Statement of Joan Entmacher,
Vice President and Director, Family Economic Security,
National Women's Law Center

Before the Subcommittee on Social Security,
 House Committee on Ways and Means

Hearing on Social Security Improvements for Women, Seniors and Working Americans

February 28, 2002

Chairman Shaw and members of the Subcommittee on Social Security, thank you for the invitation to appear before you today on behalf of the National Women's Law Center.

The National Women's Law Center is a non-profit organization that has been working since 1972 to advance and protect women's legal rights. The Center focuses on major policy areas of importance to women and their families including employment, education, women's health, and family economic security, with special attention given to the concerns of low-income women and their families. Most relevant to this hearing, the Center has worked for more than two decades on issues of Social Security and women. It has presented testimony on Social Security issues affecting women to Congress over a dozen times, as well as to the Advisory Council on Social Security and several task forces of the Department of Health and Human Services. The Center served on the Technical Committee on Earnings Sharing in Social Security and co-authored its report, and served on the Congressional Study Group on Women and Retirement for the Select Committee on Aging of the House of Representatives, and co-authored and presented its Social Security recommendations. More recently, the Center has participated in efforts to develop proposals to safeguard and improve Social Security benefits for women. For example, Center staff authored a National Academy of Social Insurance issue brief on increasing economic security for elderly women by improving Social Security survivor benefits.

There are three issues being considered at today’s hearing which my testimony will address.   First, the proposal to issue certificates to retirees assuring them that their benefits will be paid.  Second, the proposal to give current workers different information about Social Security than they currently receive through their individual Social Security Statement. Third, ways to increase Social Security benefits for women. Taken together, these proposals convey somewhat contradictory messages to American women, but I will do my best to address all of them.

American Women Need Real Protections for Social Security – Not Paper Guarantees

One of the announced goals of this hearing is to consider ways of “assuring seniors that promised benefits will be paid.”[1]  Unfortunately, instead of considering steps that really would strengthen Social Security – such as slowing down tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans that raid the Social Security Trust Fund and abandoning plans to privatize Social Security – the focus is on proposals to have the Secretary of the Treasury issue “guarantee certificates” to retirees.

As of last year, current retirees, those near retirement, and younger workers had reason to be confident that Social Security could and would be strengthened for the long term.  Even with no changes, Social Security could pay full benefits until 2038, and nearly three-fourths of promised benefits after that. The federal budget was awash in projected surpluses “as far as the eye could see.” With a combination of gradual adjustments within Social Security and a fraction of the surplus, it was feasible both to close the long-term financing gap and improve Social Security benefits for women and other low earners. 

Then Congress began debating the tax cut proposed by President Bush.  Proponents of the tax cut assured the American people that we could have it all – funding for national priorities, funding for contingencies, and a large tax cut – without touching the Social Security and Medicare Trust Funds.  To respond to those who raised doubts about the feasibility and wisdom of such a large and long-term tax cut, this month last year this House passed another version of a Social Security “guarantee.”  H.R. 2, the “Social Security and Medicare Lock-Box Act of 2001,” promised the American people that the surpluses of the Social Security and Medicare Hospital Insurance Trust Funds would be reserved for those programs. 

It is now obvious that the promise this House made last year of saving Social Security reserves for Social Security has been broken and will be broken, not just this year, but for years to come.  Even using some optimistic and unrealistic assumptions,[2] the Administration forecasts on-budget deficits for each of the ten years of its forecast.[3] This means that reserves in the Social Security and Medicare Trust Funds will be tapped to pay for the operations of government – and the tax cut – not just temporarily and in the short term, but for every one of the next 10 years.In less than one year, $4 trillion in projected surpluses over the next 10 years have disappeared, and the single largest reason for the deterioration in the long-term budget picture, according to the Congressional Budget Office, is not the war on terrorism, not increased spending for homeland security, nor the recession, but the tax cut.[4]  According to CBO, primarily because of the delayed impact of the tax cuts passed last year, we’ll be dipping into the Trust Fund to the tune of over $900 billion through 2009, even if Congress passes no new tax cuts, no extenders, and no spending above-the-baseline.[5]  Even worse, despite polls showing more than 80 percent of the public supports delaying the upper-income tax cuts not yet in effect in order to strengthen Social Security and address other national priorities,[6] the Administration and some members of this House not only refuse to reconsider delaying last year’s tax cuts, despite the broken promise on Social Security, but are proposing to make those tax cuts permanent, accelerate them, and add some new ones.  The budget proposed by the Administration would increase the drain on the Social Security Trust Fund to about $1.5 trillion, just over the next 10 years.[7]

