we returned to the law school in one nine hundred seventy three and graduated in seventy four and passed the bar in seventy five so really we're really thank you so much for coming to talk to us about sosa security just a little bit of history social security was signed into law on april fourteenth of nineteen thirty five by franklin delano roosevelt before the implementation of social security approximately fifty percent of the seniors in this country lived in profit and poverty oh uh approximately fifty percent now approximately ten percent of seniors live in poverty now that's one of the things that social security has done now the social security law that was passed in one nine hundred thirty five has very was passed at a time when we were a different country so for example the professions or the employment that were not included in social security and one nine hundred thirty five were those areas of work that for example african americans were primarily engaged so they were excluded from the first social security law but over time social security has been changed and has been improved so that there are no longer those exclusions and it's also been brought so you now have social security disability for people that are unable to work and also you have you have a social security benefits for children whose parents have died for example one of the people i work with marilyn watkins who's the policy director for the economic opportunity and her husband died and his early forty's she has two young sons she has been a woman working you know taking care of her son did not have had a small part time job but she didn't or nearly enough to be able to support her children and their plan and social security made it possible for her to survive and there are literally millions and millions of people around the country who also get those kind of benefits more than fifty three million americans receive social security  our country and two thousand and nine including thirty six million five hundred thousand seniors eight million two hundred thousand disabled people and their spouses and four million five hundred thousand surviving spouses  deceased workers and four million three hundred thousand dependent children in washington in two thousand and nine social security provided benefits to more than one million people living in twenty five percent of the washington households including some one hundred forty six thousand seniors with an average benefit of one thousand one hundred thirty four dollars per month and seventy thousand children and king county two hundred forty one thousand two hundred forty one thousand six hundred  eighty five beneficiaries in two thousand and nine and in seattle seventy three thousand seven hundred now with no changes at all the social security what happens is we all know we when we were  all the time that i worked in many of you here are working now i'm sure you pay what's called the fica tax you know and that's paid into a social security trust fund and that social security trust fund is then utilized to pay the benefits it's a social insurance program it's at the premium that you pay and if you work for an employer you pay six and a half percent and you're a poor poor pay six and a half percent if you are self employed then you end up paying whatever's two times six and a half thirteen percent and that that that goes to the social security trust fund and from that benefits are paid now with no changes at all pay seventy eight percent of full benefits or an average of sixteen hundred dollars more than the present average benefit on a pay go basis that is money in money  what happened was in nineteen eighty three they realize that with this big baby boomer generation which a number of you look like you're a part of that that was going to be that was going to be coming into the age where they would be eligible for social security so a commission was formed under the leadership of alan greenspan and what they did at that time was they did two things that were significant they increased the premium that has to be paid in and they raise the social security retirement age to sixty seven goes to sixty seven in two thousand and twenty two it's just gradually it's going up and it goes up to sixty seven and twenty twenty two this was i some of the baby boomer generation it was interest paid and they were coming along and they felt like they needed to do that in order to make sure there were sufficient funds now there are many people that dispute that they even needed to do that because there is  audience they guessed when they hear this there is no social security tax or premium paid on anything earned above one hundred six thousand eight hundred dollars so that means that any earnings above one hundred six thousand eight hundred dollars there is no premium paid and that's unlike medicare because as you all know with medicare you pay the premium on whatever you  there is no cap or anything like that but there is a cap for social security if they were to eliminate the can we would have enough money in the social security trust fund to fund benefits for the next one hundred years and we would be able to make improvements like increasing the widows the widows payment that right now what happens is when they're to spouses and one dies the other spouse gets just a very small percentage of what their spouse was getting plus whatever they get or they can get a choice they can get whichever is higher plus a small percentage but it causes a great deal of economic hardship we could increase then we could begin to start talking about also allowing domestic partners to qualify we could also be talking about raising the amount that's paid for the people that are in the least amount in our society if we were to eliminate the can now there is some discussion about the cap but right now the cap is at at i think it was in nineteen eighty two they cap was added ninety one percent of the average wage ninety one percent of the average wage is now down to eighty percent so what's happened is that people that are earning over that amount per amount per hour of voiding paying that tax social security provides the majority of income for two thirds of the elderly population in the us with approximately one third of the elderly receiving nearly all of their income from social security as i said before nine hundred eighty three a commission chaired by greenspan successfully proposed raising the retirement age to sixty seven it's really too bad but they were successful that what they did in one thousand nine hundred thirty represented a thirteen percent cut in social security today get this today there is two point seven trillion dollars surplus and the social security trust fund other words there's nowhere else in the government where they have that kind of surpluses a two point seven trillion dollars surplus which has been borrowed by the federal government as you know there were some very significant