Tag Archives for AFL-CIO

Larson Pushes to Get Social Security Reform Proposal for House Vote

Published in Pawtucket Times on June 13, 2022

The House Ways and Means Committee is preparing for a full mark-up on H.R. 5723, Social Security 2100: A Sacred Trust, authored by Committee Chairman John B. Larson (D-CT) this summer. Last week Larson held a press conference calling for passage of the legislative proposal. 

The morning press conference, held on June 2nd at the Connecticut AFL-CIO headquarters, based in Rocky Hill, Connecticut, brought together Connecticut AFL-CIO President Ed Hawthorne, Connecticut Alliance for Retired Americans President Bette Marafino, State Senator Matt Lesser, State Senator Saud Anwar, State Representative Amy Morrin Bello to announce the endorsement of H.R. 5723 by the AFL-CIO.  The AFL-CIO is known as the nation’s largest federation of unions, made up of 56 national and international unions, representing more than 12 million active and retired workers.

On the same day, the Social Security Administration released the 2022 Social Security Trustee Report.

According to Larson’s statement, over 200 House Democrats [no Republican has yet to support the proposal], are cosponsoring H.R. 5723. Forty-two national organizations (aging, union, veterans, disability and consumer health organizations) are calling for passage of H.R. 5723, including the Leadership Council on Aging Organizations and the Strengthen Social Security Coalition representing hundreds of national and state aging organizations.

Larson noted that it has been 50 years since Congress acted to expand Social Security benefits. The Connecticut Congressman stated: “By passing Social Security 2100: A Sacred Trust, we can act now to expand our nation’s most effective anti-poverty program and ensure this program remains a ‘sacred trust’ between the government and its people. It is an honor to stand alongside the AFL-CIO today as they announce their support for our legislation.”

“Social Security benefits are a promise made to workers and Social Security 2100 is essential in fulfilling this promise,” said Connecticut AFL-CIO President Ed Hawthorne. He praised Larson’s efforts to repeal the Windfall Elimination Provision that harms Connecticut’s teachers, firefighters, and police officers by reducing social security benefits they earned because they are receiving pensions after years of dedicated public service.

“Retirees and those most vulnerable in our society depend on Social Security to live a life of dignity. The Connecticut AFL-CIO and our over-200,000 members stand in solidarity with Congressman Larson in his fight to ensure Social Security is a promise we keep for generations of Americans to come,” said Hawthorne.

State Senator Saud Anwar, (D-South Windsor) joined Larson and others, too, supporting H.R. 5723. “Social Security has long been an American institution, one relied upon and paid into by countless citizens who receive a promise that they will be taken care of,” said the Connecticut Senate’s Deputy President pro tempore. “We must take action to expand this program and ensure this vital service will remain available for future generations, and Social Security 2100 will do just that. I am grateful for Connecticut’s federal representatives in their work to support our communities, our state and our country,” he said.

Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT), who introduced the companion bill to H.R. 5723 in the Senate could not be there, but issued this statement: “As seniors and people with disabilities struggle with the costs of food, housing, and prescription drugs, this bill enhances and expands benefits for millions of Americans who need them. I am proud to stand with my colleagues and union members to support the Social Security 2100 Act, keeping this vital lifeline solvent ensuring our nation’s bedrock social insurance program will continue to provide current and future beneficiaries with a quality standard of living,” said Connecticut’s senior Senator. 

H.R. 5723: The Nuts and Bolts

On Oct. 26, 2021, H.R. 5723 was referred to the House Ways and Means, Education and Labor, and Energy and Commerce Committees, being introduced in the lower chamber that day.

According to a legislative fact sheet, H.R. 5723 gives a benefit bump for current and new Social Security beneficiaries by providing an increase for all beneficiaries (receiving retirement, disability or dependent benefits).

Larson’s Social Security fix also protects Social Security beneficiaries against inflation by adopting a Consumer Price Index for the Elderly (CPI-E), to better reflect the costs incurred by seniors who spend a greater portion of their income on health care and other necessities.

