Labor & Employment Law

Report Shows Social Security Is Strong for the Long Term

By Mike Hall

Despite the nation?s overall economic problems, Social Security is still in long-term strong shape, according to the most recent report by the Social Security Board of Trustees. The trustees project that after 2037, tax revenue will be sufficient to pay 78 percent of full benefits. The projected funding shortfall over 75 years is actually lower than in last year?s report.

Also, a report by Medicare?s Board of Trustees shows that the recently enacted health care reform law will significantly slow Medicare cost growth,   thereby extending the life of Medicare?s trust fund for 12 years, reducing Part B premiums and reducing the federal deficit.

Social Security?s $2.5 trillion trust fund will continue to grow for another 14 years and Social Security will pay out full benefits from its own dedicated resources for another 27 years, according to the report.

Says AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka:

The reports are a needed comeuppance to right-wing, ideological opponents of Social Security and Medicare who, year after year, twist the facts to undermine public confidence in these essential programs, hoping that this will lessen public resistance to their wildly unpopular agenda of benefit cuts,  privatization, and vouchers.

The report is not likely to slow what Nancy Altman and Eric Kingston, co-chairs of the just-launched coalition Strengthen Social Security…Don?t Cut It, call the growing drumbeat that has

convinced much of the political and media elite that Social Security is in crisis, unaffordable, out of date, and should be changed fundamentally?or at the very least, cut back for those not yet retired.

Click here to read their recent op-ed in the Cap Times.

The federal budget deficit commission, by all accounts, is considering benefits cuts, including raising the retirement age, even though as the AFL-CIO told a House Ways and Means committee hearing last month, Social Security ?is not a principal contributor to deficits in the short or the long term.?

Electrical Workers (IBEW) President Edwin Hill writes in a Huffington Post column this week that along with anti-Social Security politicians like House Minority Leader Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio), Wall Street also is singing in the benefit-cut chorus.

Former Lehman Brothers chief executive Peter Peterson is launching a multi-million dollar campaign to convince voters that without immediate cutbacks to Social Security benefits, our country faces imminent financial collapse.

In addition, Hill writes that ?a swath of new Tea Party-inspired? GOP candidates have

gone on record in support of privatizing Social Security, including Senate candidates Sharron Angle in Nevada and Rand Paul in Kentucky? [and Ohio Rep. John Boehner] have dodged the question about whether or not the GOP will try to privatize Social Security if it takes over Congress in November.

Altman says politicians ?should stop scaring the American people.?

Social Security is strong and should be strengthened, not cut. The reality is the biggest threat to Social Security is the politicians in Washington who continue to play politics with this issue.

The Campaign for America?s Future (CAF) has launched a new campaign to send a message to every politician in Washington?Hands off Social Security!

You can click here to sign the petition that tells lawmakers:

We need to strengthen Social Security, not cut it. That is why I oppose any cuts to Social Security benefits, including increasing the retirement age. I also oppose any effort to privatize Social Security, in whole or in part.

CAF is partnering with MoveOn.org, Democracy for America, Credo Action and the Teamsters to send the messages.

Also, as part of the upcoming 75th anniversary (Aug. 14) of Social Security being signed into law, the Alliance for Retired Americans wants to hear your stories about how Social Security has made a difference in your life?or positively impacted a family member, neighbor or friend. It could be a

• A story about you, a family member, a friend or a neighbor.
• A story about Social Security helping a family survive after a tragedy
• A story about Social Security making retirement possible.

If you are a younger worker who would be affected by cuts in Social Security benefits or raising the retirement age?especially if you are one of 78 million Americans who does not have a retirement plan through your employer or has a 401(k) slammed by the economy, you can submit you concerns and worries about Social Security too.

You can submit your story to the American Stories Project here.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on August 05, 2010 (boomark / email).