tax cuts that happened during the bush during the bush years we just had a big fight about that in december of this year so what has been happening for a while it didn't start with the bush administration actually started well before that is that the government has borrowed from the social security trust fund and has issued treasury bonds treasury bonds for which you have the same treasury bonds that they that they issue for china i mean and those are supposed to be like money no one considers those to be bad paper they can't be trade bad paper because they carry the full fa credit of the government so there is the money is in the trust fund it is in bonds many of us question some of the money that was barred went from good things to i just want to say that it's  of it went for the wars and that's terrible and some of it went obviously to fund the tax cuts but others went for infrastructure work went for programs education programs other things that are important i don't think that there is anything inherently wrong if you have that surplus as this whole idea of a lockbox doesn't make a lot of sense it's fine as long as they don't try to not pay back what what it is that since those treasury bonds those treasury bonds are playing interest and that's also helping to increase the surplus in the in the trust fund so i think we don't have any i don't have any fundamental problems with that and the reality is that that trust fund is extremely healthy healthy so social security has not added one penny to the deficit it is a dedicated fun it has its own revenue stream which is the fica premium that we all pay and it has had nothing to do with the deficit whatsoever but the thing to remember is that social security from the what the nature of the opposition is of course there is the opposition on the part of those who would like to see the money invested in wall street right because there is money to be made from that there is opposition from people who believe it is not the government's role to do this and they were existed during the time of franklin delano roosevelt and they have existed and they still exist today so there are people who really do want to see social security go away although they will not state that because the polling on social security is so overwhelmingly popular i don't know how many of you saw the most recent new york times article on the poll that was just done it was in the paper yesterday where people were asked would you prefer to have the government reduce its spending or raise taxes raise revenue and people overwhelmingly said no to reduce spending so then people were asked in this poll would you rather have reduce social security and medicare or raise taxes and the response was raised passes that's right so when you get down to the specific you're talking about a very popular program that people are looking to and a variety of ways as they get older so in february of two thousand and ten president obama appointed the deficit commission and the deficit commission was charged by the president with figuring out what we're going to do about this deficit that we've spent ourselves into and president obama said and everything is on the table and one year to say to people like chair alan simpson who was one of the co chairs it was erskine bowles and alan simpson was the the two co chairs alan simpson has not like social security for years and so they at mediately went to linking social security to the deficit despite the fact that it was a separate funding strain and despite the fact that in fact what it had done is it had funded the programs that the federal government had because of the surplus that was in the social security trust fund now i'm going to quote to you an article how many of you have heard of william greider william greider wrote this great article and may have a twenty first of two thousand and ten and i'm just going to read it couple of paragraphs from a writer says and setting up the national commission on fiscal responsibility and reform president barack obama is again playing coy in public but his intentions are widely understood among washington insiders the president intends to offer social security as a sacrificial lamb to entice conservative deficit hawks and to a grand bipartisan compromise in which democrats agree to cut social security benefits for future retirees while republicans exceed to significant tax increases to reduce government red ink oh got bomb his commission is the vehicle created to achieve this deal he ducks questions about his preferences saying only that everything has to be on the table but white house lieutenants are privately talking up a bargain along those lines they are telling anxious liberals to trust the president to make only moderate cuts better to have democrats cut social security obama advisers say then leave the task to bloodthirsty republicans then grider goes on to say here in the end in other words targeting social security is a smokescreen designed to reassure foreign creditors and avoid confronting the true source of u s and deadness the politics might and the politicians m instead address the cost of fighting two wars on borrowed money or the tax cuts for the rich and corporations or the deregulation that led to the recent financial catastrophe and destroyed bassed wealth but those that other sources of deficits involve very powerful interests instead of taking them on thinking in washington goes let's whack the old folks while they're not watching what we're watching you look around the room and you realize how many people in this room and i want to tell you the question that i asked you is the same question i asked wherever i go and talk about this how many of you personally or have immediate family members for whom social security is an important part of their lives and it's overwhelming we had a meeting with senator patty murray the coalition that i'm chairing the social security works washington coalition had a meeting with senator patty murray this past thursday and i asked that question and there was about eighteen people in the room and i asked that question of every one of the people in the room and every single one of them put their hand up and there were people of all ages there that did it interesting that the senator murray's mom and dad were also depended on social security people who are trying to rely on that are finding themselves in a situation where they absolutely have to think about much working much longer in order to be able to work and think about what that means for the economy well what that means is younger people are having a harder time moving in to the job market because people who are older who are not going to be able to afford to retire are having to stay longer because they can't afford to retire so it's it's devastating so how in the world can they be thinking about going after social security when we're seeing that what's going on in terms of people planning for their