<HTML> <HEAD> <META HTTP-EQUIV="content-type" CONTENT="text/html;charset=iso-8859-1"> <META NAME="generator" CONTENT="GoLive CyberStudio"> <TITLE>The Nation - Selected Editorial</TITLE> </HEAD> <BODY BGCOLOR="#FFFFFF"> <BLOCKQUOTE> <IMG SRC="../../images/editoria.gif" ALT=" Selected Editorial"> The People's Trust Fund Before Wall Street hoodwinks the country into privatizing Social Security, let's take a moment to consider how tremendously successful the program is right now. It's time--maybe past time--for the defenders of Social Security to speak up and be heard. Social Security serves an enormous number of people. It pays benefits to 44 million. Roughly 147 million workers--96 percent of the work force--pay Social Security contributions to support the program and stand to benefit from it as they grow older. Social Security has dramatically reduced poverty among the elderly. As late as 1959, more than 35 percent of old people lived in poverty. In the forties, a 65-year-old woman could not expect to live beyond her 70s. With the expansion of Social Security, poverty among the elderly has dropped to near 10 percent. Now the average 65-year-old woman can expect to live nearly twenty additional years. Social Security does more to reduce poverty and income inequality than either the tax code or the welfare system. Social Security succeeds at this because it is a progressive system. Low-wage earners, who have less income from which to save during their working years, get back more relative to what they put in. Social Security retirement benefits replace approximately 60 percent of the pre-retirement earnings of a low-wage earner, 42 percent of an average-wage earner, and 26 percent of a high-wage earner. Social Security also helps the children of retirees, who need to put aside less to care for their parents and thus can spend more on their children. And Social Security provides benefits beyond retirement. For example, survivors collect when a wage earner dies, easing their financial problems. Americans face roughly a 1-in-5 chance of dying before they reach the age of 65. Social Security survivors' benefits are the equivalent of a $322,000 life insurance policy for an average family with two children. More than 7 million Americans, including millions of children, receive Social Security survivors' benefits today. Social Security also protects workers who become severely disabled. Once again, the odds are high--3 in 10--that a worker will become disabled before age 65. Few workers have private, long-term disability insurance, but Social Security provides nearly all workers with such protection--the equivalent of a $200,000 disability policy for an average family with two children. More than 4 million disabled workers under 65 and nearly 2 million of their dependents receive Social Security disability benefits. Contrary to the privatizers' propaganda, the elderly are not an affluent group. A majority of Americans 65 or older depend on Social Security for most of their income--nearly a third for 90 percent of their income. The average retired beneficiary gets a little more than $9,000 a year from Social Security. Most of the elderly get less than $6,000 a year from all other sources. Fully two-thirds of the elderly have nonSocial Security incomes below $11,000 a year. Without Social Security income, 54 percent of America's elderly would live in poverty. When the privatizers say, "Let's cut Social Security benefits to fund individual savings accounts," they're really saying, "Let's take some of that $9,000 a year future retirees hope to get from Social Security and put it at risk." Social Security is not facing bankruptcy. Yes, we will have to modify Social Security to keep it solvent over the next seventy-five years, but there's no need to scrap its fundamental benefit structure, as some privatizers seek. Even under pessimistic actuarial and economic assumptions, the current system will work without any change whatsoever through 2032. Even under these pessimistic assumptions, modest steps taken now can keep Social Security solvent over the next seventy-five years. Policies that raise revenues or cut expenditures by the equivalent of a 1.1 percentage point increase in workers' and employers' contributions would close the gap and still maintain Social Security as it is today. Social Security is the most successful government program in history. It is one of America's proudest accomplishments. We should sustain that success, not destroy it. Paul Wellstone <HR SIZE="1"> <HR NOSHADE SIZE="1"> Paul Wellstone is the senior Senator from Minnesota. <HR NOSHADE SIZE="1"> <CENTER> Join a discussion in the Digital Edition <A HREF="http://www.thenation.com/forums/forums.htm">Forums</A>. Or send your letter to the editor to <A HREF="mailto:letters@thenation.com">letters@thenation.com</A>. The Nation Digital Edition http://www.thenation.com </CENTER> Copyright (c) 1997, The Nation Company, L.P. All rights reserved. Electronic redistribution for nonprofit purposes is permitted, provided this notice is attached in its entirety. Unauthorized, for-profit redistribution is prohibited. For further information regarding reprinting and syndication, please call The Nation at (212) 242-8400, ext. 226 or send e-mail to Max Block at <A HREF="mailto:mblock@TheNation.com">mblock@thenation.com</A>. </BLOCKQUOTE> <HR WIDTH="300"> <A HREF="../../index.htm"><IMG BORDER="0" ALIGN="top" ALT="HOME" SRC="../../images/home.gif"></A> <CENTER> <A HREF="../../hardcopy.htm">This Week</A> | <A HREF="/cgi-bin/mozcheck.pl?NetscapeURL=https://www.newmedium.com/nation/sub_form.htm&OtherURL=http://www.thenation.com/sub_form.htm">Subscribe</A> | <A HREF="../../static/about/index.htm">About The Nation</A> | <A HREF="../../static/alert/descript.htm">Alert</A> | <A HREF="../../forums/forums.htm">Forums</A> <A HREF="../../audio/audio.htm">Audio</A> | <A HREF="../../backissu.htm">Archives</A> | <A HREF="/cgi-bin/common.pl?cf=nation/nationswish.cf">Search</A> | <A HREF="../../hotlist.htm">Hot List</A> | <A HREF="../../adverts/marketsp.htm">Marketspace</A> | <A HREF="../../survey.htm">Survey</A> <ADDRESS><A HREF="mailto:webmanager@TheNation.com">webmanager@TheNation.com</A></ADDRESS> </CENTER>    </BODY> </HTML>