Briefing Book
White House Conference


Nation Council of Women's Organizations

WOMEN'S CHECKLIST ON SOCIAL SECURITY REFORM
KEEP THE HEART in social security

Social Security is the heart of our nation's social insurance program, providing universal coverage for workers and their families through the pooling of resources that guarantees benefits to all. Check each reform proposal to see if it meets the women's check test.

DOES THE REFORM PROPOSAL...

CONTINUE TO HELP THOSE WITH LOWER LIFE-TIME EARNINGS, WHO ARE DISPROPORTIONATELY WOMEN?
Social Security's benefit formula is structured so that the lowest paid workers receive benefits that replace a higher proportion of their pre-retirement earnings than higher-wage workers. Many of the lowest paid workers also have no pensions from their jobs. Any reform must retain this feature benefitting lower-paid workers.

MAINTAIN FULL COST OF LIVING ADJUSTMENTS?
Social Security's annual cost-of-living increase (COLA), which is indexed to inflation, is a crucial protection against the erosion of benefits. Because women live longer than men, on average, and rely more on Social Security since they often lack other sources of retirement income, this provision is particularly important to women. Even when employment-based pension income is available, it is rarely inflation-protected.

PROTECT AND STRENGTHEN BENEFITS FOR WIVES, WIDOWS, AND DIVORCED WOMEN?
Social Security's family protection provisions help women the most. Social Security provides guaranteed, inflation-protected, life-time benefits for the wives of retired workers, widows, and many divorced women, many of whom did not work enough at high enough wages to earn adequate benefits on their own accounts. (Similarly low-earning men married to higher-earning women also have these protections; however, while 63 percent of female Social Security beneficiaries aged 65 and over receive benefits based on their husbands' earning records, only 1.2 percent of male Social Security beneficiaries aged 65 and over receive benefits based on their wives' earning records.)

PRESERVE DISABILITY AND SURVIVOR BENEFITS?
Social Security provides benefits to 3 million children and the remaining care-taking parent in the event of the premature death or disability of either working parent. Spouses of disabled workers and the widows (or widowers) of workers who died prematurely also receive guaranteed life-time retirement benefits. Two out of five of today's 20 year olds will face premature death or disability before reaching retirement age.

PROTECT THE MOST DISADVANTAGED WORKERS FROM "ACROSS- THE-BOARD" BENEFIT CUTS?
Some proposed "across-the-board" benefit cuts such as raising the retirement age or the number of years of work history used in calculating benefits would disproportionately hurt those with the most physically demanding or stressful jobs who cannot work more years, as well as those who have low life-time earnings, including many women (because they move in and out of the labor force to provide family care), minorities, temporary, seasonal and part-time workers, agricultural workers, and the chronically under and unemployed. These workers are also unlikely to have other employer-provided retirement benefits.

ENSURE THAT WOMEN'S GUARANTEED BENEFITS ARE NOT REDUCED BY INDIVIDUAL ACCOUNT PLANS THAT ARE SUBJECT TO THE UNCERTAINTIES OF THE STOCK MARKET?
Proposals to divert workers' current payments from the Social Security system into individually-held, private accounts, whose returns would be dependent on volatile investment markets and would not be guaranteed to keep pace with inflation nor provide spousal benefits (including benefits to widows and divorced women), would reduce the retirement income of many women. Without the guarantees of a shared insurance pool, cost-of-living increases, and spousal and lifetime benefits, many women could easily outlive their assets.

ADDRESS THE CARE-GIVING AND LABOR FORCE EXPERIENCES OF WOMEN?
The Social Security system is based on marriage and work patterns that have changed. Currently, the benefit formula, which generally helps those with low life-time earnings, also favors those with 35 years of labor force participation, years which many women lack because of family care-giving. Moreover, the effects of sex-based wage discrimination during their working years are not fully offset by the more generous treatment low earners receive. Such issues as divorce, taking time out of the workforce for caregiving, the differences in current benefits between one and two- earner couples, and the inadequacies in benefits for surviving spouses must be considered at the same time that solutions to strengthening the financial soundness of the system are being sought.

FURTHER REDUCE THE NUMBER OF ELDERLY WOMEN LIVING IN POVERTY?
Social Security has helped reduce poverty rates for the elderly, from 35 percent in 1959 to less than 11 percent in 1996. In 1995, the poverty rate for all women over the age of 65 was 13.6 percent while the poverty rate among women aged 65 or older who lived alone was 23.6 percent. Without Social Security, the poverty rate for women over 65 would have been an astonishing 52.9 percent. Nevertheless unmarried women still suffer disproportionately; single, divorced, and widowed women aged 65 or older have a poverty rate of 22 percent, compared with 15 percent for unmarried men and 5 percent for women and men in married couples.

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