Harris, Dems Promise to Protect Seniors’ Earned Benefits at Convention
Along with powerful speakers from across the Democratic party (and even some Republicans), heartfelt personal testimonials, and a music-infused roll call, Social Security and Medicare played a prominent role during this week’s convention in Chicago. Democrats hammered home the message that Kamala Harris will protect senior’s earned benefits while Donald Trump and Project 2025 pose a clear threat to Social Security and Medicare (despite Trump’s mixed-messages on the subject).
“We’re not going back” became the rallying cry at the convention, which Harris employed in her acceptance speech to warn voters that a second Trump administration would undermine Americans’ retirement and health security::::
“We are not going back to when Donald Trump tried to cut Social Security and Medicare. We are not going back to when he tried to get rid of the Affordable Care Act.” – Kamala Harris, 8/22/24
During his presidency, Trump submitted White House budgets that included billions of dollars in cuts to Social Security and Medicare. He tried unsuccessfully to repeal the Affordable Care Act. He suspended the Social Security payroll tax and hoped it would be “terminated.” This year, he said he was “open” to “cutting entitlements” and proposes to eliminate the tax on Social Security benefits which helps to fund the program.
By contrast, Harris pledged in her speech to “protect Social Security and Medicare” — a salient promise that squarely aligns with public opinion. In recent polling, some 80% of Americans across party lines do not want to see Social Security and Medicare cut. In fact, majorities want to see Social Security expanded by having the wealthy contribute their fair share.
Other VIP speakers reinforced Harris’ promise throughout the week:::
“As President, Kamala will fight to lower the cost of health care and eldercare for EVERY family.” – Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI)
“For workers striving for a secure retirement, Kamala will fight for you.” – Gov. Roy Cooper (D-NC)
“I had two incredible grandparents who stepped in and raised me. When I work to protect Medicare and social security, I do it with a personal knowledge of what those big programs meant in small but deeply meaningful ways to our family.” – Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-IL)
Vice presidential nominee Tim Walz offered his own testimonial about Social Security. His father died of lung cancer when Walz was 19, leaving the family with a “a mountain of medical debt” — but Social Security kept them from falling into poverty. In his acceptance speech Wednesday night, Walz said simply, “Thank God for Social Security survivor benefits!”
The National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare was represented at the convention by political director Luke Warren, director of government relations and policy Dan Adcock, and president/CEO Max Richtman — who was selected to serve on the Democratic Platform Committee.
“This obviously was a historic convention and it was exciting to be there. I think that what’s remarkable is that Social Security and Medicare, which we have been telling Democrats for years are winning issues, were very much in the mix,” says Dan Adcock, who has attended every Democratic convention since 2004. “In past conventions, seniors’ programs were hardly mentioned at all. But this time, they were prominent in the speeches of both Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.”
NCPSSM’s Dan Adcock & Max Richtman in Chicago
NCPSSM President and CEO Max Richtman spoke at the DNC Seniors’ Council meeting in Chicago on Wednesday, echoing Harris’ commitment to improving Social Security’s finances by adjusting the payroll wage cap that currently exempts wages above $168,600, depriving the program of much-needed revenue:
“Kamala Harris and Tim Walz support extending the solvency of Social Security’s trust fund — and boosting Social Security benefits. They also believe the wealthy should pay their fair share in Social Security payroll contributions.” – Max Richtman, 8/21/24
Richtman pointed out that seniors are an important voting bloc who reliably show up at the polls. An Emerson College survey released on Thursday show Harris gaining ground over Trump among older Baby Boomers and the Silent Generation. According to Newsweek, “The majority of voters over 70 support Harris over Trump, 51% to 48%. (This) represents a major breakthrough for Harris.”
“Close elections can turn on how the largest and most dependable age group votes. Seniors know – or should know — that Democrats will go to the mat for them,” Richtman told the Seniors’ Council.
Social Security Celebrates 89 Years of Keeping Seniors Financially Secure
Social Security turns 89 years old today. That’s nearly nine decades of providing baseline financial security to America’s retirees and their families — and since 1956, to people with disabilities. Today, 67 million people — or 1 in 5 U.S. residents — receive Social Security benefits. And in all these years, Social Security has never missed a payment. Not once.
When President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Social Security into law on August 14, 1935, about half of the nation’s seniors lived in poverty. Many were living in actual poor houses. (As of 2021, only 8 percent of people over 65 fell beneath the poverty line.) “We can never insure one hundred percent of the population against one hundred percent of the hazards and vicissitudes of life,” FDR declared at the signing ceremony in 1935. “But we have tried to frame a law which will give some measure of protection to the average citizen and to his family… against poverty-ridden old age.”
That “measure of protection” is modest, but crucial. The average Social Security check for retirees is about $1,900 per month… or $22,800 per year. If you talk to seniors on fixed incomes, as I do when I’m traveling around the country speaking about Social Security, they will tell you that their earned benefits are a financial lifeline. “It’s a sizable chunk of my income,” a beneficiary in Milwaukee told us. “It’s my livelihood,” said a retiree in Richmond. Another senior put it simply: “Thank God for Social Security.”