This legislative proposal protects low-income workers by providing a new minimum benefit set at 25% above the poverty line and would be tied to wage levels to ensure that minimum benefits does not fall behind.

It also contains other provisions that seniors and their advocates have sought for years, including:

  • Improving Social Security benefits for widows and widowers in two income households so they are not penalized for having two incomes.
  • Ending the five-month waiting period to receive disability benefits so those with ALS or other severe disabilities no longer have to wait.
  • Providing caregiver credits for Social Security wages to ensure that caregivers are not penalized in retirement for taking timeout of the workforce to care for children and other dependents.
  • Extending Social Security benefits for students to age 26 and for part-time students.
  • Increasing access to Social Security dependents for children who live with grandparents or other relatives.                       

H.R. 5723 would pay for strengthening the Social Security Trust Fund by having millionaires and billionaires pay the same rate as everyone else. Currently, payroll taxes are not collected on an individual wages over $142,800. The legislative proposal would apply payroll taxes to wages above $400,000, only impacting the top 0.04% of wage earners.

Larson’s proposal would also extend the solvency of Social Security by giving Congress more time to ensure long-term solvency of the Trust Fund.  It also cuts long-term shortfalls by more than half.

Finally, H.R. 5723 would combine the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance with Disability Insurance into one Social Security Trust Fund, to ensure all benefits will be paid.

NCPSSM Pushes for Passage

Even with over 200 cosponsors, a Washington insider says that H.R. 5723 may be stalled because of concerns of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) policy staff about the cost of the proposed legislation.  At press time, House lawmakers are waiting for the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office to score the legislation [to determine its cost], this being required to bring it to the House floor for a vote.

In a blog article, posted on May 27th by the Washington, DC-based National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare (NCPSSM), seniors are urged to request their House lawmakers, if they are not currently cosponsoring H.R. 5723, to support Larson’s landmark legislation to strengthen Social Security.  According to the NCPSSM, Reps. Cynthia Axne (D-IA) Susie Lee (D-NV) and Tom O’Halleran (D-AZ) are among the 22 Democrats that have not yet sponsored H.R. 5723. With the upcoming mid-term elections just 148 days away, these Democratic lawmakers may fear Republican attacks, accusing them of raising taxes, speculates NCPSSM.

“The more Democratic co-sponsorships the bill garners, the stronger the case that House leadership should bring it to the floor for a vote,” says NCPSSM.

NCPSSM reports that Larson’s Social Security proposal has strong public support. “A poll by Lake Research Partners showed that across party lines, 79% supported paying for an increase in benefits by having wealthy Americans pay the same rate into Social Security as everyone else. A recent survey of our members and supporters indicated 96 percent support for raising the cap,” says the Social Security Advocacy group.

NCPSSM says Larson’s legislative proposal gives Democrats an opportunity to build upon, strengthen, and expanding the Social Security program, created by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1935. 

Many feel it is time for House Speaker Nancy Pelosi to use the power of her office, responding to over 200 Democrats in her Caucus, to bring H.R. 5723 to a House Ways and Means Committee and floor vote.  If the Republicans take control of the House and Senate Chambers, Social Security reform to expand and strengthen Social Security may be in jeopardy, so time is of the essence to supporters to see H.R. 5723 passed and enacted.

Bush will fight to Privatize Social Security

Published in Senior Digest on January 2005

The Bush administration and aging groups are about to battle over the privatization of Social Security.

More than four years ago, the 16-member Presidential Commission divided evenly between Republicans and Democrats, voted unanimously to send its 165-page final report to the Bush White House. The charge of the commission was to develop a road map to reform the nation’s Social Security program.

With the commission kicking off the Social Security reform debate by releasing this report in December 2001, the federal panel called for three approaches to change the 70-year-old federal program.  All the recommendations involved personal accounts, with a premise that workers’ investments would yield higher retirement benefits.

With President Bush keeping control of the White House and the GOP retaining control of Congress, Social Security is again under attack and the debate is expected to heat up.