The proposals to privatize Social Security on top of the tax cuts pose a double threat to Social Security, and people who are already retired, as well as their children and grandchildren, are rightly concerned. The money to finance private accounts has to come from somewhere.  It could come from diverting money within Social Security.  But that money is already needed to pay promised benefits, meaning that deep cuts in Social Security benefits would be required to finance private accounts. 

The Commission appointed by President Bush to develop a plan to privatize Social Security recently issued its final report.[8]  In the end, it did not agree on one plan, but put forward three, all of which illustrate the risks that privatization poses for women.  All of the plans would require cuts in Social Security’s core benefits so deep that the proceeds from private accounts are unlikely to make up the difference.  The first plan would simply divert revenue from Social Security into private accounts, accelerating the date when the reserves in the Trust Fund are exhausted, without proposing a way to fill the hole created in Social Security’s finances.  The second plan would cut benefits for average earners retiring in 2040 by 24 percent, and for those retiring in 2070 by 43 percent because of a change from wage-indexing to price-indexing in computing benefits.[9]  The third plan would cut benefits by requiring workers to work more years to receive the benefits they currently expect, and making other changes in the way benefits are calculated.  Participation in the accounts would be “voluntary,” but participation in these cuts would be mandatory; everyone, regardless of whether they signed up for an account, would be subject to these benefit cuts.  Those who did opt for an account would discover that their Social Security benefits would be reduced still further.  Although the Commission was charged not to change benefits for survivors and disabled workers, the Commission acknowledged that its reductions in benefits for retired workers would affect disabled workers as well, because the benefit formulas are integrated.[10] Because benefits for survivors depend on the size of the benefit of the deceased spouse, they also would be reduced.  Even with deep benefit cuts, the plans depend on large transfers of money from the rest of the budget to Social Security.  Although there is no longer a surplus in the rest of the budget, the Commission does not explain how those transfers will be financed.[11]  If such transfers were possible, and similar amounts of money were transferred to Social Security and invested by an independent board in a diversified manner, even more money than under the Commission’s plans would be available to increase Americans’ retirement income because of the lower administrative costs, at much less individual risk.

Some privatization proposals, such as the Chairman’s bill, H.R. 3497, promise to create private accounts without any cuts in current law benefits and, indeed, with improved benefits for women. This is accomplished by moving the costs, and the debt, off the Social Security books to the rest of the federal budget.  To finance private accounts under this proposal would require $3.6 trillion dollars over the next 40 years in additional taxes or spending cuts; alternatively, it could be borrowed, increasing the national debt by an additional $8 trillion dollars.[12]  Even with those additional dollars poured in, to get the financing to work, the stock market must cooperate, and future Congresses will have to refrain from lowering the 95 percent tax rate levied on the payouts from private accounts, and resist calls to allow account holders to access these accounts before retirement for the same reasons they now can access their IRAs.

A plan that promises more for everyone is appealing – but too good to be true.  The costs that are shifted to the rest of the budget still must be paid.  But, because of the tax cuts scheduled to take effect and the others in the pipeline, there are no surpluses in the rest of the federal budget to finance private accounts.   They would have to be paid for by cutting Medicare, Medicaid, education, and other programs vital to women and their families; by borrowing the money and passing the bill on to future generations; or going back to cutting Social Security benefits after all.

Meaningful steps to safeguard Social Security – holding off on new tax cuts, including accelerating last year’s tax cuts or making them permanent; reconsidering whether to implement the parts of last year’s tax bill that have yet to take effect and benefit only the wealthy few; and abandoning plans to privatize Social Security – unfortunately do not appear to be on the agenda.  Instead, there are proposals to have the Secretary of the Treasury issue a “guarantee certificate” to current retirees and others as they begin to receive Social Security benefits. 

As introduced, these bills – H.R.832, 3135, and Sec. 208 of H.R.3497 – purport to guarantee certificate holders timely payment of all future benefits to which they are entitled under the Act as it exists as of the date the certificate is issued, and that they will receive “accurate” cost of living adjustments (COLA) at least annually.

