Here's a wonkish question. Al Gore says that he wants to credit woman who leave the workforce to take care of their children as if they were earning $16,500 a year, half the average wage, in order to boost their benefits in retirement. He says that now few working mothers manage to pay in for the 35 years needed to get a full social security entitlement in their own right.
But I'm a little confused. On Doug's show a few weeks ago, Heidi Hartmann said that women who don't log the full 35 years of paid labor are credited with social security earnings based on the earnings of their husbands (even if they are not still married) and on the basis of their highest-paid husband, if they had several. I'm not sure I understand how a wife's payment relates to her husband's, or a divorced wife's to her ex-husband's. Do they both get the same amount, whether they are together or apart? If so, it seems that Gore's minor ideological advance would have the actual effect of lowering the amount of money most women who would be affected by it would receive. Have I been bedeviled my the lack of details?
Michael
__________________________________________________________________________ Michael Pollak................New York City..............mpollak at panix.com