Social Security bill trying to tie benefits to race, gender

[Robert Oak]

The democratic party has a petition to stop this from Representative Bill Thomas (R-CA)

http://www.democrats.org/action/

But, here is the Meet the Press Transcript: It's so convoluted
reasoning in an attempt to deny women and minorities the same
benefits as white men, it's worth reposting here.

==============================================================

Meet the Press Transcript

MR. RUSSERT: Let me show you something else you said at the National Journal Forum that raised some eyebrows: "Women are living longer relative to men today than they were in 1940. Yet, we never ever have debated gender-adjusting Social Security. ...But, at some point if the age difference continues to separate and more women are in the workforce and you have more of an equality of pay structure in the workforce, at some point somebody might want to suggest that we need to take a look at the question of whether or not actuarially we ought to adjust who gets what, when, and how."

A gender adjustment--what does that mean?

REP. THOMAS: Well, it was one of my ways of getting people to focus on the issue of age. To move from 65 to 68, which we did in 1983, was a benefit cut. But it also creates hardships based upon the occupation that you have, and it creates inequities on who you are and how long you live. You could just as easily have a discussion about occupations as to when would be a fair or an unfair time to require. We also need to examine, frankly, Tim, the question of race in terms of how many years of retirement do you get based upon your race? And you ought not to just leave gender off the table because that would be a factor.

Now, there are people who are saying, "Gee, this is great. We can get them into a box and maybe we can win some seats in the next election over this issue." This ought not to be about the next election. This is about how we have an opportunity given to us by the president, his willingness to work with us to solve some problems that are here and now, but will only get worse. If we're not in a crisis now, we're in a problem. Wait a few years. We will be in a crisis. We ought to examine all opportunities to solve the problem. Then we can dismiss them. But to not look at them denies us an opportunity to have yet another way to solve our problem.

MR. RUSSERT: So if someone is a woman and they live longer, they would get less per year?

REP. THOMAS: It's not that you would do it; it's something that you need to look at. Because if you extend the age beyond 78, if you go to 80 or 82, all of those concerns about race, occupation and gender are exacerbated. And you shouldn't just extend the age without understanding the additional complications and unfairness that you're bringing into the system. That's the point I'm trying to make. Don't look for a simple solution like shifting age without realizing you're creating additional problems for yourself down the road. Same thing with payroll tax. Same thing with individual accounts or other ways to bring additional revenue in the system. All of them should be examined. None of them should be labeled with the pejorative with an opportunity to try to gain seats in the next election. You are doing a disservice to the society if that's your intention in this debate. My goal is to get it as broad as possible, look for bipartisan support and give the president a bill on his desk that he can sign that addresses the real societal inequities that we have with seniors.

MR. RUSSERT: Do you think Congress, Mr. Chairman, would accept any formula that said that people would be treated differently because of their gender or their race?

REP. THOMAS: If we discuss it and the will is not to do it, fine. At least we discussed it. To simply raise the age and find out that you've got gender, race and occupational problems later, I would not be doing the kind of service that I think I have to do. You and I have been around quite a while. We went through the '80s. We went into the '90s. And now we're in the 21st century. We saw the choices that were made in the past. We went to the well over and over again with the same old solutions which really aren't solutions. We've reached the point where we have to fundamentally examine it in my opinion. The president has given us that opportunity. We ought to take it.

[The Backlash Cometh]

1. I understand that the gender gap in morbidity rates has been

closing.

[murphymom]

2. Oh, wonderful!

Women already get shafted on salaries relative to men during their working careers, now they want to "adjust" our social security too! :mad::mad::mad:

[bushisanidiot]

3. I guess we could argue that women should be paid MORE than

men since we live longer.. but that'll never happen.

any way the repukes can shaft women and minorities, they'll do it.

[Warpy]

4. This is such SHIT and against the intention of the program

which was always more a womens' program than anything else.

Before SS, women were dependent upon a husband with a pension. When a husband died, that pension died with him, leaving her destitute. If she had a relative willing to take her in, she finished her life as an unpaid servant. If not, she likely died of "pneumonia," which is what they used to call starvation.

Some men still have the type of pension that will die with them, and women will still be left with nothing but a house they can't pay taxes on if SS is killed.

So all you folks under 35 who hate SS, think of it this way: it's the reason you won't be forced to live with your mother in law. Anything that changes the benefits downward for women increases the likelihood that she will have to move in with you.

Think about it.

[mcscajun]

5. That's why I came up with this: Social Security — A Family Value.

We need to pound that out there at every opportunity. If we want to preserve families, not rip them up, seniors need to know they'll have their benefits when the time comes.

And us singles heading for seniorhood need it more than most.

[Name removed]

11. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Ganja Ninja]

6. Yet another attempt to divide the country by the GOP.

Hey GOP we're tired of your politics of division. Leave your hands off the peoples money you greedy bastards!

[Chef]

7. Social Security

I am not sure where Thomas was going with this. First, women do live longer, thus collect SS longer. However, because they earned less as a rule, or collect based on 50% of their spouse's SS, if it is higher, they collect less. This should be tempered against the fact that lower wage earners collect more because of the progressivness of the benefit payout. Second, blacks (especially men) tend to have shorter life spans than whites. So, is saying they should get more, not less? Bringing up these subjects seems to me to just be a smokescreen to confuse the issue. Remember, we all are in this together and when you start splitting groups out of the pool you screw it up for everyone.

[hunteky]

8. Hmmm, that's not what I understood Thomas to mean...

The operative sentence was "To simply raise the age and
find out that you've got gender, race and occupational
problems later, I would not be doing the kind of service that
I think I have to do."

I believe he means arbitrarily raising SS's full benefit age
in order to "strengthen" it, society might be
denying certain groups their full benefits. 

For example, if men, on average live to 72 and women to 76,
then raising the SS retirement age to 74 will have a disparate
impact on men vs women.

Thomas is telling us that we must be aware of such impacts,
not that we should accept them.

[Robert Oak]

9. the premise is ridiculous is the point

ok, each person gets 1200 a month.

It doesn't matter if a black man lives less or a while woman lives
more.

It's about giving each some money to live on to keep them out of poverty past the age of retirement.

It's also rhetoric to attempt to destroy social security by splitting
Americans into "that's not fair because I should get more because
I have a higher probability of not living as long as she
does".

If they go down that path of reasoning then anybody kept in the working
poor all of their lives could potentially be denied benefits
as well as anyone living past their "expected death date" could
also be denied benefits.

It's a political tool to split Americans on supporting social security
and the conclusion of the reasoning is horrifying.

Since when is humanity boiled down to statistics and since
when does your "expected death date probability" correlate
to being denied enough money to keep your head above poverty
while you have difficulty making it to your mailbox due to arthritis?

[DaedelusNemo]

10. Imagine the fights to establish new categories...

"Sure, i'm a white female, but i have diabetes, so clearly i should retire earlier." "Ah, but i live in a state with a dismal life expectancy!" "As a mechanic i work with toxic fluids." I'm sure most of us can come up with some reason we can be expected to die sooner - and hell, those who can't can now point to stress and a longer work life as reasons to drop their life expectancy rates.

A point to take away from it, though, is that if you want to raise the retirement age, keep in mind you're raising it for the black male diabetic mechanics of Mississippi, who already have to be pretty lucky to make it to retirement ;) Trying to play cute with the retirement age compared to life expectancy ingores that there is a very wide variation involved.