Social Security not only provides retirement benefits; it serves as insurance for eligible workers and their families. In fact, the average 27 year-old worker with a family already has the equivalent of some $2 million in life and disability insurance from Social Security. This simple truth betrays the claims of politicians and pundits who claim that the program somehow is unfair to younger Americans paying into it. In fact, Social Security truly is intergenerational. It is there for workers today — and when they retire.
Social Security’s impact goes beyond workers and retirees. The program provides economic stimulus for the entire nation. Thanks to the ‘multiplier effect,’ every dollar of Social Security benefits produces $2 in economic stimulus. That adds up to more than $1.6 trillion in stimulus as benefits are spent and generate economic activity in every state. Social Security also acts as an automatic economic stabilizer because benefits are paid even during economic downturns.
The program has its challenges. The Social Security Trustees project that reserves in the combined retirement and disability trust fund will become depleted by 2035 if Congress doesn’t take pre-emptive action. Contrary to popular belief, this is not because of the increasing ratio of retirees collecting benefits to workers paying into the program. The lawmakers behind the 1983 Social Security reforms had already anticipated that, which is why they increased revenue and raised the retirement age to 67 for anyone born in 1960 or later.
The primary reason for the current projected shortfall is growing income inequality. The 1983 reformers did not anticipate the widening gap between higher earners and everyone else who contributes to Social Security through payroll taxes. Those payroll taxes are capped at a certain level of income, also known as the “tax max.” (The current cap is $168,600 in annual wages.) Back in the early 1980s, the Social Security “tax maximum” captured 90 percent of Americans’ earnings. With the rich getting richer and middle-class income stagnating, that figure has decreased to only 82 percent today. More and more high earners were “maxing out,” depriving the system of much-needed revenue.
The system can be restored to financial health by adjusting the payroll wage cap so that the wealthy begin paying their fair share. We support Representative John Larson’s (D-Conn.) Social Security 2100 Act, which re-imposes payroll taxes at $400,000 in wages — and for the first time would include some of high-earners’ investment income. (We have endorsed similar legislation from Senator Bernie Sanders (D-Vt.), Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Penn.)
Rep. Larson’s bill not only would extend the solvency of the trust fund; it would expand benefits across the board — and provide especially vulnerable groups of beneficiaries with targeted benefit increases.
Some on Capitol Hill reject any measures to increase revenue, and insist that Social Security must be “reformed,” which is code for cutting benefits. We reject benefit cuts as unnecessary and harmful to current and future retirees. These include raising the retirement age to 69 or 70, means-testing benefits, adopting a more miserly COLA formula, or privatizing Social Security.
We push back when conservatives say benefits must be cut to address the federal debt. Social Security is self-funded and does not contribute to the debt. In fact, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the number one driver of debt is tax giveaways to the wealthy and profitable corporations, such as the Trump tax cuts of 2017, which some lawmakers now want to make permanent.
Some proponents of cutting Social Security claim they won’t touch benefits for today’s seniors, but that future generations will have to count on less from the program. We say that our children and grandchildren will rely on Social Security even more than current seniors do — because of the disappearance of employer-provided pensions, mounting student debt, and rising income inequality making it harder to save for retirement. Younger workers will need every dollar of their promised retirement benefits, if not more.
This 89th anniversary year for Social Security is also a crucial one for the program, because the future of Social Security hinges, in part, on the results of the 2024 elections. Most politicians claim to support Social Security. We urge voters to look beyond the rhetoric and assess what candidates for federal office truly propose for Social Security. Those who advocate cutting benefits (by raising the retirement age or by other means), either for today’s retirees or tomorrow’s, do not have seniors’ true interests in mind. Candidates who want to strengthen and expand Social Security are the ones looking out for workers’ financial security — and honoring the legacy of Franklin D. Roosevelt, who said 89 years ago that the Social Security Act was “a cornerstone in a structure which is being built but is by no means complete.”
Our Fact Checker Says FactCheck.Org Missed the Bigger Picture on Trump, Social Security & Medicare
Our Director of Government Relations & Policy, Dan Adcock
Late last month, FactCheck.org published an article titled ‘FactChecking Vice President Kamala Harris’ which included misleading claims on the two presidential candidates and their stances on Social Security and Medicare. The Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank, and other groups like it, have taken positions that would seriously undermine the nation’s most popular social insurance programs. Donald Trump has tried to distance himself from Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 policy blueprint, but the people behind it undoubtedly would play an influential role in a second Trump Administration. We chatted with our Government Relations and Policy Director, Dan Adcock, about some of the missing context in the FactCheck.org article — and the bigger picture on Social Security and Medicare in 2024.
Q: The FactCheck piece quotes Donald Trump claiming he would “get rid of the waste and fraud” and “save (Social Security and Medicare) without cuts.” Why should America’s seniors believe that “getting rid of waste and fraud” isn’t just a fancy way of saying “cutting benefits?”
A: Trump’s previous public statements make it clear that he’s open to the idea of making cuts. He said on CNBC that cutting “entitlements” would be easy. Then, of course, he walked that back. In one of his books he compared Social Security to a “Ponzi scheme.” It’s clear that he doesn’t really care about Social Security. On one hand, he’s said that he won’t cut benefits… and that’s great. But as president, his budgets proposed to cut Social Security Disability Insurance by billions of dollars. He also proposed getting rid of the Social Security payroll tax — which finances the program itself. Without the Social Security payroll tax, there would be no Social Security.
