White House Points Out Women’s Reliance on Social Security

Wilma V. Haga, a 76-year-old widow, and Bernice Meyer, a home care aide who will have no retirement check other than Social Security, on Tuesday asked President Clinton and Vice President Al Gore to keep the massive federal program sound and strong for future generations of beneficiaries.

With $915 a month in Social Security benefits, “I can live very well, independently and . . . without assistance from my sons,” Haga, from Bristol, Tenn., told an audience in the ornate East Room at the White House.

Meyer, 49, from Seattle, makes $6.82 an hour and is beginning to worry about her retirement years. “I basically live paycheck to paycheck,” she said.

The two women joined Clinton and Gore for a panel discussion that highlighted the importance of Social Security to women, both for retirement and income protection. The other message of the day from the Clinton administration was a political one--that any changes to assure Social Security’s future solvency will not endanger the basic protections offered by the current program.

Tuesday’s session, attended by a diverse audience representing groups active in retirement and women’s issues, was the latest step in the administration’s continuing campaign to make Social Security a high-profile issue.

“We must be steely in our determination” not to let the federal budget surplus be used for other purposes until Social Security’s future is assured, the president said.

The program is particularly important to women, who have lower incomes than men, are less likely to have pensions and live longer. “For elderly women, Social Security makes up half of their incomes, and for many it is all that stands between them and the ravages of poverty,” Clinton noted.

Unmarried women over 65 get 51% of their income from Social Security, compared with 39% of income for unmarried men and 36% of income for married couples, according to a report compiled by the White House.

While Social Security is most widely known as a retirement program, a third of its monthly spending goes to disabled workers and their families, or survivors of deceased workers.

The administration has not yet offered a plan to deal with long-range financing of Social Security. Clinton made two proposals at Tuesday’s meeting that he said could improve economic security for women.

The first one would require private pension plans to expand the choices available to married couples.

Current pension plans provide a payment to a retired worker. In many plans, if the worker dies first, the surviving spouse gets a payment equal to 50% of the benefit when the worker was alive. Clinton wants legislation requiring businesses to offer an option giving the surviving spouse 75% of the benefit. That would mean smaller payments for the couple when both are alive but a larger check for the surviving spouse--usually a widow because women typically live longer than men.

The president’s second proposal would allow workers who take unpaid leave under the Family and Medical Leave Act to credit that time toward their eligibility for pension programs.

Clinton plans a White House conference on Social Security in December to begin the lengthy process of constructing a bipartisan deal with Republican leaders of Congress leading to legislation next year. The goal is to assure the long-range solvency of Social Security for the 76 million baby boomers, the oldest of whom will begin retiring around 2011.

Social Security currently enjoys a surplus, with tax revenue collected from workers exceeding by about $100 billion a year the benefits paid to retirees, disabled workers and the survivors of deceased workers. The fiscal crunch will come in 2032, when tax revenue will be sufficient to pay only 75% of the benefits promised under current law.

President Clinton and members of Congress agree on one basic principle: that changes should be made sooner to avoid major tax increases or benefit cuts later to close the potential 25% gap between income and outlays.