Social Security’s Family Benefits and the Fiscal Commission

Solvency is not the issue on Social Security. Reforming the rules for the most vulnerable is.

The Fiscal Commission, created to reduce deficits, is likely to concentrate on ensuring Social Security’s long-term solvency. But updating the program’s rules on family benefits should be the first priority. Without this, Social Security, despite solvency, will continue to leave many vulnerable people unprotected. We need a more effective safety net for the needy, most of whom are women, minorities, and children. Fortunately, updating family benefit rules does not necessarily imply more funding.

Social Security pays benefits to the dependents and survivors of retired and disabled…

The Stealth Attack on America’s Best-Loved Program

As Obama’s Fiscal Commission prepares for its June 30 hearing, New Deal 2.0 invited leading thinkers to participate in our Social Security’s Fiscal Fitness series, which examines the soundness of the program, its relationship to the federal deficit, and the vital role it plays in America’s economic future.

Washington bipartisan elites have been working to weaken Social Security since the mid-Clinton Administration. Clinton, prodded by his Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, was on the verge of cutting a deal with Newt Gingrich to partially privatize America’s most successful retirement program.

The intermediary was Clinton’s White House chief of staff Erskine Bowles. The same Bowles…

How Social Security Can Gain Without Much Pain

As Obama’s Fiscal Commission prepares for its June 30 hearing, New Deal 2.0 invited leading thinkers to participate in our Social Security’s Fiscal Fitness series, which examines the soundness of the program, its relationship to the federal deficit, and the vital role it plays in America’s economic future.

Advocates of cutting Social Security benefits often argue ruefully that they wish that there was some other way to “save” the program. But, they say sadly, the only realistic choices involve shared sacrifice and pain. So they recommend changes like further delays in the age when full retirement benefits can be collected, reducing cost-of-living…

Social Security Protects Our Children

As Obama’s Fiscal Commission prepares for its June 30 hearing, New Deal 2.0 invited leading thinkers to participate in our Social Security’s Fiscal Fitness series, which examines the soundness of the program, its relationship to the federal deficit, and the vital role it plays in America’s economic future.

Former Senator Alan Simpson, the co-chair of the National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, was on a tear when he declared that the traditional defenders of Social Security “don’t care a whit about their grandchildren…not a whit.” Besides being disrespectful, the logic of his assertion is all wrong. The nation’s children have a huge…

A Brief History of Attacks on Social Security

As Obama’s Fiscal Commission prepares for its June 30 hearing, New Deal 2.0 invited leading thinkers to participate in our Social Security’s Fiscal Fitness series, which examines the soundness of the program, its relationship to the federal deficit, and the vital role it plays in America’s economic future.

The National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform set up by President Obama claims both that reducing the projected federal deficit should be a major national objective and that Social Security should be considered as one potential source of relief either through reducing benefits or enhancing revenues or some of both. That much is…

To Deficit Hawks: We the People Know Best on Social Security

As Obama’s Fiscal Commission prepares for its June 30 hearing, New Deal 2.0 invited leading thinkers to participate in our Social Security’s Fiscal Fitness series, which examines the soundness of the program, its relationship to the federal deficit, and the vital role it plays in America’s economic future.

Deficit hawks plotting to cut Social Security to reduce the deficit are seriously misguided. The truth is that Social Security contributes not a single penny to the deficit. Indeed, it is the poster child for fiscal responsibility.

Social Security has administrative costs strikingly lower than those of private sector retirement plans. Unlike 401(k) plans, for…