Senator Murray: “It’s really important that discussions about Social Security focus on solutions that actually protect our seniors and ensure they receive the hard-earned benefits they worked decades to receive… cuts should be off the table.”
More than half of seniors rely on Social Security for most of their income; without Social Security, over half of Black retirees and 45 percent of Latino retirees would be in poverty
***VIDEO of Senator Murray’s remarks is HERE***
Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), a senior member and former Chair of the Senate Budget Committee, spoke during a Senate Budget Committee hearing titled, “Protecting Social Security for All: Making the Wealthy Pay Their Fair Share.” During the hearing, Senator Murray spoke about the importance of Social Security and Medicare and reiterated that Republicans need to work with Democrats on serious proposals to protect these programs in the long term by simply asking the very wealthiest Americans to pay their share.
“Social Security and Medicare are a promise that we make to our families: that when you work hard, the benefits you earned will be there for you when you retire—and that if you have a disability, you are not left on your own,” began Senator Murray during today’s hearing. “Social Security and Medicare are really a lifeline to people. All across our country, people want us to save these programs—because they know these programs save people.”
“But, in the long term, they are in danger—as we have heard—if we don’t take action to shore them up,” continued Senator Murray. “Last year actually, Democrats took one of the biggest steps to strengthen Medicare in decades, by giving it the ability to negotiate lower Medicare prescription drug prices, which is great news [for people] on Medicare who need these drugs—and it’s great news for that program as a whole, because it will save it billions of dollars each year. That should be common sense—and I was disappointed, when we passed the IRA, that so many Republicans stood with Big Pharma and voted against that bill.”
Importantly, Senator Murray made clear that common sense tax fairness measures could easily protect Social Security benefits long into the future and she called specific attention to how, under the current system, billionaires are paying as much into Social Security as middle class Americans.
“Now, as we have heard today, there are two fundamental ways to save Social Security and Medicare for the future,” said Senator Murray. “First—we could raise revenue and save Social Security by simply asking the rich to finally pay their fair share. And there is nothing new or radical about that. For decades, our federal tax code has said: if you have a higher income, you are going to chip in more. The radical thing is that right now, Social Security actually works in the opposite way. If you make around $160,000 a year—you are paying the same amount into Social Security each year as a billionaire. Someone can make over 12 thousand times your salary—and yet their Social Security tax rate is a fraction of a fraction of what YOUR rate is. Think about that. Billionaires are putting just a half a cent of every hundred thousand dollars they make into Social Security.”
“It should be totally uncontroversial to suggest that we find ways to increase Social Security’s revenue in order to extend its solvency, and to make the system a little more fair,” emphasized Senator Murray. “Now, anyone who says that is off the table has only one completely unacceptable option left, and that is to cut benefits. And yet, over the years, Republicans have called explicitly for cuts: we saw a plan to phase out Social Security last year. We saw House Republicans put forward a roadmap just last month to raise the retirement age.”
“Nonetheless, we do hear Republicans act like they don’t know why anyone would accuse them of wanting to cut Social Security,” said Senator Murray in closing. “Make no mistake: if you are unwilling to even consider new revenue, or making the ultra wealthy pay their fair share—then you are essentially saying that the only option left for Social Security are benefit cuts.”
Noting that half of seniors rely on Social Security for most of their income and a quarter of seniors rely on Social Security for at least 90% of their income, Murray asked Kathleen Romig, Director of Social Security and Disability Policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, about how potential cuts to Social Security benefits would harm seniors and especially women and people of color.
“Most retirees’ incomes overall are modest, and so they really rely on those Social Security benefits to meet their basic needs: housing, food, health care, and bills. And so, cutting those benefits would really compromise the lifestyles of our nation’s seniors and people with disabilities,” Romig said. “And that’s especially true for women and people of color.”
“Women tend to earn less over their lifetimes, have smaller retirement savings accounts, and in addition, they tend to live longer. And there are features of Social Security that make it especially important to women: the progressive benefit formula that means that they get a more generous share of their earnings replace, the spouse and survivor benefits that go almost exclusively to female beneficiaries, and the inflation protection that ensures that the value of Social Security keeps up with the cost of living over even a very long retirement,” Romig explained.
“And the same is true for people of color. People of color have faced economic equality throughout all of this nation’s history. And they’re less likely to be offered retirement plans at work, less likely to have jobs with a margin for savings—and so, Social Security is especially important for those groups. And in fact, without Social Security, over half of Black retirees would be in poverty, and 45 percent of Latino retirees would be in poverty,” Dr. Romig continued.
Murray closed by emphasizing, “I think it’s really important that discussions about Social Security focus on solutions that actually protect our seniors and ensure they receive the hard-earned benefits they worked decades to receive. And I really believe that cuts should be off the table.”
Since its creation in the Social Security Act of 1935, Social Security has been one of the most popular and successful government programs, assisting the financial security of elderly Americans, disabled workers, and children and ensuring that all Americans who pay sufficiently into the system can retire with a guaranteed income. In February 2023, Social Security paid out benefits to 66 million people – about one-fifth of the entire US population – and affected many more who live and care for beneficiaries. In 2021, Social Security lifted nearly 22 million Americans out of poverty, including more than 15 million seniors. Today, the poverty rate of American seniors is just 10.3 percent (this is an increase from the 8.9 percent rate in 2020 as pandemic relief programs have steadily expired). Without Social Security, the senior poverty rate would have reached 38 percent in 2022.
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