<< Max Sawicky writes:
>There are issues, for instance, pertaining
>to the 'gendered' nature of the program that
>are more pressing, in my view.
Could you elaborate on this?
-Alec >>
I don't really know what Max had in mind, but social security has always had a strong gendered component....
The majority of the current generation of women receiving social security receive either wive's or widows allotments, rather than their own allotments from work, WHETHER THEY WORKED OR NOT. F'rinstance, my mother who worked all her life, married four years ago (age 71) and she now receives social security as a wife -- an amount less than she received prior to marriage in her own right. As more and more women arrive at social security age with higher incomes than in previous generations, and receive lesser amounts of social security than men because they are wives, there is a strong discriminatory factor built into the system. In other words, let's take a really ridiculous example and pretend I decided to get married in retirement.