OWL
THE VOICE OF MIDLIFE AND OLDER WOMEN
666 11TH STREET, NW, SUITE 700
WASHINGTON, DC 20001
202-783-6686
FAX 202-638-2356
OWL is the only national grassroots membership organization to
focus solely on issues unique to women as they age. OWL believes
in keeping Social Security solvent. We welcome this discussion of
a full range of options to strengthen Social Security because it
is the foundation of women's retirement security.
Any effort to strengthen Social Security must be analyzed for its
impact on women. If Social Security works well for women, providing
them with adequate and guaranteed benefits, it will work for
everybody. Because of their work and life patterns, women rely on
Social Security for a greater share of their retirement income than
men. Until the structural barriers that prohibit women from achieving
retirement income parity with men are removed, we must maintain
and strengthen the core of most women's retirement income, Social
Security.
Women have a unique stake in this debate:
- At age 65, women comprise 60 percent of all Social Security
beneficiaries, but by age 85, they are 72 percent of all recipients.
The fastest growing cohort of population is women over the age of
85.
- Women earn, on average, only 74 percent of what men do. That
means, for an average-waged job, they have $250,000 less in lifetime
earnings at retirement than their male counterparts. They are almost
twice as likely to be living in poverty as older men. Social
Security represents 90 percent of income for 27 percent of older
women; for 20 percent Social Security is their sole source of
income.
- The average woman spends a median 11.5 years out of the workforce,
usually caregiving for children, elderly family members, or ailing
spouses. Those are years she is not paying in to Social Security,
vesting in a pension, or saving in any other way for her retirement.
Women are being punished in retirement for taking responsibility
for their families during their prime earning years. The flexible
work that allows women to be caregivers is usually low-waged, with
few benefits, and because they stay in jobs an average of 3.5 years,
it is difficult for them to vest in pensions, as most plans vest
only after five years. Only 14 percent of women over 65 receive
any income from pensions.
- Women live an average of six years longer than men. Life expectancy
at age 65 is currently 19.2 years for women compared to 15.6 years
for men. Women have smaller retirement incomes which must last
for a longer period of time. Women are three times more likely to
be widowed than men. Four out of five women in the 85 plus age
group are widowed. As widows women are five times more likely to
be poor than women who are in couple.
OWL's principles for assessing any proposed Social Security reform
to insure that it will work for women are:
- Social Security must remain an earned right. Social Security is
an integral component of the social insurance compact that America
has made with its citizens, and must always provide equitable
coverage for those who have paid for it.
- Social Security should be an equitable program. Women, people
with disabilities, racial and ethnic minorities, low and moderate
income working people, and families must all be treated in way that
will provide fair and equal outcomes today and in the future.
- Social Security should be genuinely gender-neutral in its
outcomes. The specific inequities faced by women, caused by their
traditional employment histories and life patterns, must be
specifically addressed so that women of future generations will,
when they retire, receive all the benefits to which they are
entitled.
- Social Security should provide adequacy-maintaining benefit
levels for all recipients. Any proposed benefit cuts implemented
in efforts to maintain the program's solvency would disproportionately
harm women and minorities; temporary, seasonal and part time workers;
and the chronically under- and unemployed.
- All existing and new revenue sources must be explored before
any changes in Social Security's structure are undertaken to assure
its future solvency. Modification of existing program fundamentals,
such as the calculations of cost-of- living increases through the
Consumer Price Index, changes in the retirement age, and raising
the floor for the taxation of benefits; as well as ideas such as
income caps, earnings sharing, taxation of unearned income, shifts
in the allocation of spousal and survivor benefits, and the use of
general revenues, must be carefully analyzed for their consequences
for women, and their distributional impact generally, before any
radical changes that could destroy the foundation of the program
are proposed.
- Social Security must keep Americans secure. No changes should
affect current recipients. There should be no ex post facto effects
of legislation on current recipients.
- Major changes in Social Security must not be made in isolation.
Any changes in benefits and/or revenues must be considered in the
context of projected changes in Medicare, Medicaid, private retirement
benefits and other aspects of the government's social insurance
programs that have a profound impact on women's lives.
- Information on the impact of Social Security reform must be
provided to the public by the Social Security Administration.
Adequate funding should be provided for comprehensive public
education about Social Security and any changes being proposed.
The distributional and other effects of structural reform and other
proposed policy options for Social Security and other programs
administered by the Social Security Administration must be analyzed
and made publicly available.
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