Q: The FactCheck article makes the claim,“In his four years as president, Trump did not propose cutting Social Security’s retirement benefits.” Is this misleading? If so, how?
A: This is definitely misleading wording from FactCheck. To imply that disability insurance can be isolated from retirement insurance is hogwash. It’s all the same program. Workers pay for both retirement and disability insurance together with every paycheck. We are currently part of efforts, both legislatively and in the press, to make it clear that it is in fact a single program, and that cutting any component of Social Security would mean tearing the whole thing down.
Q: Trump denies that Project 2025, authored by the right-wing Heritage Foundation, is a blueprint for his second term. Project 2025 proposes devastating cuts to Medicare — and the Heritage Foundation itself has called for cuts to Social Security. It is disingenuous for Trump to try to distance himself from Heritage and Project 2025?
The Heritage foundation authored Project 2025, and they aren’t going anywhere. They’ve made it clear that they will be behind a substantial number of potential Trump administration nominations, which will be based on ideology and loyalty to the President — as opposed to expertise. These would be the people that he feels are most loyal to him and his staff. The Heritage Foundation considers itself the “brain trust” of any potential Trump Administration, and often focuses on cherished issues of the conservative elite that Trump may not know in detail or care much about. But he will do their bidding, if past is precedent. The Heritage Foundation will have a lot of influence if Trump is re-elected.
Q: Republicans often claim that they have not called for any changes to Social Security affecting today’s seniors. But they leave the door open for cuts impacting the younger generations of workers. In truth, haven’t Republicans proposed significant benefit cuts — and won’t younger workers need every dollar of those benefits when they retire?
A: It’s clear when you look at the 2025 budget blueprint of the House Republican Study Committee, which includes 80% of the House Republican Caucus and 100% of the leadership, that they would raise the Social Security retirement age to 69 or 70. That is a huge lifetime benefit cut! And, of course, today’s younger workers will need every dollar of their promised benefits once they retire. Some House Republicans also would like to make the annual Social Security cost of living adjustment (COLA) discretionary, to be decided by each congress. Currently, seniors automatically get a yearly boost in benefits based on inflation. And on the Medicare side, the House Republican Study Committee plan would stack the deck against traditional Medicare in favor of privatized, for-profit plans that often provide inferior coverage.
Q: Any last comments on the FactCheck article and the claims it made?
A: I just want to reiterate the importance of Social Security survivor and disability benefits. President Trump has been all over the place with his rhetoric about Social Security as he tries to court support from seniors while placating his wealthy and influential backers on the right. But he and his allies have made it clear that they are coming for the disability and survivorship aspects of the program if Trump wins a second term. This isn’t okay. Like I said before, it’s all one program!
Tim Walz Brings Unwavering Support for Seniors to the Harris Campaign
Seventy percent of voters did not know who Tim Walz was before Kamala Harris picked him as her running mate on Tuesday. As Americans learn more about the Minnesota Governor and newly-minted VP candidate, they will discover that he is a true champion for seniors — and a welcome addition to the Democratic ticket. As our president and CEO, Max Richtman, put it, Tim Walz has built an impressive record on issues affecting older Americans as a congressman and later as governor:
“Through his words and actions, Tim Walz has proven himself to be a champion for Minnesota seniors. His advocacy dovetails perfectly with Kamala Harris’ commitment to enhancing older American’s financial and health security — especially protecting Social Security and Medicare.” – Max Richtman, 8/6/24
In his debut as Harris’ running mate at a fiery rally in Philadelphia last night, Walz wasted no time calling out Donald Trump on three of the most important issues for older voters:
“Trump will repeal the Affordable Care Act, no doubt about it. He’ll GUT Social Security and Medicare.” – Gov. Tim Walz, Democratic VP candidate, 8/6/24
Earlier this year, Walz already had established his bona fides as a fighter for seniors. “This election is a binary choice,” Walz tweeted in March. “Donald Trump plans to cut Social Security and give tax cuts to the wealthy.” Walz added that the Biden-Harris administration “has worked to strengthen Social Security and protect your hard-earned money.”
Governor Walz is a living example of how Social Security helps workers and families. His father, James F. Walz, died in 1984 of lung cancer, after which Walz, his brother, and mother began receiving survivors’ benefits from Social Security. Governor Walz says those benefits kept the family afloat during difficult times.
“Kamala Harris’ selection of Tim Walz as her running mate solidifies the 2024 Democratic ticket as incontestably pro-Social Security, pro-Medicare/Medicaid, and pro-senior,” said our president, Max Richtman, in a press statement on Tuesday. In July, we enthusiastically endorsed Kamala Harris for President because of the administration’s impressive record on seniors’ issues (including protecting Social Security & Medicare and pushing the Inflation Reduction Act through Congress to lower drug prices).
As Newsweek reported yesterday, both Harris and Walz support adjusting the Social Security payroll wage cap to keep the program’s trust fund solvent beyond its projected depletion date of 2035. “Harris and Walz have discussed millionaires and billionaires not ‘paying their fair share,'” Alex Beene, a financial literacy instructor for the University of Tennessee at Martin, told Newsweek. Michael Ryan, a finance expert quoted in the same article, says Walz is likely to “double down on protecting Social Security as vice president.”
