Changing Social Security in the US: Rising Insecurity?

Abstract

Although poverty rates among the elderly in the US are at an all-time low, many face rising fiscal insecurity. The US welfare state is being remodeled in market-friendly ways that maximise individual choice, risk, and responsibility, rather than family friendly ways that maximise shared risk and responsibility and reduce insecurity. This article analyses how each of the main sources of income for the aged are being either frozen or shrunk in ways that are likely to increase inequality and insecurity in the years ahead among the elderly, particularly those who are female, black and/or Hispanic, and unmarried. The article assesses various policy changes for their capacity to either increase or decrease financial insecurity and inequality, particularly for those with a life time of lower earnings, more labour force disruptions and greater responsibility for providing unpaid care work for the young, disabled or frail elderly.

Gender and age implications of extended working life policies in the US and Ireland

“…As scholars have pointed out, different political choices in the US could achieve the goal of Social Security fiscal sustainability; through a modest increase in payroll taxes or raising the cap on payroll taxes. Such reforms would make it possible to sustain or even raise the rate of Social Security benefits to a level which would raise most women (and men) out of poverty, even with demographic ageing (Harrington Meyer, 2013). In Ireland, further reducing the tax incentives for private pensions could fund an increase in the non-contributory pension (Hughes, 2014).…”

“…SSI benefits are so low that they provide subsistence only and do not raise recipients out of poverty (Street and Desai, 2016). Of the 6% of the US population receiving SSI, 60% are aged 65+ and three-fifths of those are older women (Harrington Meyer, 2013).…”

“…International evidence already shows that older women are relatively disadvantaged, both in terms of gender wage gaps and gender pension gaps (Bettio et al, 2013). Yet women’s existing wage and pension disadvantages appear to have been ignored in developing extended working life policy, whether by international bodies such as the OECD or by policymakers in the US or Ireland (Harrington Meyer, 2013; OECD, 2006, 2015a; Ní Léime et al, 2015) . Consequently, the likeliest outcomes of current plans to extend working life will be to perpetuate or even worsen many women’s financial disadvantage in old age.…”

“…This article builds on a small but growing body of policy and empirical research highlighting Irish women’s pension disadvantages (see Daly, 2001 for an early example), linking this to neo-liberal policy preferences and, more recently, to austerity policies (Murphy and McCashin, 2008; Ní Léime et al, 2015). Similarly, a body of research in the US explores the interaction between gender, pension systems and pension reform, showing extensive gender inequality in pension coverage and levels (Harrington Meyer, 2013; Harrington Meyer and Herd, 2007; Street and Wilmoth, 2001).…”

Working later in the USA and Ireland: implications for precariously and securely employed women

“…While the foregoing documents several ways that processes associated with employment and EWL are gendered, it does not consider intra-cohort variation among women in different circumstances. For example, older African American women are more likely than white women to be entirely dependent on Social Security and to be employed in low-paid occupations such as home health aides (Harrington Meyer 2013). They are also more likely to be single or divorced, raising children with little support, with profound effects on the implications of EWL.…”