DAILY SUMMARY May 31 - June 2

[National Dialogue Moderator <moderator>]

	DAILY SUMMARIES FOR MAY 31-JUNE 2,1999
		WOMEN AND MINORITIES


MODERATOR'S QUESTION - MAUREEN WEST asks us whether women and
minorities who have been paid less over their working years and have
faced greater job discrimination should have that unfairness
preserved in lesser retirement benefits? Alternatively, should
there be civic equality in retirement with all citizens who have
worked a minimum number of years receiving the same cash benefit.

SENATOR GREGG graciously responded to the panelists' questions in
a lengthy post on Wednesday.  He stated that his reform proposal
would increase equity under the system by increasing the benefits
paid to a low-income two-earner couple in comparison to a high-earner
one-earner couple. He fashioned his plan to increase equity 
for each birth cohort and deliberately adopted a plan that
shores up both Social Security and the private retirement savings system.
In order to address future funding problems, he chose to adopt
advance funding of benefits to reduce the burden on future workers.
His plan both provides incentives for individuals to save more and
strengthens the safety net by adding progressivity.

In handling divorce, his proposal maintains the status quo for the
Social Security benefit but provides that a PRA would be available
for division if the couple divorced prior to retirement.  His plan
also would gradually phase up the widow's benefit to 75% of their
combined benefits.  He also provides a caregiving credit by adding
5 dropout years to the AIME formula for the spouse with lesser
lifetime earnings.  He also thinks that his plan will address the
needs of the homemaker who becomes disabled in a more equitable
fashion than does the current system. In addressing poverty rates
he notes that these will be reduced due to the added progressivity
in the basic defined benefit. He notes that his plan would result
in a better rate of return and that prior to retirement the PRA
would be inheritable.  He also thinks that his proposal is the
fairest in terms of generational equities and that by dealing with
the system's cash flow problems, huge future tax increases will
not be needed to pay off the trust fund balances.


PANELISTS' RESPONSES:

DARCY OLSEN submitted her list of questions to ask the Congressional
participants in our concurrent panel on Current Legislative Proposals.

HEIDI HARTMANN is troubled by lifelong workplace inequities carrying
into retirement. She would like to equalize the poverty rates for
men and women in retirement rather than having the women's rate
nearly double the men's.  She points to the social insurance systems
in other countries where everyone is provided a minimum benefit
that is more generous than ours and where one's lifetime earnings
can then add to this benefit. She thinks this is fairer because at
some point in life everyone should be entitled to a decent standard
of living.  Ms. Hartmann also endorses Ms. Rappaport's list of questions
for the legislative roundtable.

WILLIAM SPRIGGS rephrases the question to ask whether Social Security
could be made more progressive and suggests raising the cap on
taxable earnings. He thinks that breaking completely from the
earnings base would  "undo the political glue" that supports the
program.  He prefers to address racial inequities head on by fighting
job, housing and credit discrimination directly. However he does
support increasing the existing minimum benefit and adjusting
payments to single retirees in order that seniors in the future
not face greater inequality than in the past.

DARCY OLSEN disagrees that women and minorities suffer unfairness
in the workplace their whole working lives. But if they do, she
responds that privatization will improve the situation.  She thinks
all low-income workers will do better under a PRA system and
concludes that only under a "pay-as-you-go-system, in which the
government fritters away our payroll taxes and gives us next to
nothing in return, that redistribution becomes an issue."

HEIDI HARTMANN responds to the questions from three participants.
In answering Carolinec about how to improve the lot for widows,
she indicates that when husbands die widows lose 1/3 to 1/2 of their
total family income while studies show they can only afford to lose
1/4 and maintain the same standard of living.  She suggests transferring
some of the benefits that the couple would have received to the
surviving spouse. She also notes that divorced spouses and single
women also need help if we are to reduce poverty for women in
retirement.  She agrees with this participant that general revenues
should be utilized to supplement Social Security and Medicare.
She also responds to Stephanie that benefits for lifetime low-income
workers need to be raised and suggests a more generous minimum
benefit. She also agreed with another participant who suggested
that Social Security should attempt to redress the gender inequities
in the labor market.