“Donald Trump will gut Social Security and Medicare,” said Walz at Tuesday’s rally
“Walz’s record speaks for itself,” says our president, Max Richtman. As a member of the U.S. House, Walz consistently voted to protect Social Security and Medicare, earning a 100% rating on our legislative scorecard for the 113th and 114th congress. During his five years as governor, Walz has worked to protect Minnesota seniors. His One Minnesota budget included provisions to support older adults and family caregivers at a time when the state’s demographic is ‘aging rapidly.’ During the pandemic, Governor Walz made it a priority to get seniors vaccinated, declaring, “We set out to protect the most vulnerable Minnesotans, and we are honoring that commitment.”
The new Democratic ticket provides a stark contrast with Donald Trump and J.D. Vance, who cannot be trusted to defend Americans’ earned benefits — and who throughout the years have called for cuts to “entitlements” and later tried to back off of those statements. As President, Trump submitted successive White House budgets that included billions of dollars in Social Security and Medicare cuts. He once called Social Security a “Ponzi Scheme” and recklessly suspended the payroll tax that funds Social Security during the pandemic, expressing the hope that the program’s main revenue source would be “terminated.”
The stakes could not be higher this election year. According to Newsweek, a recent poll found that Social Security and Medicare is “very important” in helping 63 percent of voters decide who to cast their ballot for. “Kamala Harris and Tim Walz have been steadfast in their support of seniors,” said Richtman. “We are confident that Harris and her excellent new running mate will earn the votes of workers and retirees across America.”
As Medicare Turns 59, We Still Need to Defend It
In Medicare’s first year of coverage, poverty decreased by 66% among the senior population. From 1965, when Medicare was enacted, to 1994, life expectancy at age 65 increased nearly 3 full years. This was no coincidence. Access to Medicare coverage for those who were previously uninsured helped lift seniors out of poverty and extend their lives.
As with Social Security, workers would contribute with each paycheck toward their future Medicare benefits. Upon putting his signature on this new program, a keystone of the Great Society, President Johnson declared, “Every citizen will be able, in their productive years when they are earning, to insure themselves against the ravages of illness in old age.”
Medicare has been improved several times over the decades. In 1972, Americans with disabilities (under 65 years of age) became eligible for Medicare coverage — along with people suffering from chronic kidney disease needing dialysis or transplants. In 2003, prescription drug coverage was added to Medicare (though the program was prohibited from negotiating prices with drugmakers). The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 finally empowered Medicare to negotiate prices with Big Pharma — and lowered seniors’ costs by capping their out-of-pocket expenses for prescription drugs (including a $35 monthly cap on insulin).
Nearly sixty years after it was enacted, Medicare is one of the most popular and efficient federal programs. Ninety-four percent of beneficiaries say they are “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with their quality of care. Unlike many other federal programs, Medicare only spends 2% of its budget on administrative costs. Medicare isn’t perfect. It should be expanded to cover dental, hearing, and vision care.
The privatized version of the program, Medicare Advantage (MA), is gobbling up a larger share of the market despite myriad problems, including MA insurers overbilling the government and denying legitimate care. The Biden-Harris administration has been working to hold those private plans more accountable, but much remains to be done to protect traditional Medicare from efforts toward privatization.
Even after 59 years of Medicare’s overall success, we must continually defend Medicare against conservatives’ attempts to cut and privatize the program. Our founder, Congressman James Roosevelt, Sr. (son of President Franklin D. Roosevelt), knew that Medicare (along with Social Security) would need continuous advocacy to withstand assaults from antagonistic political forces. That’s why the word “preserve” is in our organization’s name.
Many conservatives opposed Medicare from the start, labeling it “socialism” and “socialized medicine.” In 1962, Ronald Reagan warned that if Medicare were to be enacted, “One of these days you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children, and our children’s children, what it once was like in America when men were free.”
Today, the onslaught continues. The House Republican Study Committee’s (RSC) 2025 budget proposes to cut Medicare by an estimated $1 trillion over the next decade. The RSC would replace Medicare’s current reimbursement system with vouchers, and push seniors into private plans that can and do deny payment for services. Project 2025, the right-wing blueprint for a 2nd Trump presidency, would “gut” traditional Medicare as we know it, leaving only a privatized version that puts profits over patient care.
Democrats by and large support protecting and even expanding Medicare. President Biden tried to add dental, vision, and hearing coverage in his Build Back Better Act, but encountered resistance from Republicans and centrist Democrats. It’s still a laudable goal. Republicans, for the most part, advocate cutting Medicare benefits and privatization.
We endorsed Kamala Harris for President, because she knows the importance of Medicare to America’s seniors and people with disabilities — and has vowed to protect them. She has been in lock-step with President Biden, including his budget proposals to strengthen Medicare’s finances by demanding that the wealthy contribute their fair share. President Trump, on the other hand, has been rhetorically all over the map on this topic, telling CNBC he is “open” to “cutting entitlements” but claiming to support Medicare. (His budgets as president called for billions of dollars in Medicare cuts.)
The 59th anniversary of Medicare is both an occasion for celebrating the program’s enormous successes over the past six decades — and a time to defend Medicare in the marbled halls of Washington, DC, and at the ballot box this November.