retirement so recent polling and the new york times as i said to you before pointed out that people really do understand how important medicare and social security are to to to to their future and they're saying if it's a matter of that we'll pay more but they don't need to pay more that's the other thing the money is there we just have to fight and insist that it be used there was a there was a commitment that was made to us as working people in this country working in many different places that this would be there for us we pa id it isn't and it should be there for us and we have to insist that it happens now there are some arguments that are being made that the problem is that people are living longer and no one headed to sleep aid that well that's in fact and correct and in fact what they found is that longevity the only the only significant increase in long jeopardy has been for well educated well to do men hurt very poor men for and then who are not well to do who are who are who are working working at you know regular wages that just read a report that was put out by the national council of women's organizations which is this coalition of women's organizations and i actually think i might have brought it with me it's a white paper that they put out  have a i think i have it in my backpack but but at any rate what they pointed out that lower income women have actually seen a decline in their life expectancy and upper income women have seen a modest rise but really small the really significant rise has been for upper income men so we're really looking at a situation where for example for women the sole americans took the lead in organizing a coalition here in washington state called soft social security works for washington and at the present time there are well a whole bunch of organizations that are part of it part of the reason why we're able to get the meetings with senator cantwell which we had last week and senator murray which we had this this past thursday is because of the people who are at the table that are fighting about  saying no way and we were seeking commitments and we've got commitments from the senators that they would fight this thing that both of the thing that we're most worried about now is what president obama is going to say in the state of seriously the commission report or we need to raise the social security retirement age or our holy talk about anything it's going to paint us into a corner the what i'm told we have the central security works washington is part of a national coalition called protect social security which has a number of very large national organizations that are part of it and what we're told by the folks in d c that it is kind of accepted accepted wisdom in d c that they're going to raise the social security retirement age but what they also do know is that outside of the beltway people will be incredibly pissed off when they do it and that what we have to do is we have to mobilize and make them here that that's simply unacceptable so i brought with me some some material that's over there on the counter one of which asked you to contact the white house and to contact our two senators contact the white house and say to the white house if you're going to say something that's not supportive see what president obama ran in two thousand and seven he said at that time and we have some quotes that are in that flyer he said  that there is no reason to raise the retirement age or diminish benefits for so sort of security he said he doesn't believe that that's necessary he said if where is a problem we can raise the cat he also said he liked single pa r so so we just have to keep him we just have to keep trying to hold him to the promise that he made in two thousand and seven senator murray is the chair of the senate democratic campaign committee and i think she gets that this is going to be incredibly damaging for the democrats if they control the white house and they control the senate if they cut social security benefits or raise the retirement age and in fact the most recent poll that was done by celeb lake and and lake associates indicates that people now deeply distrust the democrats on social security  is that is a huge problem for them politically and we have to keep them realizing this is a huge problem and it is their job to defend social security and to make sure that it's there for people because people are going to need it the generations to come are going to news is information available electronically so we can print you can go to yes you can go to social security works washington just google social security works washington it will take you to the web site where you can get the information so we can put all that in the minutes  but yes you can the other thing i want to encourage you to do and i love this material over the counter there is consider i left you some newsletters from the puget sound alliance for retired americans  well as the form that you need if you were to decide you want to become a member and by becoming a member you support the work that we're doing plus you get the best non award winning newsletter in the country every month  en arguments and and it's it's only fifteen dollars a year to be a member and we have many of our members have an executive board of about eight hundred one thousand people it's interesting because it's this wonderful mixture of former union members retired union members but also older women who did not work in jobs that were unionized many of whom are living on social security and who are just have been just wonderful activists and wonderful leaders in our organization so it's been this wonderful melting place for all of us so i would encourage you to take a look at that i also have out there just so you will know i also have up there some information about that recent information about the health care reform act and things that are being implemented this year for seniors in case you want to have that information and i also have a copy of the puget sound alliance for retired americans it's also very active in state legislative issues and we have three legislative priorities for this upcoming legislative session why that is instead of having all the cuts we want to see the light just like you're sent a referendum to people to the people to close some tax loopholes to generate more revenue so we don't have to eliminate the basic health plan and all of the other things they're talking about a lemon a big cuts to higher education and stuff we're also supporting the creation of a state investment bank and are actually going down to be part of the hearing on that next tuesday and also are working on affordable housing issues we want to state to create a law that requires mediation before houses can be foreclosed upon and we also have some legislation to help renters so all of that's up there on the counter if you want to pick that up so thank you very much for allowing me to be here with you