RE: Response to Questions from Caroline and other Participants

[National Dialogue Moderator <moderator>]

Hi Carolyn,

I think it's great you're participating and I really appreciate
your sending in your comments and suggestions.

First you asked about widows and what could be done.  The problem
for most widows is that they lose 1/3 to 1/2 of their total family
SS benefits when their husbands die and studies show they can only
affrod to lose about 1/4 if they want to maintain the same standard
of living.  In a sense, if we don't want to spend more money, we
have to transfer some of the benefits the couple gets when both
are alive to the survivor alone (usually the woman), so the couple
would live on less and the survivor would have more.  (Right now
retired couples are much less likely to be poor than retired single
men or women, but especially than women.)  Alternatively, we can
spend more money and  give more generous benefits to widows.  A
number of proposals are being bandied about to help the widows.

It turns out, however, that divorced spouses and never married
women also need help.  Since all single women are disproportionately
poor in retirement, and since fewer African American women marry,
more of them are the never married elderly, so helping only widows
is not quite enough to do it.

Second, you also asked about using general revenues.  I couldn't
agree with you more, the Social Security payroll tax is regressive
and it would be far better to supplement revenues for both SS and
Medicare with general tax revenues.  You are also right that
corporate taxes have fallen as a share of total revenue, and it
would be great to raise more of the revenues needed from the
corporate sector.  With more revenues we could make the benefits
more generous in several different ways.  One way I would like to
see more money spent is on benefits for the lowest earners.

Third, another participant (Stephanie?) asked what to do about life
time low wage earners in order to raise their benefits.  Basically,
we could make the minimum benefit more generous than it is now.
We could also structure the system so that everyone got a flat
payment that was modest but enough to live on (virtually everyone
would get this in retirement) and then have added benefits based
on your work record.  Now virtually all benefits are based on the
earnings of the primary worker in the family (usually the husband).

Fourth, another participant pointed out that lack of gender equity
in retirement is based on lack of gender equity in the labor market;
women get paid less, therefore they get less Social Security. Is
if fair to make Social Security over come the weakness of the labor
market?  I think it is fair to ask SS to do that, because I think
our moderator was correct in asking us to think about the concept
of something like civic equity, that at a certain point in your
life, you are truly entitled to your fair share as a citizen and
you actually get it!

Keep up the great questions and comments, participants.


Heidi Hartmann