Harris, Dems Promise to Protect Seniors’ Earned Benefits at Convention
Along with powerful speakers from across the Democratic party (and even some Republicans), heartfelt personal testimonials, and a music-infused roll call, Social Security and Medicare played a prominent role during this week’s convention in Chicago. Democrats hammered home the message that Kamala Harris will protect senior’s earned benefits while Donald Trump and Project 2025 pose a clear threat to Social Security and Medicare (despite Trump’s mixed-messages on the subject).
“We’re not going back” became the rallying cry at the convention, which Harris employed in her acceptance speech to warn voters that a second Trump administration would undermine Americans’ retirement and health security::::
“We are not going back to when Donald Trump tried to cut Social Security and Medicare. We are not going back to when he tried to get rid of the Affordable Care Act.” – Kamala Harris, 8/22/24
During his presidency, Trump submitted White House budgets that included billions of dollars in cuts to Social Security and Medicare. He tried unsuccessfully to repeal the Affordable Care Act. He suspended the Social Security payroll tax and hoped it would be “terminated.” This year, he said he was “open” to “cutting entitlements” and proposes to eliminate the tax on Social Security benefits which helps to fund the program.
By contrast, Harris pledged in her speech to “protect Social Security and Medicare” — a salient promise that squarely aligns with public opinion. In recent polling, some 80% of Americans across party lines do not want to see Social Security and Medicare cut. In fact, majorities want to see Social Security expanded by having the wealthy contribute their fair share.
Other VIP speakers reinforced Harris’ promise throughout the week:::
“As President, Kamala will fight to lower the cost of health care and eldercare for EVERY family.” – Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI)
“For workers striving for a secure retirement, Kamala will fight for you.” – Gov. Roy Cooper (D-NC)
“I had two incredible grandparents who stepped in and raised me. When I work to protect Medicare and social security, I do it with a personal knowledge of what those big programs meant in small but deeply meaningful ways to our family.” – Senator Tammy Baldwin (D-IL)
Vice presidential nominee Tim Walz offered his own testimonial about Social Security. His father died of lung cancer when Walz was 19, leaving the family with a “a mountain of medical debt” — but Social Security kept them from falling into poverty. In his acceptance speech Wednesday night, Walz said simply, “Thank God for Social Security survivor benefits!”
The National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare was represented at the convention by political director Luke Warren, director of government relations and policy Dan Adcock, and president/CEO Max Richtman — who was selected to serve on the Democratic Platform Committee.
“This obviously was a historic convention and it was exciting to be there. I think that what’s remarkable is that Social Security and Medicare, which we have been telling Democrats for years are winning issues, were very much in the mix,” says Dan Adcock, who has attended every Democratic convention since 2004. “In past conventions, seniors’ programs were hardly mentioned at all. But this time, they were prominent in the speeches of both Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.”
NCPSSM’s Dan Adcock & Max Richtman in Chicago
NCPSSM President and CEO Max Richtman spoke at the DNC Seniors’ Council meeting in Chicago on Wednesday, echoing Harris’ commitment to improving Social Security’s finances by adjusting the payroll wage cap that currently exempts wages above $168,600, depriving the program of much-needed revenue:
“Kamala Harris and Tim Walz support extending the solvency of Social Security’s trust fund — and boosting Social Security benefits. They also believe the wealthy should pay their fair share in Social Security payroll contributions.” – Max Richtman, 8/21/24
Richtman pointed out that seniors are an important voting bloc who reliably show up at the polls. An Emerson College survey released on Thursday show Harris gaining ground over Trump among older Baby Boomers and the Silent Generation. According to Newsweek, “The majority of voters over 70 support Harris over Trump, 51% to 48%. (This) represents a major breakthrough for Harris.”
“Close elections can turn on how the largest and most dependable age group votes. Seniors know – or should know — that Democrats will go to the mat for them,” Richtman told the Seniors’ Council.
Social Security Celebrates 89 Years of Keeping Seniors Financially Secure
Social Security turns 89 years old today. That’s nearly nine decades of providing baseline financial security to America’s retirees and their families — and since 1956, to people with disabilities. Today, 67 million people — or 1 in 5 U.S. residents — receive Social Security benefits. And in all these years, Social Security has never missed a payment. Not once.
When President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Social Security into law on August 14, 1935, about half of the nation’s seniors lived in poverty. Many were living in actual poor houses. (As of 2021, only 8 percent of people over 65 fell beneath the poverty line.) “We can never insure one hundred percent of the population against one hundred percent of the hazards and vicissitudes of life,” FDR declared at the signing ceremony in 1935. “But we have tried to frame a law which will give some measure of protection to the average citizen and to his family… against poverty-ridden old age.”
That “measure of protection” is modest, but crucial. The average Social Security check for retirees is about $1,900 per month… or $22,800 per year. If you talk to seniors on fixed incomes, as I do when I’m traveling around the country speaking about Social Security, they will tell you that their earned benefits are a financial lifeline. “It’s a sizable chunk of my income,” a beneficiary in Milwaukee told us. “It’s my livelihood,” said a retiree in Richmond. Another senior put it simply: “Thank God for Social Security.”
