Editor’s Note: We’re publishing a series of “Making Sense” fact sheets on key economic issues to help you win the debate on the core issues facing middle-class families. Each fact sheet contains information, talking points and resources you can use to make the case for progressive policies. Yesterday: Curbing Wall Street. Today: Social Security.

The Challenge

From the moment that President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Social Security Act on August 14, 1935, conservatives have attacked and tried to dismantle the program. Alf Landon, the 1936 Republican presidential candidate, based his entire campaign on attacking Social Security and vowed to "repeal" it.

Today Social Security enjoys overwhelming popular support due to its success in alleviating poverty and providing income security to millions of Americans. Nonetheless, conservatives today are still bent on dismantling Social Security, claiming that the program is adding to the federal deficit and is essentially bankrupt. Neither claim is true, but that has not stopped conservative politicians from proposing such “solutions” as privatization—trading the stability of Social Security benefits for the roller-coaster of Wall Street. Others call for raising the retirement age, a way to mask significant cuts in benefits. Meanwhile, a White House commission on deficit reduction has also targeted Social Security for “reform,” even though Social Security shouldn’t even be on the commission’s agenda.

Social Security is not an “entitlement” that needs to be “cut”; it is a vital lifeline for millions that needs to be strengthened.

The Argument

Social Security is the federal government’s most successful and most appreciated anti-poverty program. It offers a secure retirement for most Americans as well as disability insurance to families in the event of the death or disability of a breadwinner. Its benefits, though modest, lift millions of Americans out of poverty. And, its administrative costs are less than one penny of every dollar spent.

Fears stoked by conservatives about a long-range funding gap are overblown. Currently, the Social Security trust fund has a $2.6 trillion accumulated surplus, which will grow to $4.2 trillion by 2025. Social Security could finance itself just fine – if the economy grows, people get back to work, and wages rise with rising productivity.

But if the economy continues to falter, the system could face a financing gap far in the future – more than a quarter of a century from now – and the gap would be very modest, the equivalent of the costs of maintaining the Bush tax cuts for the top 2% of Americans. We don’t have to raise the retirement age or otherwise cut the benefits of future retirees to close that gap.

Social Security is a promise to all Americans that has withstood the test of time and represents the best of American values – rewarding hard work, honoring our parents and caring for our neighbors. Its benefits should be increased, not cut.

The Obstacles

By law Social Security cannot borrow any money. By law Social Security cannot contribute to the deficit. But conservatives still target Social Security for cuts while ignoring the real causes of the federal deficit, such as the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts for the wealthy.

Conservatives are using a disinformation campaign to justify turning Social Security into a bonanza for Wall Street. Several high-profile conservative politicians have embraced privatization, which would gamble America’s retirement savings on the stock market. It’s essentially the same plan that almost all of the Republicans in the U.S. Senate voted for in 2005, even if it is couched in different rhetoric because polls show the idea to be highly unpopular.

Social Security is also potentially threatened by the outsourcing of policy making to a White House National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform. This closed-door commission is loaded with conservatives, and public statements made by many of its members show an unjustifiable obsession with gutting Social Security. Its deliberations are designed to produce a document that, if 14 of its 18 members agree, would be sent to Congress for an up-or-down vote with no amendments during Congress’ post-election lame-duck session. This sets up the potential, as The Nation’s William Grieder puts it, to "offer Social Security as a sacrificial lamb to entice conservative deficit hawks into a grand bipartisan compromise" on deficits and taxes.

Progressive Solution

With many Americans having lost savings and investments in the financial collapse and more than half relying primarily on Social Security for their retirement, the last thing we should do is cut Social Security benefits.  With over 20 million people looking for full-time work, and many older workers displaced, raising the retirement age makes no sense.  Social Security should be strengthened, not cut.

If the economy remains stagnant and unemployment continues to be high, any projected shortfall in the Social Security trust fund can be covered almost entirely by requiring high-income workers to pay the same percentage of Social Security taxes as the rest of us (by lifting the cap on wages subject to the Social Security payroll tax, now $106,800). There’s no rush to impose a Draconian solution.

Fast Facts

Social Security did not cause the federal deficit.

