirement income for
America's workers and their families and the principal insurance
against family impoverishment due to death or disability. Its role
must not be compromised nor its financial condition weakened. Two
thirds of older Americans rely on Social Security for half or more
of their income -- and 30% of them get 90 percent or more of their
income from Social Security. The system's guaranteed benefits are
especially crucial to women and workers of color. Without Social
Security, more than half of people 65 and older would live in
poverty, compared with 11 percent today. And the system provides
benefits to six million workers with disabilities and dependents,
and seven million survivors of workers who have died.
- Social Security must be strengthened so it can meet its commitments
to today's workers, just as it has to workers - without missing a
check - for the last sixty years. But there is no "crisis."
"Sky-is-falling" rhetoric is being used by extremists to undermine
support for the current system and replace it with costly private
investment accounts. A privatized Social Security system would mean
billions of dollars in fees for banks, insurance companies and
investment firms - an estimated $240 billion in the first 12 years
of privatization alone.
- Working families would be heavy losers under privatization.
Privatization proposals call for some combination of:
- raising the retirement age to 70 or older - which would be
especially hard on workers in physically demanding jobs and workers
of color, who have lower life expectancies;
- cutting Social Security's guaranteed benefits (one major proposal
cuts them 48 percent; another reduces the maximum guaranteed benefit
to $4 10 per month);
- reducing or eliminating cost-of-living adjustments, hitting
workers with the longest life expectancies hardest.
In addition, privatization would entail dramatically higher costs
(out of workers' benefits) to finance a likely unworkable system
of 140 million private accounts. It would also leave benefits
dependent on workers' luck or skill as investors and the ups and
downs of the stock market and adversely impact workers' private
pensions.
Addressing the long-run financial challenges of Social Security
does indeed demand responsible changes to the system, and the
AFL-CIO is committed to enacting reforms to address the system's
shortfall. The AFL-CIO Executive Council has agreed upon seven
fundamental principles that reforms must meet, if they are to work
for working families.
- Steps must be taken soon to strengthen Social Security so that
all Americans can be assured that the program will be there for
them.
- Social Security should continue to provide retired and disabled
workers, as well as dependents and survivors, with a guaranteed
monthly benefit, protected against inflation, for life.
- Benefits should not be subject to the whims of the market, and
private accounts should never been substituted for the core defined
benefits the system currently provides.
- The age at which workers are eligible for early or full benefits
should not be raised.
- Social Security should continue to replace a larger share of
past earnings for low-income workers and to provide bigger benefits
to workers who earned higher wages during their careers. Replacement
rates should not be cut.
- Social Security should continue to provide family insurance
protection, with benefits that cover dependent and surviving children
and spouses in addition to disabled and retired workers.
- Government budget surpluses should be used to save Social Security
first, not to pay for tax cuts.
If Social Security did not exist, we would have to create it. No
other system provides every working American with a core guaranteed
retirement benefit protected against inflation for as long as he
or she lives. No insurance policy on the market today matches the
protections Social Security provides to families through its
disability, dependent and survivor benefits. And no private pension
system compares with the efficiency of Social Security's low
administrative cost of less than one percent per dollar paid out
in benefits.
The deliberation over how to strengthen the foundation of retirement
income for working families is undoubtedly one of the most important
national debates for the new century. We should not compromise our
expectations of the system or the security of America's families.
| EXECUTIVE COUNCIL |
| JOHN J. SWEENEY |
RICHARD L. TRUMKA |
LINDA CHAVEZ-THOMPSON |
| PRESIDENT |
SECRETARY-TREASURER |
EXECUTIVE VICE PRESIDENT |
|
| Vincent R. Sombrotto |
Gerald W. McEntee |
John T. Joyce |
Morton Bahr |
| Robert A. Georgine |
Gene Upshaw |
Jay Mazur |
John J. Barry |
| Moe Biller |
Frank Hanley |
James J. Norton |
Michael Sacco |
| Ron Carey |
Arthur A. Coia |
Frank Hurt |
Gloria T. Johnson |
| Douglas H. Dority |
George F. Becker |
Stephen P Yokich |
J. Randolph Babbitt |
| Clayola Brown |
M.A. "Mac" Fleming |
Pat Friend |
Michael Goodwin |
| Joe L. Greene |
Sonny Hall |
Sumi Haru |
Carroll Haynes |
| James La Sala |
William Lucy |
Leon Lynch |
Douglas J. McCarron |
| Arthur Moore |
Arturo S. Rodriguez |
Robert A. Scardelletti |
Robert E. Wages |
| Jake West |
Alfred K. Whitehead |
Andrew L. Stern |
Edward L. Fire |
| Martin J. Maddaloni |
John M. Bowers |
Sandra Feldman |
R. Thomas Buffenbarger |
| Boyd D. Young |
Dennis Rivera |
Bobby L. Harnage, Sr. |
Stuart Appelbaum |
| John W. Wilhelm |
Elizabeth Bunn |
Michael E. Monroe |
|
|