Social Security not only provides retirement benefits; it serves as insurance for eligible workers and their families. In fact, the average 27 year-old worker with a family already has the equivalent of some $2 million in life and disability insurance from Social Security. This simple truth betrays the claims of politicians and pundits who claim that the program somehow is unfair to younger Americans paying into it. In fact, Social Security truly is intergenerational. It is there for workers today — and when they retire.
Social Security’s impact goes beyond workers and retirees. The program provides economic stimulus for the entire nation. Thanks to the ‘multiplier effect,’ every dollar of Social Security benefits produces $2 in economic stimulus. That adds up to more than $1.6 trillion in stimulus as benefits are spent and generate economic activity in every state. Social Security also acts as an automatic economic stabilizer because benefits are paid even during economic downturns.
The program has its challenges. The Social Security Trustees project that reserves in the combined retirement and disability trust fund will become depleted by 2035 if Congress doesn’t take pre-emptive action. Contrary to popular belief, this is not because of the increasing ratio of retirees collecting benefits to workers paying into the program. The lawmakers behind the 1983 Social Security reforms had already anticipated that, which is why they increased revenue and raised the retirement age to 67 for anyone born in 1960 or later.
The primary reason for the current projected shortfall is growing income inequality. The 1983 reformers did not anticipate the widening gap between higher earners and everyone else who contributes to Social Security through payroll taxes. Those payroll taxes are capped at a certain level of income, also known as the “tax max.” (The current cap is $168,600 in annual wages.) Back in the early 1980s, the Social Security “tax maximum” captured 90 percent of Americans’ earnings. With the rich getting richer and middle-class income stagnating, that figure has decreased to only 82 percent today. More and more high earners were “maxing out,” depriving the system of much-needed revenue.
The system can be restored to financial health by adjusting the payroll wage cap so that the wealthy begin paying their fair share. We support Representative John Larson’s (D-Conn.) Social Security 2100 Act, which re-imposes payroll taxes at $400,000 in wages — and for the first time would include some of high-earners’ investment income. (We have endorsed similar legislation from Senator Bernie Sanders (D-Vt.), Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Penn.)
Rep. Larson’s bill not only would extend the solvency of the trust fund; it would expand benefits across the board — and provide especially vulnerable groups of beneficiaries with targeted benefit increases.
Some on Capitol Hill reject any measures to increase revenue, and insist that Social Security must be “reformed,” which is code for cutting benefits. We reject benefit cuts as unnecessary and harmful to current and future retirees. These include raising the retirement age to 69 or 70, means-testing benefits, adopting a more miserly COLA formula, or privatizing Social Security.
We push back when conservatives say benefits must be cut to address the federal debt. Social Security is self-funded and does not contribute to the debt. In fact, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, the number one driver of debt is tax giveaways to the wealthy and profitable corporations, such as the Trump tax cuts of 2017, which some lawmakers now want to make permanent.
Some proponents of cutting Social Security claim they won’t touch benefits for today’s seniors, but that future generations will have to count on less from the program. We say that our children and grandchildren will rely on Social Security even more than current seniors do — because of the disappearance of employer-provided pensions, mounting student debt, and rising income inequality making it harder to save for retirement. Younger workers will need every dollar of their promised retirement benefits, if not more.
This 89th anniversary year for Social Security is also a crucial one for the program, because the future of Social Security hinges, in part, on the results of the 2024 elections. Most politicians claim to support Social Security. We urge voters to look beyond the rhetoric and assess what candidates for federal office truly propose for Social Security. Those who advocate cutting benefits (by raising the retirement age or by other means), either for today’s retirees or tomorrow’s, do not have seniors’ true interests in mind. Candidates who want to strengthen and expand Social Security are the ones looking out for workers’ financial security — and honoring the legacy of Franklin D. Roosevelt, who said 89 years ago that the Social Security Act was “a cornerstone in a structure which is being built but is by no means complete.”
Our Fact Checker Says FactCheck.Org Missed the Bigger Picture on Trump, Social Security & Medicare
Our Director of Government Relations & Policy, Dan Adcock
Late last month, FactCheck.org published an article titled ‘FactChecking Vice President Kamala Harris’ which included misleading claims on the two presidential candidates and their stances on Social Security and Medicare. The Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank, and other groups like it, have taken positions that would seriously undermine the nation’s most popular social insurance programs. Donald Trump has tried to distance himself from Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 policy blueprint, but the people behind it undoubtedly would play an influential role in a second Trump Administration. We chatted with our Government Relations and Policy Director, Dan Adcock, about some of the missing context in the FactCheck.org article — and the bigger picture on Social Security and Medicare in 2024.
Q: The FactCheck piece quotes Donald Trump claiming he would “get rid of the waste and fraud” and “save (Social Security and Medicare) without cuts.” Why should America’s seniors believe that “getting rid of waste and fraud” isn’t just a fancy way of saying “cutting benefits?”
A: Trump’s previous public statements make it clear that he’s open to the idea of making cuts. He said on CNBC that cutting “entitlements” would be easy. Then, of course, he walked that back. In one of his books he compared Social Security to a “Ponzi scheme.” It’s clear that he doesn’t really care about Social Security. On one hand, he’s said that he won’t cut benefits… and that’s great. But as president, his budgets proposed to cut Social Security Disability Insurance by billions of dollars. He also proposed getting rid of the Social Security payroll tax — which finances the program itself. Without the Social Security payroll tax, there would be no Social Security.