These certificates are at best a gimmick, not an answer to the real concerns of current and future beneficiaries.  Those most at risk of benefit cuts under various privatization proposals – baby boomers and younger workers – would get no assurance that they will receive the benefits they expect under current law.  Second, it is not clear that the retirees who would receive certificates would get any legally enforceable rights.  An analysis by the Congressional Research Service has concluded that a future Congress could amend or repeal the guarantee, even with bills that appear to set forth an absolute guarantee, such as H.R.832, 3135, and Sec. 208 of H.R.3497.[13]  But certain provisions of these bills at least would give certificate holders grounds for an interesting lawsuit.  These bills describe the certificates as creating “a legally enforceable guarantee” and state that any certificate “constitutes budget authority in advance of appropriations Acts and represents the obligation of the Federal Government to provide for the payment to the individual … benefits … in accordance with the guarantee.”  Arguably, these provisions would convert the certificates into bonds, backed by the full faith and credit of the U.S. government. 

Apparently out of a concern that these bills might actually expand the legal rights of Social Security beneficiaries, some recent proposals would change the critical language.  “Guarantee” would be changed to “entitlement” – but, of course, Social Security is already an entitlement.  More significantly, all reference to the certificates representing “budget authority” or an “obligation of the federal government” would be dropped.  The certificates would be worthless – except as something to hang on the wall next to the Enron stock certificate. 

 Several of the Proposals to Change the Information Provided to Current Workers in the Social Security Statement Would Mislead Rather than Enlighten the Public

At the same time as this Subcommittee is considering mailing certificates to retirees telling them that their expected benefits are guaranteed, it also is considering proposals that would change the information that is provided to current workers, and send a very different message than the certificates send to retirees.  

For example, H.R. 634 and H.R. 930 would require that the individual statements that the Social Security Administration sends to current workers include various statements concerning the ability of Social Security to pay benefits in the future.  Both bills would require the annual personal Social Security Statements to state that “the Trust Fund balances reflect resources authorized by the Congress to pay future benefits, but they do not consist of real economic assets that can be used in the future to pay benefits.”  H.R. 634, p. 3, lines 12-16; H.R. 930, p. 6, lines 7-8.  Both bills also would require that the individual Statements sent to workers contain information about anticipated cash flows in the program.  For example, H.R. 930 would require that the individual statements include:

(I) a comparison of the annual social security tax inflows (including amounts appropriated under subsections (a) and (b) of section 201of this Act and section 121(e) of the Social Security Amendments of 1983 (26 U.S.C. 401note)) to the amount paid in benefits annually; and

(II) a statement whether the ratio described in subclause (I) will result in a cash flow deficit and what year any such deficit will commence, as well as the first year in which funds in the Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund and the Federal Disability Insurance Trust Fund will cease to be sufficient to cover any such deficit and the percentage of benefits due at that time that could be paid from the annual social security tax inflows (as that term is used in subclause (I)).

H.R. 634 contains a similar provision.  It seems very likely that including such material in the personal statements that workers receive would confuse and alarm, rather than inform, the public. 

The experience of the Social Security Administration (SSA) in developing “Your Social Security Statement” should be instructive here.  Social Security is a program that offers a variety of benefits to workers and their families.  Simply explaining the relevance of these protections to individuals is a challenge.  The SSA’s first effort to develop an individual statement was the Personal Earnings and Benefit Estimate Statements (PEBES).  The GAO evaluated the six-page PEBES and cautioned: “in general, people find forms, notices and statements difficult to use and understand.  For this reason, many people may approach a PEBES-like statement ‘with fear, frustration, insecurity, and hesitation.’”  People appreciated the information in the earlier statement, the GAO said, but the public also indicated that the dense, six-page statement “contains too much information and is too complex.”[14]  The likely effect of receiving the statement prescribed by H.R. 634 or 930 would be to transform “fear, frustration, insecurity and hesitation” into panic.  Such scare tactics have been used by some as a way to sell Social Security privatization to a public otherwise unwilling to entrust more of their retirement security to the stock market.[15]  But such tactics should be beneath this Congress.

