Social Security

Re “Gore Urges Social Security Boost for Women,” April 5: I am an 87-year-old widow who would dearly love to receive a “living wage” from Social Security, but this new proposal further penalizes the independent working woman who earns approximately the same amount as her husband. Yes, this even happened to old-timers like me. We needed two breadwinners to support our family and my husband and I earned approximately the same amount of money during our decades of work. Yet, when it came time for me to draw on either his pension or my own, I discovered that either of these two choices left me with just about the same amount of income, and considerably less than the pension of some of my friends who never worked, whose husbands earned more than my husband. Yet, my husband and I, together, contributed much more into the fund. Is this fair?

I have nothing against making the system more fair for women who do not contribute because they do not earn wages, but how about making it more fair for those who do contribute and yet end up with pensions that don’t even pay the rent?

MARTHA LOWY

Los Angeles