• Social Security has not contributed one dime to the federal deficit. In fact, Social Security has a $2.6 trillion surplus today that is projected to increase to $4.2 trillion in 2025.
• The primary causes of the nation’s recent large deficits have been President Bush’s tax cuts in 2001 and 2003, the economic downturn and the costs of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
• The government’s long‐term deficit challenge comes almost entirely from health-care costs. Medicare and Medicaid costs are projected to grow slower than private health-care costs, but still rise from about 5.3% to 17.2% of gross domestic product from 2009 to 2081, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Social Security costs are projected by actuaries to grow only from about 4.8% to 6.1% by 2035, and then decline to 5.9% of GDP in 2050 and remain there after that.

Social Security is not in crisis.

• Claims that Social Security cannot pay its bills in 2010 are false. Social Security outlays will exceed tax revenues for the next two years, an unremarkable event that has occurred 15 times since 1956. Social Security will still run a $76.7 billion surplus in 2010 due to its investment income.
• Social Security can pay all its bills in full through 2037. Even if Congress takes no action to close the long‐range funding gap, Social Security will still be able to pay at least 75% of promised benefits after 2037.

Public Pulse

Broad majorities oppose cutting Social Security benefits in order to address the deficit:

• 81% oppose; 71% strongly oppose (Social Security Works poll by Lake Research)
• 85% oppose; 72% strongly oppose (AARP poll by GfK Roper)
• 68% oppose; 58% strongly oppose (CAF poll by Democracy Corps)

Raising the retirement age is rejected by a two-to-one margin:

• 64% oppose raising the retirement age from 67 to 69 years; 50% strongly oppose. (Social Security Works poll by Lake Research)
• 66% oppose raising the retirement age to 70; 52% strongly oppose. (CAF poll by Democracy Corps)

Privatization is opposed by overwhelming majorities:

• 79% percent agree Social Security should provide guaranteed benefits; only 19% favor making Social Security more like an investment account (Social Security Works poll by Lake Research)
• 68% oppose; 58% strongly oppose (CAF poll by Democracy Corps)

There is broad support for increasing revenue to secure Social Security’s long-term future:

• Taxing the Rich:
  • 58% of Americans support taxing estates worth more $3.5 million as solvency or debt measure. (Social Security Works poll by Lake Research)
  • 59% of American support financial tax on Wall Street speculation as solvency or deficit measure. (Social Security Works poll by Lake Research)
• Raising the Payroll Tax Cap:
  • 63% of Americans favor lifting Social Security payroll tax cap on incomes higher than $106,800. (CAF poll by Democracy Corps)
  • 65% of Americans favor gradually lifting Social Security payroll tax cap on incomes higher than $106,800 as a solvency measure. (Social Security Works poll by Lake Research)
• Bush Tax Cuts
  • 54% of Americans supports letting Bush tax cuts expire for those making above $250,000. (CAF poll by Democracy Corps)

Resources

• CAF’s Hands Off Social Security whip count
• Strengthen Social Security Campaign
• MoveOn.org Top 5 Social Security Myths
• PCCC: Stuff Alan Simpson Says

Last week I livestreamed the first closed door meeting of the president’s fiscal commission. I did this out of frustration that we received no response to a letter that we sent from 81 organizations representing over 61 million Americans, asking that all the work of the commission be done in the open. Letters were also sent by Chairman John Conyers and Minority Leader Boehner asking for transparency.

Dan Froomkin sums up the problem with closed door meetings for the commission at the Huffington Post saying,

The move only heightens suspicion that rather than forging a national consensus on future spending priorities, the commission’s work will consist of backroom dealings in which members of the Washington aristocracy find high-minded excuses for cutting the social safety net.

You can watch the highlights of our previous livestream here

Today is the mandatory spending working group and we will be livestreaming it the whole time (we brought a power cord this time).

Below is the livestream, it will be playing between 9:30am and 11:30am.

The members of each working group are shown below.

Although best known as a retirement program, Social Security can provide substantial income to children and their families. Children receive Social Security benefits either directly or indirectly when a working parent dies, becomes disabled, or reaches retirement age.