H.R. 634 and 930 also would require that the individual Social Security Statements include a statement of the “rate of return” from Social Security.  Some proponents of privatization have urged this requirement so that the “rate of return” from Social Security can be compared to that from “other investment vehicles.”[16]  However, such a comparison would be highly misleading, for several reasons.

First, most of the Social Security taxes paid by current workers are used to pay benefits to those who are eligible. The certificate proposal being considered at this hearing, even if it does not establish a legally enforceable guarantee, at least reflects the intent of this Congress not to renege on those obligations.  Thus, to compare the “rate of return” on Social Security, which must meet these unfunded obligations, to the return available from private investment funds, which do not, is misleading.  Indeed, once the cost of continuing to meet obligations to current beneficiaries and those nearing retirement is factored in, many economists, including some who favor private accounts, have concluded that the “rate of return” under Social Security and privatized systems is similar.[17]

Second, Social Security provides disability and life insurance benefits that are not reflected in the investment concept of “rate of return.”  These protections make Social Security especially valuable for African American and Latino families, because of higher rates of disability and early death. H.R. 634 and 930 would exclude these benefits from the “rate of return” calculation.  Indeed, it is difficult to see how they could be included; after all, most people don’t feel disappointed in the rate of return on their life insurance policy if they make it through another year.

Third, any estimate of Social Security's “rate of return” must include the value of the protection against risk provided by its secure, lifetime, inflation-adjusted retirement benefits.  Social Security is designed to provide workers with a secure, basic benefit throughout retirement.  It is not designed to be the sole source of income; but it is designed to provide the income that people can count on, without worrying about the ups and downs of the stock market, the rate of inflation, or outliving this benefit.  In the private investment world, higher returns are associated with higher risk; the value of Social Security’s protection against market risk would have to be added to the rate of return calculation.

Finally, focusing on the “rate of return” to individual workers ignores the social insurance values of Social Security.  Fortunately for women and millions of other Americans, including millions of children, Social Security does not pay benefits only to workers, nor does it base benefits strictly on the level of contributions.  Social Security’s progressive benefit formula provides individuals with low lifetime earnings, who are disproportionately women, with retirement benefits that are a larger percentage of average lifetime earnings.  It provides benefits to spouses and surviving spouses.  These benefits are available on a gender-neutral basis; however, 98 percent of the recipients of spousal benefits are women.  These aspects of Social Security also are devalued in the “rate of return” calculus.

We find it perplexing that the Congress would actively seek to undermine workers’ confidence in Social Security at the same time it is attempting to shore it up for retirees by sending them an embossed certificate.  It would appear that the purpose of some of those who talk about adding to the Social Security Statements assertions about the value of the Trust Funds and Social Security's "rate of return" is not to inform, but to undermine support for a system that is vital to the economic security of millions of American women and their families, in furtherance of their own privatization schemes. 

Social Security Should Be Strengthened and Improved for Women

The last item on today’s hearing agenda is to consider “enhancements to women’s Social Security benefits [that] would help ensure that Social Security continues to successfully reduce poverty for women and would better meet the evolving needs of women today.”[18]  The National Women’s Law Center commends you, Chairman Shaw, for making improvements for women, within the Social Security benefit structure that offers so many unique and important protections for women,[19] part of the reform agenda.

Social Security is the mainstay of economic security for older women. Women represent a large majority of Social Security recipients -- almost 60 percent of all recipients aged 60 and over, and 72 percent of recipients 85 and over.[20]  Because women are far less likely than men to have a pension and substantial retirement savings, women also depend more on Social Security income than men. Social Security provides half or more of the income of nearly two-thirds of all women 65 and over, and 90 percent or more of the income of nearly one-third of such women.[21]  Without Social Security, over half of all elderly women would be living in poverty.[22]

But even with Social Security, poverty in old age continues to be a much greater risk for women than for men.  Seven out of ten of the poor elderly are women,[23] and the poverty rate for women 65 and over is more than 60 percent higher than that of men (12.2 percent to 7.5 percent).[24]  Older women of color have even higher poverty rates: one-quarter of black elderly women and one-fifth of Hispanic elderly women were poor in 2000, compared to one-tenth of older white women.[25]