ANNA RAPPAPORT thinks that Social Security should seek to strike
a balance on this issue and that higher minimum benefits may be
one way to achieve greater civic equality. In a second post she
discusses the research cited by Karen Scott supporting privatization.
Ms. Rappaport says that despite this research she remains concerned
about how low-income workers would fare under such a program.  She
notes that these workers who are subsidized under the current system
would lose that subsidy under a PRA.

MODERATOR'S QUESTION - MAUREEN WEST next asks whether each individual's
payroll taxes would be better handled by the worker's investment
of these funds or by the current system. Do we know how our economy
will respond to this massive redirection of capital, and what the
effects will be on women and minorities, and on lower paid workers?
Is all this at least an argument for very gradual conversion to
privatization, if it is to occur?

JOHN BANKS-BROOKS posts twice and in the first he suggests the
questions that he would ask the Panelists in our concurrent
Roundtable.  In his second post he agrees that privatization would
be better for the economy by expanding the pool of capital and
providing increased assets for women and minorities. However he
also thinks the system needs to maintain a strong safety net.

PUBLIC COMMENT:

--Jan Fergus endorses the views of Heidi Hartmann and Anna Rappaport.
She thinks Social Security should provide a "minimum decent standard
of living in retirement for all--but particularly the underprivileged
elderly, a group that is disproportionately female; those taxes
should not produce yet another system, privatized or not, whereby
the rich in this country get richer."

--Richard Arsinow suggests that if a universal benefit is to be
adopted that it not be financed by a payroll tax calculated as a
% of wages but rather should be funded by charging each individual
the same amount each year. He outlines a design for such a program
in his post; he also does not think such a benefit should be means
tested.

--Dora Noble also raises fraud by the medical profession in the
Medicare program as an issue.

--Michael Jones suggests that another way to fund Social Security
is to turn it into a fully means test social welfare program. He
thinks this would force politicians to stop promising benefits to
everyone.

--Ruth Reilly thinks that women and minorities do get severely
shortchanged during their working lives. She points to the fact
that she receives benefits based on her husband's work history not
her own even though they were comparably credentialed and she worked
longer that he did. But she agrees with William Spriggs that these
workplace inequities would be better addressed outside of Social
Security.  What she strongly supports is the payment of a living
stipend to every eligible American under the program.

--Dora Noble agrees with some of what each roundtable panelists
says but believes that men still make out better under this system
than is equitable.

--RRand responds to an earlier post by Dora Noble objecting to the
status of African-Americans as a minority. He responds that
African-Americans make up 12% of the population and that given the
legacies of slavery, segregation and discrimination they certainly
are entitled to be regarded as a minority population.

--Javier Jimenez responds to Ruth Reilly by arguing that PRAs would
have treated her better because she could have inherited her
husband's account. He also criticizes her for advocating the payment
of greater benefits and thinks she is advocating class warfare.

--Nancy Hays supports the structure of the existing system and
thinks we should ensure its solvency.  She thinks we need to ensure
fairness and equity in the benefits received by women, minorities
and the disabled.

--Michael Brennan thinks that women and minorities would be the
big losers under privatization.  He thinks that funding the transition
costs of such a system will fall particularly hard on these groups.
He points to a study for the Employee Benefit Research Institute
showing that under privatization that the losers would be unmarried
women, low wage earners, African-Americans and one-earner households.

--Ruth Reilly asks why non-working widows are paid benefits at a
higher rate than widows who worked and contributed to the system?

--Carolyn Cox states that low-income workers are the ones most
short-changed by Social Security because of having fewer discretionary
dollars to save.  She points out that public employees who are not
in the system would not transfer into it. She also thinks that Anna
Rappaport and Heidi Hartmann correctly identify the problems that
women face but are offering the wrong solutions.


Barbara Brandon