Q: The FactCheck article makes the claim,“In his four years as president, Trump did not propose cutting Social Security’s retirement benefits.” Is this misleading? If so, how?
A: This is definitely misleading wording from FactCheck. To imply that disability insurance can be isolated from retirement insurance is hogwash. It’s all the same program. Workers pay for both retirement and disability insurance together with every paycheck. We are currently part of efforts, both legislatively and in the press, to make it clear that it is in fact a single program, and that cutting any component of Social Security would mean tearing the whole thing down.
Q: Trump denies that Project 2025, authored by the right-wing Heritage Foundation, is a blueprint for his second term. Project 2025 proposes devastating cuts to Medicare — and the Heritage Foundation itself has called for cuts to Social Security. It is disingenuous for Trump to try to distance himself from Heritage and Project 2025?
The Heritage foundation authored Project 2025, and they aren’t going anywhere. They’ve made it clear that they will be behind a substantial number of potential Trump administration nominations, which will be based on ideology and loyalty to the President — as opposed to expertise. These would be the people that he feels are most loyal to him and his staff. The Heritage Foundation considers itself the “brain trust” of any potential Trump Administration, and often focuses on cherished issues of the conservative elite that Trump may not know in detail or care much about. But he will do their bidding, if past is precedent. The Heritage Foundation will have a lot of influence if Trump is re-elected.
Q: Republicans often claim that they have not called for any changes to Social Security affecting today’s seniors. But they leave the door open for cuts impacting the younger generations of workers. In truth, haven’t Republicans proposed significant benefit cuts — and won’t younger workers need every dollar of those benefits when they retire?
A: It’s clear when you look at the 2025 budget blueprint of the House Republican Study Committee, which includes 80% of the House Republican Caucus and 100% of the leadership, that they would raise the Social Security retirement age to 69 or 70. That is a huge lifetime benefit cut! And, of course, today’s younger workers will need every dollar of their promised benefits once they retire. Some House Republicans also would like to make the annual Social Security cost of living adjustment (COLA) discretionary, to be decided by each congress. Currently, seniors automatically get a yearly boost in benefits based on inflation. And on the Medicare side, the House Republican Study Committee plan would stack the deck against traditional Medicare in favor of privatized, for-profit plans that often provide inferior coverage.
Q: Any last comments on the FactCheck article and the claims it made?
A: I just want to reiterate the importance of Social Security survivor and disability benefits. President Trump has been all over the place with his rhetoric about Social Security as he tries to court support from seniors while placating his wealthy and influential backers on the right. But he and his allies have made it clear that they are coming for the disability and survivorship aspects of the program if Trump wins a second term. This isn’t okay. Like I said before, it’s all one program!
Tim Walz Brings Unwavering Support for Seniors to the Harris Campaign
Seventy percent of voters did not know who Tim Walz was before Kamala Harris picked him as her running mate on Tuesday. As Americans learn more about the Minnesota Governor and newly-minted VP candidate, they will discover that he is a true champion for seniors — and a welcome addition to the Democratic ticket. As our president and CEO, Max Richtman, put it, Tim Walz has built an impressive record on issues affecting older Americans as a congressman and later as governor:
“Through his words and actions, Tim Walz has proven himself to be a champion for Minnesota seniors. His advocacy dovetails perfectly with Kamala Harris’ commitment to enhancing older American’s financial and health security — especially protecting Social Security and Medicare.” – Max Richtman, 8/6/24
In his debut as Harris’ running mate at a fiery rally in Philadelphia last night, Walz wasted no time calling out Donald Trump on three of the most important issues for older voters:
“Trump will repeal the Affordable Care Act, no doubt about it. He’ll GUT Social Security and Medicare.” – Gov. Tim Walz, Democratic VP candidate, 8/6/24
Earlier this year, Walz already had established his bona fides as a fighter for seniors. “This election is a binary choice,” Walz tweeted in March. “Donald Trump plans to cut Social Security and give tax cuts to the wealthy.” Walz added that the Biden-Harris administration “has worked to strengthen Social Security and protect your hard-earned money.”
Governor Walz is a living example of how Social Security helps workers and families. His father, James F. Walz, died in 1984 of lung cancer, after which Walz, his brother, and mother began receiving survivors’ benefits from Social Security. Governor Walz says those benefits kept the family afloat during difficult times.
“Kamala Harris’ selection of Tim Walz as her running mate solidifies the 2024 Democratic ticket as incontestably pro-Social Security, pro-Medicare/Medicaid, and pro-senior,” said our president, Max Richtman, in a press statement on Tuesday. In July, we enthusiastically endorsed Kamala Harris for President because of the administration’s impressive record on seniors’ issues (including protecting Social Security & Medicare and pushing the Inflation Reduction Act through Congress to lower drug prices).
As Newsweek reported yesterday, both Harris and Walz support adjusting the Social Security payroll wage cap to keep the program’s trust fund solvent beyond its projected depletion date of 2035. “Harris and Walz have discussed millionaires and billionaires not ‘paying their fair share,'” Alex Beene, a financial literacy instructor for the University of Tennessee at Martin, told Newsweek. Michael Ryan, a finance expert quoted in the same article, says Walz is likely to “double down on protecting Social Security as vice president.”