The National Women’s Law Center therefore urges Congress to target improvements to those women in greatest need. Older women living alone -- widows, divorced and separated women, and never-married women -- are at the greatest risk of poverty.  Since in 2000 six in ten poor elderly women were widows,[26] improving the financial situation of surviving spouses would affect the largest number of vulnerable older women and have an important impact on reducing poverty.  Many policy analysts and advocates, including the National Women’s Law Center, have suggested proposals to improve widows’ benefits.  One promising approach would increase the surviving spouse benefit from its current level of 100 percent of the high earner’s benefit to 75 percent of the couple’s combined benefit.[27]  Such reforms could prevent the severe drop into poverty that often accompanies widowhood, and increase equity for two-earner couples.  To target the improvement to those who need it most and to reduce its long-term costs, the amount of the improvement could be capped.  Determining the level of the cap (for example, at an amount corresponding to the average Primary Insurance Amount (PIA) of all recipients, or at the higher level corresponding to the PIA of a worker with lifetime average earnings) involves tradeoffs between benefits and costs.

In addition, we must take steps to improve benefits for the millions of divorced, separated, and never-married women who, while fewer in total numbers than widows, have even higher poverty rates. In 2000, 20.3 percent of divorced women age 65 and older and 23.1 percent of older never-married women lived in poverty, compared to 16.5 percent of older widows.[28] In the future, an even larger proportion of women will enter retirement never having married[29] (or having been married only a short time)[30] and as a result will be ineligible for Social Security survivor benefits.  Some of these women will be living in poverty because of years in which they were caring for children or ill family members and had low or no earnings; others will be poor because of a lifetime of working at low-wage jobs. Creating an improved minimum benefit within the existing Social Security benefit framework could address multiple causes for women’s lower Social Security benefits and higher levels of poverty in old age.  However, such a benefit would have to be designed with women’s work histories in mind; a benefit that required 35 or 40 years of earnings to qualify for a decent minimum benefit would help many fewer women than men.

Some smaller reforms, such as those in the Chairman’s bill that would eliminate two restrictive eligibility requirements for disabled widows’ benefits, and that would waive the two-year duration of divorce requirement for divorced spouses whose working ex-spouse has remarried, would help a small but vulnerable group of women, and the cost of making these changes would be negligible.

Congress also could effectively increase the Social Security benefits of the poorest older Americans by reducing the nearly 100 percent tax on Social Security benefits over $20 per month imposed in the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program.[31]  SSI provides a safety net for poor elderly, blind, and disabled people.  However, in calculating a individual’s SSI benefit, only $20 per month of “unearned income” is disregarded – and Social Security benefits are considered unearned income. As a result of this limited disregard, any Social Security benefit greater than $20 simply reduces a recipient’s SSI benefits dollar for dollar. The $20 disregard level was set in 1972; adjusting it for inflation since then would help most elderly SSI recipients[32] and would allow SSI recipients to receive more income without jeopardizing eligibility for the essential Medicaid benefits that are linked to SSI.  It would be especially important to women for two reasons.  First, the large majority (71 percent) of aged SSI recipients are women.[33]  Second, women are far more likely than men to have monthly Social Security benefits just below the SSI level.[34]  Changing the SSI disregard would have no effect on Social Security solvency, because Social Security benefits would be unchanged; however, it would increase costs to the SSI program, which is funded out of general revenues.

Benefit improvements that would significantly increase the well-being of the many women in need have real costs for Social Security and pose real trade-offs.  Different improvements target different groups of women.  Thus, it is important to evaluate reforms as a package, and in the context of a broader plan to strengthen Social Security for the long-term.  We emphasize that improvements to benefits must come on top of a secure, guaranteed-for-life, inflation-adjusted Social Security benefit, not applied to a greatly reduced, privatized benefit, as was proposed by the President’s Social Security Commission.[35]

It may not be possible to give out all the tax breaks that Congress is considering to corporations, the highest-income Americans, and the largest estates, and finance privatization, and also maintain and improve Social Security benefits.  But if Congress really wants to strengthen and improve Social Security for women, that can be done. To put the challenge into perspective:  we could eliminate the long-term, 75-year deficit in Social Security for half the cost of making the tax cut permanent, as the President and some in this House are proposing to do.[36]  Repealing the estate tax, which is paid by only the richest 2 percent of estates, will cost about 0.88 percent of taxable payroll over 75 years.[37]  If we instead retained the estate tax, we could pay for important benefit improvements many times over.  For example, the Social Security Administration estimates that one proposal to improve both the survivor benefit and the minimum benefit would cost about 0.15 percent of taxable payroll over 75 years.[38]  Alternatively, that amount would eliminate nearly half (47 percent) of the solvency gap of 1.86 percent of taxable payroll.[39]  The issue is one of priorities: to exempt the largest two percent of estates from federal taxation, or to help poor elderly women.

