Elizabeth Warren's Plan for Social Security Looks Smart

[bluewater]

The elderly have also suffered from extreme inequality.
By David Leonhardt

When I was a teenager, my mom showed me a statement that she had received in the mail from the Social Security Administration. It included an annual history of her earnings, which showed a big string of zero’s covering the years when she was in her late 20s and early 30s. “That’s you and your sister,” she explained, laughing.

My mom is doing just fine these days, but anyone who spends years as a stay-at-home parent — or an unpaid caregiver of any kind — faces a financial penalty when it comes time to retire. Our Social Security system doesn’t recognize parenting as the socially and economically valuable job that it is.

That’s not the system’s only inequity, either. It also punishes teachers, police officers, firefighters and other government employees. Their Social Security benefits are cut if their pension is large enough, unlike private-sector workers, who can keep their full Social Security benefit regardless of the size of their private pension.
True, the economy has been kinder to older Americans than younger Americans in recent years (as Warren is well aware). Over all, I’d like to see federal spending become more focused on children and younger workers. But it’s also true that our high-inequality economy hasn’t been easy on most people over the age of 65. Many deserve help.

And as I’m sure you are aware, people over 65 tend to vote at very high rates.
Related: “Americans are pessimistic about the financial health of older Americans,” Kim Parker, Rich Morin and Juliana Menasce Horowitz of the Pew Research Center recently wrote. “Most say that, 30 years from now, those ages 65 and older will be less prepared for retirement than their counterparts today.”

My colleague Paul Krugman has written over the years about both the long-term finances and the politics of Social Security. “America’s overall retirement system is in big trouble,” Paul wrote in 2013. “There’s just one part of that system that’s working well: Social Security. And this suggests that we should make that program stronger, not weaker.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/12/opinion/elizabeth-warren-social-security.html

[mopinko]

1. there is another thread here about this if folks want to catch that.

i love this woman, i really do.