Values

[Anna Rappaport <anna_rappaport@mercer.com>]

I would like to add a couple of comments to the values discussion:

One of our values should be to reduce poverty among the elderly.
While overall, the poverty rate is about 12% among the elderly, it
is much lower among couples, and much higher among single, widowed,
divorced and separated women.    Without Social Security, the
poverty rate would increase to a far higher level for many elderly
Americans.

Another value should be fairness, which should be applied between
single and dual income earner families, as well as between other
groups.  The problems of decline in economic status at time of
widowhood are particularly severe for elderly women who were part
of two earner families.  They get relatively much lower survivor
benefits (when the benefits are viewed as a percentage of the
couple's benefits) than the widow in a single earner family.  For
example, we have two families who earned $34,000 in 1998 and retired
at age 65 in 1998 - one a single earner family, and one a dual
earner family with each spouse earning $17,000 a year.  If the
husband died shortly after retirement, the widow in the first family
gets about $1,075 a month, compared to $675 for the widow in the
dual earner family.

Anna Rappaport