I look forward to working with the Subcommittee on ways to achieve real Social Security reforms to benefit all generations of women.

[1] Advisory from the Committee on Ways and Means, Subcommittee on Social Security, “Shaw Announces Hearing on Social Security Improvements for Women, Seniors, and Working Americans” (February 21, 2002).

[2] Robert Greenstein, “President’s Budget Uses Accounting Devices and Implausible Assumptions to Hide Hundreds of Billions of Dollars in Costs” (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, February 4, 2002).

[3] Budget of the U.S. Government, Fiscal Year 2003 (February 4, 2002), Table S-2, at 396.

[4] Congressional Budget Office, The Budget and Economic Outlook: Fiscal Years 2003-2012 (January 2002), available at http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=3277&sequence=2; Richard Kogan and Robert Greenstein, “The Disappearing Surplus” (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, December 3, 2001); and Richard Kogan, Robert Greenstein, and Joel Friedman, “The New CBO Projections: What Do They Tell Us?” (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, January 29, 2002).

[5] NWLC calculations based on Joint Committee on Taxation, “Estimated Budget Effects of the Conference Agreement for H.R. 1836, Fiscal Years 2001-2011” (May 26, 2001); and Congressional Budget Office, The Budget and Economic Outlook, Fiscal Years 2003-2012 (January 2002), Table 1-1.

[6] Ronald Brownstein, “Don’t Tap Into Social Security,” L.A. Times (February 5, 2002), at A1.

[7] Budget of the U.S. Government, Fiscal Year 2003 (February 4, 2002), Table S-2, at 396.

[8] Report of the President’s Commission to Strengthen Social Security, Strengthening Social Security and Creating Personal Wealth for All Americans (December 21, 2001), available athttp://www.csss.gov/reports/Final_report.pdf.

[9] Kilolo Kijakazi and Robert Greenstein, “Replacing Wage Indexing with Price Indexing” (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, December 14, 2001).

[10] President’s Commission, see supra note 8, at 138-139.

[11] See generally, Statement of Nancy Duff Campbell, “Privatization Report from President’s Social Security Commission is ‘A String of Broken Promises’ to Women” (National Women’s Law Center News Release, December 21, 2001); Robert Greenstein, “Social Security Commission Proposals Contain Serious Weaknesses but May Improve the Debate in an Important Respect,” (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, December 26, 2001).

[12] Memorandum to Representative Clay Shaw, Chairman, Subcommittee on Social Security from Stephen C. Goss, Chief Actuary, dated December 13, 2002, Subject: “OASDI Financial Effects of the ‘Social Security Guarantee Plus Plan.’”

[13] Memorandum to Subcommittee on Social Security from Kathleen Swendiman, Congressional Research Service, dated February 20, 2002, Subject: “H.R. 3135, the Social Security Benefits Guarantee Act of 2001.”

[14] U.S. General Accounting Office, “SSA Benefit Statements: Well Received by the Public but Difficult to Comprehend,” GAO/HEHS-97-19, (1996), at 6.

[15] See, for example, Henry J. Aaron, Alan S. Blinder, Alicia H. Munnell, and Peter R. Orszag, “Perspectives on the Draft Interim Report of the President’s Commission to Strengthen Social Security,” (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and The Century Foundation, July 23, 2001), availableat http://www.cbpp.org/7-23-01socsec.pdf.

[16] Gareth G. Davis and Philippe J. Lacoude, “What Social Security Will Pay: Rates of Return by Congressional District” (The Heritage Foundation, 2000), at 7

[17] See, for example, Alicia H. Munnell, “Reforming Social Security: The Case Against Individual Accounts,” (Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, 1999); Peter R. Orszag, “Individual Accounts and Social Security: Does Social Security Really Provide a Lower Rate of Return?” (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 1999); Peter A. Diamond, “Issues in Privatizing Social Security,” (MIT Press for the National Academy of Social Insurance, 1999); John Geanakoplos, Olivia S. Mitchell and Stephen P. Zeldes, “Would a Privatized Social Security System Really Pay a Higher Return?” in Framing the Social Security Debate: Values, Politics and Economics, edited by A. Douglas Arnold, Michael J. Graetz and Alicia H. Munnell(Brookings Institution Press for the National Academy of Social Insurance, 1998).

