Max Sawicky wrote:
>
> mbs: we don't have to try to read Moynihan's mind to know that individual
> accounts are a threat that should be resisted.
>
The disability community is mobilizing against partial privatization.
We see it as having the potential to destroy disability benefits.
Most everyone tends to see Social Security predominantly in terms of retirement, but roughly one-third of all beneficiaries are non-retirees -- they receive benefits as Survivors (SI) or through Disability Insurance (SSDI). A study by the Government Accounting Office on the Bush plan already has concluded that “even under the best of circumstances, Social Security reform proposals would reduce benefits” for disabled people. For a worker with average earnings who first receives disability benefits at the age of 45, the report said, the reduction in lifetime benefits would be in the range of 4% - 18%. The average benefit for disabled workers is now $786 a month.
The GAO reported that “income from the individual accounts was not sufficient to compensate for the decline in the insurance benefits that disabled beneficiaries would receive” under the major reform proposals.
This is because disabled persons typically have shorter work histories (whether we want it or not) and would have less time to accumulate money in their accounts. Private investment of Social Security dollars may work for someone who has a solid and steady income for 40-plus years (provided the market doesn’t go south -- there are LONG periods when the stock market does not increase at all or actually declines, then there are individual bad investments), but what happens to people who enter the Social Security rolls earlier in life due to disability? Limited personal investments based on a truncated work history will be inadequate to cover living expenses for the rest of one's life.
Marta