According to recent Business Week On-Line article by Richard S. Dunham, Bush will begin to sell the partial privatization of Social Security by launching a “marketing blitz.”

“Advisors say the president, who sees private accounts as essential to his ownership society agenda, is determined to make retirement reform his top domestic priority for 2005,” Dunham wrote.

According to Dunham, Bush’s “three-phase sales plan” started with his Dec. 12 radio address Bush followed by calling for privatization of Social Security at his economic summit on Dec. 16.

Phase Two, a $ 40 million broadcast advertising campaign underwritten by nation’s corporations will tout the economic benefits of allowing workers to put a portion of their payroll taxes into investment accounts and the negative impact of inaction.  Dunham wrote Phase Three would give the public the specifics.

A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll found that Bush had his work cut out for him to sell the public. Results showed people are skeptical about any changes to Social Security, and that the public believes it is a bad idea to let workers risk their Social Security taxes in the stock market.

Critics are quick to pounce on Bush for his calls for radical changes to Social Security. They charge that the securities industry which heavily supported Republican candidates in the last election, would benefit financially under the president’s plan.

“Wall Street and big business are seated at the conference table-where are the voices of seniors?” asked Barbara Kennelly, president and chief executive officer of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare.

“This seems like a repeal of the president’s Social  Security Commission, where privatization wasn’t debated. It was a foregone conclusion – and that is a sure path to bad public policy,” she said in a prepared statement released after the White Houe Economic Conference.

Furthermore, Kennelly said that “a carefully orchestrated conference can’t hide the fact that privatizing Social Security may result in cuts in benefits and will dismantle Social Security, while dramatically increasing our nation’s debt.”

Just blocks away at the National Press Club, a diverse coalition of groups held a press conference on the day of Bush’s economic summit. The assembled groups, including the AFL-CIO, NAACP, National Organization for Women (NOW), disability groups, and the Alliance for Retired Americans, announced their strong opposition to Bush plan.

Those groups are part of the Campaign for America’s Future, which intends to mobilize opposition in every congressional district throughout the nation to Save Social Security benefits that would be slashed by the president’s plan.

At the news conference, George J. Kourpias, president of the 3 million plus member Alliance for Retired Americans,” told the crowd that the Social Security system is not broke or in the dire trouble Bush would have American’s believe.

“Let me remind those naysayers who conspired not to save Social Security but to bury it, that Social Security hasn’t missed a paycheck in almost 70  years, Kourpias said.

“With some changes designed to strengthen and secure the program, Social Security is well positioned to keep delivering monthly checks to millions of Americans for decades to come.”

Adds, NOW President Kim Gandy, “Social Security is not in trouble. George Bush is in trouble. More than half of elderly women would live in poverty without the benefits of this guaranteed insurance program. This destructive proposal is effectively economic violence against women- he’s risking our livelihoods to satisfy Wall Street donors and corporate cronies.

AARP President Marie Smith is also weighing in on the privatization issue by placing an open letter to 33 million plus members, on the nonprofit group’s Web site

Smith counters Bush’s statements that Social Security is in danger of going broke. Changes do not have to be drastic, she says. “Creating private accounts would only weaken Social Security and put benefits at risk for future generations.”

Smith estates that a new Social Security system would cost the nation as much as $2 trillion or more in benefit cuts new taxes or more debt.

In Rhode Island, a quick poll of the state’s Democratic U.S. senators and congressmen indicate that they oppose Bush’s retirement policy gamble. (Republican U.S. Senator Lincoln Chafee’s position could not be obtained). While each oppose the concept of privatization, the lawmakers are waiting to see the specific legislative proposals that will be introduced.

But even with Bush pushing for a major Social Security overhaul, only a bipartisan coalition of congressional lawmakers can either strengthen the existing Social Security program or scrap it through privatization.

It is crucial for seniors to send a message to Bush and the Republican congressional leadership that it’s time to go back to the drawing board to examine other approaches to strengthen America’s most popular domestic program.