[18] Subcommittee Advisory, see supra note 1.

[19] National Women’s Law Center, “Women and Social Security Reform: What’s at Stake” (June, 2001), available at http://www.nwlc.org/pdf/NWLCSocialSecurityFactsheetJune2001.pdf, and National Women’s Law Center, “Why Social Security is a Better Deal than Privatization for Women and Their Families” (July, 2001), available at http://www.nwlc.org/pdf/SocialSecurityBetterDeal.pdf.

[20] NWLC calculations based on Social Security Administration, Annual Statistical Supplement, 2001, Table 5.A10 (data from December, 2000).

[21] Kathryn Porter, Kathy Larin and Wendell Primus, “Social Security and Poverty Among the Elderly: A National and State Perspective” (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 1999).

[22] Id.

[23] NWLC calculations based on U.S. Census Bureau, Detailed Tables from Poverty in the United States: 2000, Table 2, available at http://ferret.bls.census.gov/macro/032001/pov/new02_000.htm.

[24] Id.

[25] U.S. Census Bureau, Detailed Tables from Poverty in the United States: 2000, Table 2, available at http://ferret.bls.census.gov/macro/032001/pov/new02_000.htm.

[26]  NWLC calculations based on Social Security Administration Office of Policy and Office of Research, Evaluation, and Statistics, Income of the Population 55 or Older: 2000, Table 8.1, at 139 (February, 2002).

[27] See, for example, Christina Smith Fitzpatrick and Joan Entmacher, “Widows, Poverty, and Social Security Policy Options” (National Academy of Social Insurance, August, 2000); Richard V. Burkhauser and Timothy M. Smeeding, “Social Security Reform: A Budget-Neutral Approach to Reducing Older Women’s Disproportionate Risk of Poverty,” Policy Brief No. 2 (Center for Policy Research, Syracuse University, 1994); National Council of Women’s Organizations Task Force on Women and Social Security, “Strengthening Social Security for Women: A Report from the Working Conference on Women and Social Security” (July 19-22, 1999).

[28] Social Security Administration Office of Policy and Office of Research, Evaluation, and Statistics, Income of the Population 55 or Older: 2000, Table 8.1, at 139 (February 2002).

[29] Timothy M. Smeeding, Carroll L. Estes and Lou Glasse, “Social Security Reform and Older Women: Improving the System”(Gerontological Society of America, 1999).

[30]  Social Security benefits based on their husband’s earnings record are available to divorced women whose marriages lasted at least 10 years.

[31]  For a discussion of the impact of this $20 disregard, see Kilolo Kijakazi, “Women’s Retirement Income: The Case for Improving Supplemental Security Income” (Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, June 8, 2001).

[32] In 2000, 59 percent of elderly SSI recipients received Social Security benefits, and the average benefit was $394. NWLC calculations based on Social Security Administration, Annual Statistical Supplement, 2001,Table 7.D1.

[33] NWLC calculations based on Annual Statistical Supplement, 2001,Table 7.E3.

[34] About 30 percent of women, but only 20 percent of men, had monthly Social Security benefits below the $520 per month SSI level in 2000.  NWLC calculations based on Annual Statistical Supplement, 2001,Table 5.B6.

[35] Statement of Nancy Duff Campbell, see supra note 11.

[36] Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, “Social Security And The Tax Cut: The 75-year Cost of the Tax Cut Is More than Twice  As Large as the Long-Term Deficit in Social Security” (December 13, 2001).

[37] Conversation with Joel Friedman, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, February 26, 2002.

[38] Michael A. Anzick and David A. Weaver, “Reducing Poverty Among Elderly Women,” ORES Working Paper Series Number 87 (Social Security Administration, Office of Policy, Office of Research, Evaluation, and Statistics, January, 2001), at 14.

[39] Social Security and Medicare Boards of Trustees, “Status of the Social Security and Medicare Programs: A Summary of the 2001 Annual Reports” (March 19, 2001), available at http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/TRSUM/trsummary.html.