President Obama Endorses Expanding Social Security

In a speech this month, President Barack Obama endorsed expanding Social Security to strengthen retirement security for American workers:

But look, let’s face it — a lot of Americans don’t have retirement savings.  Even if they’ve got an account set up, they just don’t have enough money at the end of the month to save as much as they’d like because they’re just barely paying the bills.  Fewer and fewer people have pensions they can really count on, which is why Social Security is more important than ever. We can’t afford to weaken Social Security.  We should be strengthening Social Security.  And not only do we need to strengthen its long-term health, it’s time we finally made Social Security more generous, and increased its benefits so that today’s retirees and future generations get the dignified retirement that they’ve earned.  And we could start paying for it by asking the wealthiest Americans to contribute a little bit more.  They can afford it.  I can afford it.

Increasing benefits paid by Social Security would help to fill the increasingly large gap in worker retirement savings and pension benefits. A recent report found that “the average working household has virtually no retirement savings” and that young workers are half as likely to be covered by a defined-benefit pension program through their employer compared to older workers.

By international standards, Social Security benefits are small. The US ranks 31st out of 34 developed countries in the generosity of public pension benefits for the median worker.

There is currently legislation in the Senate to address this issue. The Social Security Expansion Act, introduced a year ago by Senator Bernie Sanders, improves benefits by an average of $65 per month and increases the annual cost-of-living adjustment. These changes are funded by eliminating caps on Social Security taxes for those making more than $250,000 a year.

Links

President Barack Obama Backs Expanding Social Security (Huffington Post, June 1, 2016)

The Continuing Retirement Savings Crisis (National Instittue on Retirement Security, March 2015)

For the first time, President Obama leans into Social Security expansion (The Washington Post, June 2, 2016)

Strengthen and Expand Social Security (BernieSanders.com)