• Over 6.5 million children under age 18, or nearly 9 percent of all U.S. children, benefit from Social Security, as dependents of workers who have died or become disabled, or as family members in households where an adult relies on Social Security.

• Social Security provides the only significant life and disability protection for the great majority of the 73 million children in US under age 18.

• In addition, today’s Social Security program further values and supports children and their families by insuring children against the disability or death of a working parent, providing their parents with disability, retirement and survivors protections, and by providing a stable source of income for older and disabled family members.

Social Security provides working parents with valuable and irreplaceable insurance protection for their families against the tragedies of serious disability and death.

• The value of Social Security life insurance for a young worker with two children with average earnings in 2006 was estimated to have a value of $433,000.

• The disability insurance for wage earners is valued at more than $414,000 for a family with two children under18 years of age.

As a family insurance program, Social Security provides more benefits to children than any other social program. In fact, more children benefit from Social Security than from Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), the nation’s primary cash welfare program, and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) combined.

• About 8 percent of Social Security beneficiaries are children.

• In addition to the 3.1 million children under age 18 who are direct beneficiaries, 135,000 plus students age 18 and 19, and nearly 800,000 severely disabled adults who became disabled before age 22, and another 3.4 million children under age 18 live in families with a relative who receives Social Security benefits.

Social Security is particularly important to families of color. Children account for about 20 percent of Latino beneficiaries and 26 percent of African American beneficiaries, compared with 10 percent of white beneficiaries.

• Since African Americans are more likely than whites to become disabled or die before retirement, their children represent a larger share of Social Security beneficiaries. African American children make up 12 percent of all U.S. children under age 18 and account for 21 percent of children receiving Social Security.

• As a group, Latinos have higher rates of disability and larger families than the population at large, this means that Social Security disability benefits are critical for Latino workers and their families.

• More than one-third of the children receiving benefits as survivors and or dependents of a person with disability are African American or Latino.

More than one-third of all child beneficiaries live in families that receive at least one-half of their income from Social Security.

• The protections are critical for the well-being of all children, especially so for many children in racial or ethnic minority families and for children in low and moderate income families.

• Without Social Security, more children would be living in poverty and the depth of their poverty would be much greater.

• Of the children in families that receive Social Security, 42 percent would be poor based only on income other than Social Security. By lifting 1.3 million children out of poverty, Social Security income reduces the poverty rate to 23 percent.

Social Security is a significant source of income for many families surviving the loss of a breadwinner.

• The average family benefit for a widowed mother with two eligible children was $2,243 a month, or about $26,916 in 2008; for the family of a married disabled worker with children, $1,690 per month or $20,280 a year.

• Benefits for children continue until they reach age 18, or 19 if they are still in high school, (or until they marry, if sooner).

• Benefits for a widowed mother or father caring for children end when the youngest child turns 16 or when the widowed mother or father remarries, if sooner.

• Benefits for a disabled adult child continue for life or until he or she marries (unless the marriage is to another Social Security beneficiary).

Social Security pays families of fallen service members and protects families from unforeseeable catastrophes, like a terrorist attack.

• Less than three weeks after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the Social Security Administration sent the first checks to survivors of workers killed in New York, Pennsylvania, and Virginia. Five years later, in September 2006, Social Security was still paying monthly benefits to 2,377 surviving children and 853 widowed spouses of people killed in the terrorist attacks. Also receiving benefits were 642 individuals disabled during the attacks and 99 of their dependent spouses or children.

• Members of the armed forces are covered by Social Security. Social Security provides survivor benefits to children and qualifying spouses of those who die in the service of our country. While income can never replace a father or mother, Social Security cash benefits help protect families against financial hardship related to a service member’s sacrifice.

Probably not going to be the most riveting livestream ever.

Video streaming by Ustream

I am a founding member of The Other 98% and I am really proud of this growing organization. We are speedily closing in on 30,000 facebook fans since the beginning of April.

I am really proud of the awesome video that we made to showcase our involvement in the Show Down on Wall Street

The Wall Street action was just the start, The Other 98% will be back in Washington on May 17th to take on K Street’s corporate lobbyists and their stooges in Congress.

It is going to be a good time, get involved here.