“Donald Trump will gut Social Security and Medicare,” said Walz at Tuesday’s rally
“Walz’s record speaks for itself,” says our president, Max Richtman. As a member of the U.S. House, Walz consistently voted to protect Social Security and Medicare, earning a 100% rating on our legislative scorecard for the 113th and 114th congress. During his five years as governor, Walz has worked to protect Minnesota seniors. His One Minnesota budget included provisions to support older adults and family caregivers at a time when the state’s demographic is ‘aging rapidly.’ During the pandemic, Governor Walz made it a priority to get seniors vaccinated, declaring, “We set out to protect the most vulnerable Minnesotans, and we are honoring that commitment.”
The new Democratic ticket provides a stark contrast with Donald Trump and J.D. Vance, who cannot be trusted to defend Americans’ earned benefits — and who throughout the years have called for cuts to “entitlements” and later tried to back off of those statements. As President, Trump submitted successive White House budgets that included billions of dollars in Social Security and Medicare cuts. He once called Social Security a “Ponzi Scheme” and recklessly suspended the payroll tax that funds Social Security during the pandemic, expressing the hope that the program’s main revenue source would be “terminated.”
The stakes could not be higher this election year. According to Newsweek, a recent poll found that Social Security and Medicare is “very important” in helping 63 percent of voters decide who to cast their ballot for. “Kamala Harris and Tim Walz have been steadfast in their support of seniors,” said Richtman. “We are confident that Harris and her excellent new running mate will earn the votes of workers and retirees across America.”
As Medicare Turns 59, We Still Need to Defend It
In Medicare’s first year of coverage, poverty decreased by 66% among the senior population. From 1965, when Medicare was enacted, to 1994, life expectancy at age 65 increased nearly 3 full years. This was no coincidence. Access to Medicare coverage for those who were previously uninsured helped lift seniors out of poverty and extend their lives.
As with Social Security, workers would contribute with each paycheck toward their future Medicare benefits. Upon putting his signature on this new program, a keystone of the Great Society, President Johnson declared, “Every citizen will be able, in their productive years when they are earning, to insure themselves against the ravages of illness in old age.”
Medicare has been improved several times over the decades. In 1972, Americans with disabilities (under 65 years of age) became eligible for Medicare coverage — along with people suffering from chronic kidney disease needing dialysis or transplants. In 2003, prescription drug coverage was added to Medicare (though the program was prohibited from negotiating prices with drugmakers). The Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 finally empowered Medicare to negotiate prices with Big Pharma — and lowered seniors’ costs by capping their out-of-pocket expenses for prescription drugs (including a $35 monthly cap on insulin).
Nearly sixty years after it was enacted, Medicare is one of the most popular and efficient federal programs. Ninety-four percent of beneficiaries say they are “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with their quality of care. Unlike many other federal programs, Medicare only spends 2% of its budget on administrative costs. Medicare isn’t perfect. It should be expanded to cover dental, hearing, and vision care.
The privatized version of the program, Medicare Advantage (MA), is gobbling up a larger share of the market despite myriad problems, including MA insurers overbilling the government and denying legitimate care. The Biden-Harris administration has been working to hold those private plans more accountable, but much remains to be done to protect traditional Medicare from efforts toward privatization.
Even after 59 years of Medicare’s overall success, we must continually defend Medicare against conservatives’ attempts to cut and privatize the program. Our founder, Congressman James Roosevelt, Sr. (son of President Franklin D. Roosevelt), knew that Medicare (along with Social Security) would need continuous advocacy to withstand assaults from antagonistic political forces. That’s why the word “preserve” is in our organization’s name.
Many conservatives opposed Medicare from the start, labeling it “socialism” and “socialized medicine.” In 1962, Ronald Reagan warned that if Medicare were to be enacted, “One of these days you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children, and our children’s children, what it once was like in America when men were free.”
Today, the onslaught continues. The House Republican Study Committee’s (RSC) 2025 budget proposes to cut Medicare by an estimated $1 trillion over the next decade. The RSC would replace Medicare’s current reimbursement system with vouchers, and push seniors into private plans that can and do deny payment for services. Project 2025, the right-wing blueprint for a 2nd Trump presidency, would “gut” traditional Medicare as we know it, leaving only a privatized version that puts profits over patient care.
Democrats by and large support protecting and even expanding Medicare. President Biden tried to add dental, vision, and hearing coverage in his Build Back Better Act, but encountered resistance from Republicans and centrist Democrats. It’s still a laudable goal. Republicans, for the most part, advocate cutting Medicare benefits and privatization.
We endorsed Kamala Harris for President, because she knows the importance of Medicare to America’s seniors and people with disabilities — and has vowed to protect them. She has been in lock-step with President Biden, including his budget proposals to strengthen Medicare’s finances by demanding that the wealthy contribute their fair share. President Trump, on the other hand, has been rhetorically all over the map on this topic, telling CNBC he is “open” to “cutting entitlements” but claiming to support Medicare. (His budgets as president called for billions of dollars in Medicare cuts.)
The 59th anniversary of Medicare is both an occasion for celebrating the program’s enormous successes over the past six decades — and a time to defend Medicare in the marbled halls of Washington, DC, and at the ballot box this November.