Senator Warren’s floor speech on strengthening Social Security says it all
Video: Youtube / Marie Marr
Senator Elizabeth Warren’s (D-MA) 2013 floor speech on the crisis facing the Trust Fund — and the millions of American seniors who depend on Social Security to keep their heads above water — says it all:
- When a significant portion of retirees have little or no pension, no alternative income, little or nothing in private savings, and depend on Social Security payments for 100% of their retirement income, there IS a retirement crisis.
- Reform proposals — such as switching to the chained consumer price index (CPI) — far too often rely on cutting the benefits of these seniors even further, punishing vulnerable retirees in the present to extend solvency for future generations.
- And when millions of America’s seniors are pinching pennies to stretch their Social Security benefits as far as they can — 2/3 of them collecting benefits far less than their annual salary — any discussion of cutting and reducing Social Security is unacceptable. We NEED to strengthen and expand benefits for seniors TODAY.
The Social Security Expansion Act is critical legislation espousing this belief: that we can expand and strengthen Social Security, and we can do it without cutting or reducing benefits.
Along with ditching the chained CPI for the more accurate CPI-E, if passed, the Social Security Expansion Act will increase benefits by $65 per month, improve the special minimum benefit for low-income earners, and adjust the taxable income cap for high-income earners, allowing the Trust Fund to remain solvent for another 61 years without reducing benefits.