Unless Social Security Is Expanded with Increased Funding, We Face a Crisis of Boomers In Poverty

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http://www.alternet.org/economy/new-impetus-modernizing-and-expanding-social-security



A majority of Americans, especially women and people of color, will spend their final years living in poverty in coming decades unless Social Security is improved and expanded—not cut back as Republicans and President Obama seek—and there are many fair ways to accomplish that, experts told a congressional briefing last week.

“Don’t listen to anyone inside the Beltway,” said longtime Democratic pollster Celinda Lake. She said she’s surveyed voters in every state and found Americans take a completely different view than Washington’s political leadership. “Real people are wildly in favor of Social Security, wildly supportive of it. And this is a voting issue in 2014.”

Lake’s remarks came after a series of stunning presentations describing why the country was on the brink of a staggering retirement crisis unlike anything Americans have heard about from debt-obsessed Republicans or the White House. The takeaway is that there needs to be a new and entirely different political discussion—and congressional response—about what Social Security provides after a lifetime of work or an unexpected tragedy, so millions of Americans don't become desperately poor.

“There is a retirement income crisis. It’s huge. Two-thirds of working Americans cannot maintain their standard of living in retirement—and that assumes they work until 65,” said Syracuse University’s Eric Kingson, co-director of Social Security Works, which convened the day-long session with Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa. “Somewhere in the discussion about Social Security we forget that its purpose is to assist the American people… The end is the kind of society we want; the kind of support we want.”