1. Many of the women who will be eligible for social security payments in the next few decades are women like myself who have spent as much or more time in the labor force as most men. And yet, if we marry, we receive smaller payments. This tells me that my inputs into social security are not as valuable as the man I might choose to marry (not that I am contemplating this personally, but you get the drift). Further, this makes men eligible for higher social security payments for having done the same work. 2. The average women is now in the workforce for almost 30 years as compared with the average man who is in the workforce for just over 32 years. Between the marriage penalty and the fact that women receive less social security because they, on average, do not earn as much as men for the same number of years, women receive a double jeopardy in receiving back from social security what we put in -- it's a good thing we live longer, otherwise we'd never collect. 3. There are still many job categories which are populated primarily by women, particularly non-Caucasian women and immigrant women, who receive no social security benefits at all. For instance, only 1 in 13 of the 4,000,000 households which employ domestic help pay any taxes or social security. A conservative estimates means that 3,700,000 domestic servants will not receive any social security (for those interested in a longer winded version of this see my upcoming article in November CHALLENGE). Most waitress, illegal garment shop, home care, part time, temporary, grey market activities do not pay social security -- meaning a huge percentage of women who work a life time have no safety net to fall back on.
maggie coleman mscoleman at aol.com