RE: Civic equality in retirement?

[Ruth Reilly <achren2@aol.com>]

As a disabled, retired, widow-woman with social studies and history
degrees, who got sandbagged by life but managed to stay off welfare
and see four children through 6 college degrees, I feel eminently
qualified to agree that American society treats women and minorities
very unfarely all through their lives.  I have been oppressed and
downtrodden since my husband got sick, and abjectly poor since he
died.  I subsist on his--not my--Social Security; for, it is much
higher than mine although we had the same number of degrees, and
he worked less years under Social Security than I did.  I subsist
on a small pension, social security, and the charity of my friends
and family.  I wonder how those with only Social Security in its
lowest payment schedules--who are usually those who have been unable
to save because they hardly made enough to subsist-- survive at
all.

I think first, that the inequities referred to above need to be
addressed outside the Social Security System, and second, that the
Social Security System needs to provide a LIVING STIPEND to every
eligible American.  Legislators please take note of this.
 The greedy have more money than the virtuous poor, but the poor
have more votes.

Senators and Congressmen, will you vote to let the old,  poor, and
sick live decently?  Anything else is a vote against American
ideals.