Low wages, low or no savings, and low Social Security benefits. The future is not bright, especially for women and minorities.
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December 23, 2013
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(Editor’s note: This AlterNet interview is part of our expanded
focus on modernizing Social Security, which, to us means increasing
benefits where needed and ensuring its long-term funding. Dr. Maya
Rockeymoore is a longtime advocate for racial justice. She is chair of
the National Committee to Protect Social Security and Medicare and president and CEO of Global Policy Solutions. She spoke to AlterNet’s Steven Rosenfeld about how America’s retirement crisis affects communties of color and women.)
AlterNet:
There’s a lot about America’s growing retirement security crisis that’s
not fully appreciated by the public, especially when it comes to the
harmful impacts on communities of color and women. Tell us how unless we
as a country have an honest discussion about this, and expand Social
Security, that tens of millions of people will literally slide into
poverty as they age.
Maya Rockeymoore: There is
no way we cannot have this discussion given the nation’s changing
demographics. The rising majority will be primarily Asian-American,
African-American and Latino-American. The fact of the matter is those
people are already here. Of all the babies born today, a majority are
children of color. By 2019, a majority of all children under the age of
18 will be from these racial and ethnic, quote-unquote, minority groups.
And by the by 2043, the nation will be majority minority.
The
benefit cuts that austerity proponents are talking about today will be
fully shouldered, if they ever were to pass, by a nation that looks very
different than it does today. And so when you’re talking about cutting
Social Security now, most proposals are not talking about cutting it for
current retirees. They’re talking about implementing changes that would
affect today’s youth. You should understand that you are primarily
cutting benefits for a generation of young people who the odds are
stacked against them having any type of retirement security.
AlterNet: And that’s on top of what’s shaping up as a retirement crisis for baby boomers.
Maya Rockeymoore:
We’re already a nation experiencing a retirement crisis. The private
sector mostly does not have defined benefit pensions anymore. And 401Ks
have been a failure. What many people fail to appreciate is that
communities of color have less access to retirement savings vehicles on
the job than do white Americans. And unfortunately, even when they do
have access, they are either more likely not to take advantage of it, or
more likely to take loans out of it. So what we have is a population,
that by virtue of their inconsistent relationship with the labor market,
which is rooted in historical inequities, are already disadvantaged
when it comes to retirement security.
That insecurity is most
clearly represented by the racial wealth gap. For every $1 in wealth
owned by the typical white family, the typical African-American family
has five cents, and the typical Latino family has six cents. And layered
on top of that are the effects of the Great Recession, and the effect
of the housing crisis that stripped many households of color of any
wealth that they may have accumulated through real
estate.
AlterNet: I know those
figures and trends. They’re really shocking. And because as women tend
to live longer than men, they’ll be taking the largest hit.
Maya Rockeymoore:
That’s another feature of the story, because when you look at women of
color, they actually earn less than white women. So when you often hear
about the pay gap between women and men—and that about 77 cents earned
by women for every dollar that a man makes—it’s actually lower for
African-American and Latino women. They get paid less. And they have
less wealth. In fact, many households headed by women have negative
wealth—debt. That research has actually been conducted by
Mariko Chang, and I urge you to read about the lack of wealth of women of color.
So
when you’re talking about retirement insecurity, it’s a triple threat
for women of color, who are discriminated against in the labor market,
have lower rates of pay, come from households with low to no wealth, and
negative wealth in many instances, and often do not have access to
private retirement benefits. And then, of course, shoulder the burden of
children, and that having a wealth-depleting effect on their personal
economic security. So heading into retirement, many women of color,
Social Security is all they’ve got. So when you’re talking about cutting
benefits, you’re talking about further eroding any kind of economic
security for households that are already extremely vulnerable. And have
been exploited and vulnerable over a lifetime of work.
We like to
think that some of these decisions are deracialized, and that maybe that
the policy makers who are opposing these things are not thinking in
terms of race. But I think we do ourselves a great disservice when we do
not consider race and ethnicity or class. Because when we ignore the
impact of proposed policy changes on differently situated groups, we can
often make things like poverty much worse. And that undermines and
erodes our democracy and we can’t afford to do that.
AlterNet: I completely agree. I wrote a
piece
on the Senate Finance subcommittee’s recent hearing on Social Security.
What I didn’t put in it was how a Democratic senator said, ‘My gosh!
What’s a family that’s making $150,000 a year to do?’ I thought, ‘Wow,
$150,000 a year is the family you’re concerned about? And this is from a
Democrat?’ What do you think is needed to reframe this discussion, so
the debate can be forced to talk about solutions that affect people with
real needs?
Maya Rockeymoore: I think there are two things that we need to say. The first is there is an economic argument to be made. For most of the 20
th century, America did well. If we expect to do well in the 21
st
century, then we can’t erode and undercut the economic prosperity of
the nation. And regardless of race and ethnicity, average Americans are
pretty bad off. But when you layer on the fact that we have more people
coming from households with low to no wealth, becoming a majority of the
population—and we expect to still be a superpower? Can we expect to
still be a superpower? I would argue no. The fact of the matter is we’re
all in this boat together. And if we’re committed to national economic
prosperity, and the growing productivity of the nation, we need to
consider how we actually produce systems that can support the
productivity of workers. Social Security has proven its value and its
worth for reducing poverty, and providing insurance benefits for
families throughout the 20
th century. It can continue to do so for the 21
st century if policy makers remain committed to the value of social insurance.
