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DON'T PRIVATIZE SOCIAL SECURITY! |
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As working women, we need to fight the Bush administration's plans to privatize Social Security, and to fight it we need the facts!
Privatization plans to replace guaranteed benefits with risky private accounts would fatally undermine Social Security, cut benefits drastically, most likely raise workers' retirement age and saddle our children with $2 trillion in debt. We can't let it happen. |
Why Social Security is Especially Important to Women |
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Social Security is the main retirement income for women. Women make up 58 percent of all Social Security beneficiaries aged 65 and older. A quarter of these older women depend on the program as their only income. Without Social Security, more than half of all older women would be living in poverty.
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Women are less likely to have pensions or substantial savings. Only 30 percent of all older women receive income from a pension, compared with 47 percent of men, and our pensions are much smaller. In 2002, half of all older women received a private pension of less than $5,600 per year compared with $10,340 for older men.
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Women benefit from Social Security's progressive benefit formula. Women face wage discrimination in the workplace and tend to be paid less than men -- 24 cents less than every dollar men earn. Women are also more likely than men to be in temporary or part-time jobs, and interrupt their careers to care for children and elderly parents. As a result, women earn less than men during their working lives. A recent study found that, over a 15-year span, women's earnings are 38 percent of men's. Social Security's progressive benefit formula in which workers with low lifetime earnings get benefits that replace a higher percentage of their earnings helps women.
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| There's a Lot at Stake for Women with Privatization |
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"Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are...Texas oil millionaires and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid." -- President Dwight D. Eisenhower, November 8, 1954 |
Social Security provides a defined income that is guaranteed. Regardless of how long you live, the benefit cannot run out or be spent before you die.
- Privatized accounts are based entirely on an individual's savings, which hurts women in particular. For example, if a working mother takes time off to care for a child, she forgoes not only her earnings but also the ability to put funds into her privatized account. When she retires, she will have considerably less in her privatized account. And since privatized accounts don't have a progressive benefit formula, she'll have much less to live off or her retirement income may run out.
- As part of the plan, the Bush administration is also proposing a new formula that would reduce guaranteed benefits below current levels. Privatizing Social Security would cut guaranteed benefits by 40 percent even for workers who don't choose private accounts. The average retiree would lose $152,000 in retirement benefits. Privatized accounts won't make up for the benefit cuts. For people who choose private accounts, the government would take back 50 cents in retirement benefits for every $1 in their accounts. That's on top of the 40 percent benefit cut. Since women often have little retirement income other than Social Security, cuts in benefits would be especially devastating.
- Working women need policies that make our retirement more secure and less risky. We work hard to make ends meet and balance work and family responsibilities. Let's make sure our retirements aren't shortchanged.
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is imperative that union women, through action programs of the
Coalition, become more active participants in the political
legislative process of our unions movement for full employment
and job opportunities, and shorter work weeks without loss of
pay, child care legislation, a livable minimum wage for all
workers, improved maternity and pension benefits, improved health
and safety coverage, expanded educational opportunities, mass
action for final ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment,
guaranteed collective bargaining rights for all workers, the
right to strike and an extension of truly protective legislation
for all workers are only a few of the political action programs
in which CLUW must participate. CLUW does not endorse candidates;
however, we urge CLUW members to participate actively in the
political process. Whenever or wherever possible, CLUW urges
union women to seek election to public office or selection for
governmental appointive office at local, county, state and national
levels. |
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