Social Security Works & Must Be Protected

Republican teabagger extremists would like for Americans to believe that government programs are just a waste of money, and should therefore be substantially cut or eliminated. That's why their only solution to the budget deficit is to cut these programs that help children, the poor, the unemployed, and seniors (while refusing to raise taxes on the rich & corporations, or cutting anything from the bloated military budget).

But they are wrong. While some social programs may not work as well as hoped, they do work to lift some people out of abject poverty. For instance, without the WIC program another 300,000 people would be in poverty (and the same is true of the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program). The SNAP program (commonly referred to as food stamps) is even more effective -- keeping at least 5 million people above the poverty level.

But all programs pale in comparison to Social Security when it comes to keeping Americans out of poverty. Before Social Security was created about half of all the country's seniors were living in poverty. Now that figure is down to around 10%. And as the chart above (from the Economic Policy Institute) shows, without Social Security the number of people living in poverty in the U.S. would rise from 49.8 million to more than 76.2 million (an increase of at least 26.4 million, or about 53%).

Social Security works. It was designed to keep seniors out of poverty, and that's exactly what it does. And it does that without using a single dollar from income taxes. It is now, and always has been, funded completely through a payroll tax (FICA). Every worker pays about 6% of their income into the Social Security Trust Fund throughout their working life (except for the rich, who pay a much smaller percentage of their income), and then receive a monthly check from that Social Security Trust Fund when they retire.

Republicans want you to believe that Social Security is going broke, and will be bankrupt if they don't change it. They want to eliminate the program, privatize it, or substantially cut benefits to "save" it. They are LYING. Social Security has enough money to continue paying full benefits for at least another 20 years. After that, it could still pay benefits at a 75% level even if nothing is done. Obviously, it is not going bankrupt.

And the fix to the future funding problem of Social Security is an easy one. All that needs to be done is to raise the cap on the amount of income that is subject to the FICA tax, or eliminate that cap altogether. This would not affect those in the working or middle classes at all (since the cap is already set above $160,000 a year). It would just make more of the wealthy pay a little more into the system -- and personally, I think they should be paying the same percentage of their income as working people must pay.

Eliminating Social Security would throw nearly 27 million more people into poverty. Privatizing it would put seniors at the mercy of Wall Street, and a market crash (like the one at the end of Bush's presidency) would wipe out the retirement funds for many seniors -- increasing the poverty level by many millions when they retire. And reducing benefits (like going to a chained-CPI method of figuring the cost-of-living adjustment) would  also see millions of seniors being thrown into poverty -- it would just happen a little bit slower (as the real rate of inflation chipped away at their buying power year after year).

We do need to fix Social Security (by adjusting or eliminating the cap on income subject to the FICA tax), but the Republican solutions (elimination, privatization, or benefit cuts) are not the way to do that. They would just increase the poverty level, and do it at the expense of one of the country's most vulnerable groups -- seniors.

Social Security works. It does exactly what it was designed to do -- allow seniors to retire with dignity and without falling into poverty. We could improve it, but we must never damage it. We must protect it because it works.