Old Women Out in the Cold

[Guest guest]

http://www.alternet.org/story/21647/

 

Old Women Out in the Cold

 

By Ruth Rosen, The Nation. Posted April 1, 2005.

 

 

An army of economists and pundits have debunked the president's claims

that Social Security is in " crisis. " What they don't publicize,

however, is that the president's plan for private accounts would

deepen the crisis faced by vast numbers of elderly women.

 

My 91-year-old friend Alice, like many elderly women, has outlived her

modest savings. All that stands between her and destitution is the

$800 check she receives from Social Security and small contributions

from a handful of caring friends and relatives. She is not alone. The

Institute for Women's Policy Research in Washington, D.C., estimates

that half the women over 65 would fall into poverty without Social

Security income because 70 percent of Social Security beneficiaries

over 85 are women. For one-third of all unmarried female seniors,

Social Security is, in fact, their only source of income.

 

Worried that his privatization plan is in peril, George W. Bush has

been touting its benefits to widows. But they regard his proposals

with particular suspicion. Since women tend to live longer than men

and spend fewer years in the workforce, they depend more heavily on

Social Security during the last years of their lives. They therefore

stand to lose the most if they don't have a guaranteed safety net when

they are seniors.

 

But do women of all ages understand their stake in this debate? An

army of economists and pundits have vigorously debunked the

president's spurious claims that Social Security is in " crisis " and

that its trust fund will go " bankrupt " in 2042. What they don't

publicize, however, is that the President's plan for private accounts

would deepen the crisis faced by vast numbers of elderly women.

 

To educate women, the National Council of Women's Organizations, which

represents almost 200 women's groups with more than 10 million

members, held a national press conference in early February to express

its strong opposition to private accounts. Heidi Hartmann, president

of the Institute for Women's Policy Research, wants women—who earn a

median salary of $30,000—to understand that " Social Security provides

women with life insurance, disability income, and spousal benefits,

and all of these will be at risk if privatizers have their way. "

 

The Bush administration naturally has it own network of female

cheerleaders. Among them is the Independent Women's Forum, whose job

is to fabricate the ideal of the self-made woman who requires no help

from anyone, a rugged individualist who can pull herself up by the

straps on her stiletto pumps. Just who is this independent self-made

woman? Ask the millions of working women who do the unpaid work of

caring for their children and their elderly parents or spouses if they

need any assistance from social services. Ask the millions of women

who work for low wages at Wal-Mart, nursing homes or other women's

homes if they feel like independent self-made women.

 

Professional women—the real target audience courted by the Independent

Women's Forum—may seem like rugged individualists, but scratch the

veneer and you'll often find that they have benefited from generous

state fellowships, government loans, parental sacrifice or wealthy

husbands. Scratch a little deeper and you'll also discover that it was

the women's movement and affirmative action that gave the " self-made

woman " a chance to walk through what were once closed doors. The

Independent Women's Forum, for example, wants to persuade me that I'm

a self-made woman. But I'm not. Back when Nelson Rockefeller, a

moderate Republican, was governor, New York State paid for my

undergraduate education. The citizens of California, who once

understood that a highly-skilled workforce is what would fuel

California's economic engine, funded my doctoral education. As a

result of affirmative action, universities began hiring women faculty

members, and I repaid my debt for all this assistance by teaching

thousands of university students. The truth is that hardly anyone is

" self-made. " Every day, we use sewer systems, ride on interstate

highways or subways, surf the internet and send kids to schools that

we created by investing in our society's public life.

 

Crucial as it is for women's long-term economic security, Social

Security is not perfect; even now it discriminates against low-income

workers, the majority of whom are women, because they pay more than

their fair share of the payroll taxes that fund the system. So what's

the solution? Why not exempt people who earn less than $30,000 from

payroll taxes? Instead of keeping the cap at $90,000, why not raise it

so that the wealthiest among us, those with the greatest financial

security, can help those with the least? With this one progressive

change, Social Security would bulge with surplus funds well into the

next century.

 

We live in a world in which none of us know who will lose a job or

become ill and need a helping hand. Real reform in Social Security

should express our core conviction that we're not isolated, self-made

men and women but a society of individuals who should care for the

most vulnerable. It is not only unfair to allow elderly women to live

in poverty—it's also immoral.

 

Ruth Rosen, professor emerita of history at the University of

California, Davis, is a senior fellow at the Rockridge Institute in

Berkeley, California and the author, most recently, of The World Split

Open: How the Modern Women's Movement Changed America (2001).