Senators Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and John Conyers (MI-13) led a group of 72 members of the Congressional Democratic Caucus in a letter to President Obama calling on him to make expanding Social Security a top White House priority at the White House Conference on Aging, which begins tomorrow.
The letter details the current precarious situation for current and future retirees and the wide public support for expanding Social Security. It concludes, “As Social Security is affordable, universal, efficient, secure, portable, distributionally fair, and popular, expanding its modest benefits should be the number one retirement security recommendation of the White House Conference on Aging.”
Here is the full text of the letter:
Dear President Obama,This August marks 80 years since the creation of Social Security, a program that has enabled tens of millions of Americans to realize the dream of retirement. We greatly appreciate your support for the program and your broader efforts to promote financial security.
We write today to request your help in ensuring that Americans continue to have sufficient resources to maintain their standard of living in old age. As employers continue moving from a defined benefit model to a defined contribution model of retirement savings, it is critical that we fight to protect and expand Social Security—the only guaranteed source of income in retirement. Today, two-thirds of retirees depend on social security for the majority of their income. More than half (53 percent) of today’s working Americans are not expected to have sufficient resources upon retirement to maintain their standard of living.
We believe that the decennial White House Conference on Aging, taking place on July 13, presents an excellent opportunity to open a discussion on expanding Social Security benefits. A clear majority of Americans support expanding Social Security. According to a 2014 survey, 79 percent of likely voters support “increasing Social Security benefits.” This support crosses party lines: 90 percent of Democrats, 73 percent of Independents, and 73 percent of Republicans favor expanding Social Security.
Given the state of popular opinion and the impending retirement savings crisis facing the nation, we respectfully urge you to include proposals to expand Social Security benefits for millions of Americans to your policy brief at the upcoming Conference. As Social Security is affordable, universal, efficient, secure, portable, distributionally fair, and popular, expanding its modest benefits should be the number one retirement security recommendation of the White House Conference on Aging. We look forward to working with you to accomplish this as part of the longstanding mission guaranteeing universal retirement security.
The group of 72 consists of 4 senators, 66 representatives, and two delegates (non-voting representatives).
The three senators to sign on, besides Sanders, were Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Mazie Hirono (D-HI), and our very own Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).
Among the 66 representatives were four members of the MA delegation:
Jim McGovern (MA-02)
Katherine Clark (MA-05)
Mike Capuano (MA-07)
Bill Keating (MA-09)
You can see the rest of the signers, organized by state here.
But we also need to push back the age of edibility to 65 or younger. The Republicans want to push is out to 70 because “we’re all living longer”. That’s true in some cases and no big deal if you are working behind a desk, but tell the carpet layer, heavy equipment mechanic, hotel housekeeper or registered nurse that they need to make it to 70. Did you know that nurses have more back injuries than any other profession?