Business and Professional Women/USA

Business and Professional Women/USA
BPW/USA
WOMEN MEAN BUSINESS
2012 Massachusetts Ave NW
Washington, DC 20036
Tel: 202.293.1100
Fax: 202.861.0298
The Leading Advocate for Working Women

Women Are Central to Social Security Reform Debate
Business and Professional Women/USA (BPW/USA) is the leading advocate for working women. BPW/USA represents 70,000 working women across the country in more than 2,000 local organizations nationwide.
BPW/USA's stake in Social Security reform stems from our concern about the prevalence of poverty among women in their senior years. Women live longer than men, earn less and are more likely to be dependent on Social Security for most or all of their retirement income. Thus, working women have a significant stake in the reform options currently being considered. Their voice will be crucial to building the coalition necessary to enact reform legislation.
Several factors contribute to women's vulnerability to economic insecurity in old age. A lifetime of lower wages due to the wage gap between the earnings of men and women translates into significantly less money in retirement. The U.S. Census Bureau estimates the wage gap between the earnings of men and women to be 26%. This means that women are earning on average only 74 cents for every dollar a man is paid. For African-American or Hispanic women, the wage gap is even wider.
Women remain disproportionately represented in lower-paid, female-dominated occupations. Women are much more likely to leave the workforce and three times as likely to work part-time to accommodate care-giving responsibilities. Lower earnings mean lower Social Security benefits and lower pension checks-if women are lucky enough to have pensions at all. The result is a life of poverty for far too many women in their senior years. Compounding the problem is the fact that the average woman lives seven years longer than their male counterparts.
Three out of four working women earn less than $23,000 annually. Even a disciplined saver will have trouble accumulating much in savings at that level. Thus they are more likely to be dependent on Social Security for more if not all of their retirement income.
In addition, most women don't even have a pension, regardless of its size. Women are more likely to be working in low-wage, service, part-time jobs and/or to work for small businesses-where pension coverage is the most sparse. Although about 48 percent of full-time female workers have some form of pension coverage, a majority still do not. And only 39 percent of all female-full and part-time-workers are covered.
Clearly, there has been some progress in expanding pension coverage. However, that progress has been undermined by ongoing structural barriers and by the overall shift away from defined benefit, or "basic pension" plans to do-it-yourself, defined contribution plans like 40 1 (k)s. Again, lower wages mean that women have fewer dollars to invest for their retirement. And again, Social Security becomes even more important.
The size of a beneficiary's benefits is based on the amount of contributions made by the worker. This is fair as long as women are paid what they are worth. Any reforms that address Social Security solvency must consider the economic reality for today's working women.
BPW/USA, working in coalition with the National Council of Women's Organizations, will participate in the public dialogue on Social Security and will assess each reform proposal based on its impact on women-the majority of Social Security recipients. BPW/USA has endorsed the National Council of Women's Organization's Social Security Check List to evaluate each reform proposal.
Women's Checklist on Social Security Reform
Does each reform proposal:

Continue to help those with lower lifetime earnings, who are disproportionately women?

Maintain full cost of living adjustments?

Protect and strengthen benefits for wives, widows and divorced women?

Preserve disability and survivor benefits?

Protect the most disadvantaged workers from 'across the board' benefit cuts?

Ensure that women's guaranteed benefits are not reduced by individual account plans that are subject to the uncertainties of the stock market?

Address the care giving and labor-force experiences of women?

Further reduce the number of elderly women living in poverty?

BPW/USA has had a long-standing interest in retirement security issues and Social Security reform. BPW/USA is working not only to effect change on Capitol Hill, but also to educate BPW/USA members about the importance of retirement planning and working with organizations like the Womens Institute for a Secure Retirement (WISER), to ensure a safe retirement for all Americans. In February 1999, BPW/USA is hosting a conference in Washington, DC, which will bring together several hundred working women to focus on the various Social Security reform options, particularly how they will impact women. Our goal is to empower these women to become active in the Social Security debate by encouraging them to hold Social Security forums in communities across the nation.
Business and Professional Women/USA (BP W/USA) includes 70,000 members and more than 2,000 local organizations nationwide. BPW/USA's mission is to achieve equity for all women in the workplace through advocacy, education and information.