The
second thing is the democratic argument. Our democracy cannot stand
with gross wealth inequality. There may come a time, if we let these
trends and trajectories continue, that the institutions that were
created will not be able to stand under the weight of the despair that
will be created by policies that undercut the economic security of the
vast majorities of Americans. But especially those who are already
vulnerable. We cannot expect that our democratic institutions will be
considered valid; that they will continue to be relevant when the vast
majority of our population lives in squalor and poor circumstances. And
so, if we care about prepetuating this great democratic experience we
call the United States of America, we should care about making sure that
we are producing policies that are in the best benefit for the majority
of the nation—but especially those who have been vunerable
traditionally.
And there’s a moral argument. And that argument is
that we should and can do better than what’s being proposed. And that we
are better as a nation when we pull together to move forward to define
progress for the world. The fact of the matter is Social Security of one
of our great pillars of progress. We created it and we had the
foresight to realize that workers could come together to contribute to
their own security. And we need to continue to perpetuate it, because
that’s what we do as Americans. We are problem solvers and we know how
to put together systems that work. And some policy makers have forgotten
that.
AlterNet: There’s one more thing I wanted
to ask about. One under-appreciated piece of this is how immigration
reform would contribute to solving this crisis. Isn’t that right?
Maya Rockeymoore:
Yes, that’s correct. First of all, immigrants already contribute a
whole heck of a lot of money to Social Security. It’s through
undocumented labor and using fake Social Security numbers that do not
match. These individuals are paying taxes and they are paying Social
Security taxes. And they are primarily Latino in origin and coming from
various Latin American countries. And these are individuals who tend to
have larger families. We have been talking for the past several decades
about the growing imbalance between the number of workers to retirees,
and the fact of the matter is we have a nationwide solution staring us
straight in the face. We’ve got a population that’s already contributing
and eager to contribute more to the American economy. And this is a
population that certainly tends to value family. And have larger
families. And if we simply recognize this population and do right by
them with regards to honoring their contribution to our economy, we can
go a significant want toward addressing the issue of Social Security
solvency.
And, of course, the other part of that is scrapping the
cap [where only the first $117,300 of income is taxed for Social
Security] will get us all the way there.
AlterNet:
Yes, I’m well aware of that. And as pollster Celinda Lake pointed out,
most people are not even aware there’s a cap because they do not earn
above six-figures.
Maya Rockeymoore: That’s
right. You may have heard me use the term fiscal racism. But it’s also
fiscal sexism. And how is it—and I say this tongue-in-cheek—that the
policy makers coming up with these austerity proposals, who tend to be
overwhelmingly male, and overwhelmingly white, would come up with
policies that would just happen to stick it to women and people of
color? And low-income people? These are overwhelmingly well-to-do people
who think that a family making $150,000 is struggling, and they are
just out of touch with the reality of how Americans are living,
especially Americans who have come from traditionally disadvantaged
populations.
I think that we have to drive home that there are
racialized, and gendered, and class implications to the policies that
they are proosing and it’s simply unacceptable. What they are proposing
will actually exacerbate income inequality in this country.
AlterNet: I noticed that. I wrote a
piece
that talked about George W. Bush’s former policy director at the Social
Security Administration spoke at a Senate hearing and said that we
should have a floor—nobody gets less money than the federal poverty
level—and the price for that is cutting benefits in the middle. That
idea was seen as great progress as it wasn’t just cut-cut-cut. But all
of this is so far from what really needs to happen.
Maya Rockeymoore:
That’s the whole point. Even Democrats that take that stand are
actually protecting the benefits of the privileged. They are unwilling
to acknowledge that their policies are perpetuating the advantages of
the 1 percent. They are unwilling to explain to the American people,
that they represent, that are actually not representing them. They are
actually sticking up for the big guy and sticking it to the little guy
and girl… Nobody blinks because they don’t realize their own bias.
It’s like the bias of the
Washington Post
editorial board, who seems to care greatly that the wealthy have
limited resources. Well, gee—what about the average Joe? What about the
average worker who’s struggling to make ends meet? The wealthy have
quite a bit of resources that can go to solving our problems. And not
only that, they’re deserving of being hit up on this, because of the
fact of the growth of unearned income. Those are resources that have
skirted the system. Social Security taxes payrolls. Basically, they’ve
found a way to get away with not paying their contribution to Social
Security. That has exacerbated the Social Security solvency and finaning
issue. And yet the nature of their solution is not about recouping lost
wages, it’s about cutting benefits for people who have been faithfully
making their contributions. It’s just backwards and it needs to stop.
Steven Rosenfeld covers
democracy issues for AlterNet and is the author of "Count My Vote: A
Citizen's Guide to Voting" (AlterNet Books, 2008).
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