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Celebrating Those Remarkable Mothers Of Social Security

Celebrating Those Remarkable Mothers Of Social Security

This Mother’s Day, let’s celebrate the remarkable Mothers of Social Security. Without them, this essential program may never have been born. It certainly would be much less successful and effective.

The Mothers of Social Security pushed for an expansive, ambitious program. When necessary, they fiercely resisted men too cautious to embrace their bold vision. All of us benefit immensely from their work—particularly women, for whom Social Security’s modest benefits are especially important.

Best known of Social Security’s many mothers is Frances Perkins, the first female member of a presidential Cabinet in the history of the country. When President Franklin D. Roosevelt first asked Perkins to become Secretary of Labor, she told him that she would only accept his history-making offer if he agreed to fully support her fight for Social Security, as well as other significant measures to increase all of our economic security. He did. True to her principles and values, she was a driving force behind the healthy start of Social Security, from the system’s conception to its birth and its early growth.

A less-known pathbreaker was Dr. Barbara Nachtrieb Armstrong, the first tenured female law professor in the country. A Ph.D. economist, she taught both law and economics at Berkeley and authored a landmark treatise, Insuring the Essentials, an exhaustive study of social insurance and minimum wage programs around the world.

Armstrong chaired the Roosevelt administration working group that invented Social Security. Other policymakers, concerned about the constitutionality of Social Security, argued that it should be a state-based program. Armstrong successfully convinced them that only a federal program was workable. When those who oversaw her work contemplated dropping Social Security because they feared it was too big a lift, she leaked their plan to friendly journalists whose exposés got Social Security back on track.

Without Armstrong’s bold leadership and keen intellect, Social Security might not even exist at all today. If that sounds hyperbolic, those same policymakers whom Armstrong outwitted later decided to not propose national, guaranteed health insurance. Cautiously, they decided it was better left for the future. Today, we are still fighting for improved and expanded Medicare for All.

Other remarkable Mothers included two members of the Social Security Board, which administered Social Security prior to a 1946 reorganization that replaced the Board with a single commissioner. Four other women were members of the 1938 Social Security Advisory Council, whose recommendations to add benefits for wives, widows, and dependent children were enacted into law in 1939.

Perhaps it is in part because these and other women were so important to the birth and early development of Social Security that it is so important to women today. Social Security is essential for virtually everyone, but it is particularly critical for women, as well as people of color, the LGBTQ community, and others who have been discriminated against in the workplace.

Even in 2019, women experience a substantial wage gap. It is commonly reported that, on average, a woman earns just 80 cents for every dollar earned by a man. Yet even that understates the facts. A recent report by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research reveals that women today actually earn, on average, just 49 cents for every dollar earned by men.

Moreover, the same report exposes the drastic penalty for taking time out of the paid labor force. Women who take just one year off from work suffer 39 percent lower earnings than women who do not. This is especially detrimental since 60 percent of caregivers are female.

Social Security cannot offset all of the ills of society. However, it does seek to offset, to the extent it can, this kind of discrimination in the workplace. From the beginning, Social Security has employed a progressive benefit formula that provides larger benefits, as a percentage of pay, for those who have lower lifetime earnings.

Social Security is also especially important to women, because on average, women live longer than men. Unlike savings, you can’t outlive Social Security, even if you live to be 110. It’s no surprise that women are approximately two out of every three beneficiaries aged 85 and older.

Moreover, Social Security benefits are indexed to inflation, no matter how high inflation is. That is imperative to prevent benefits from eroding as you age. This automatic inflation adjustment, which needs updating, nevertheless is an extremely important feature for everyone, but particularly women. That is because, without adjustment, inflation causes the erosion of benefits to compound with each passing year.

As good as Social Security is, it can and should be better. Past generations of women and men have fought to improve it. Now it is our turn. Our elected Democratic policymakers in Congress are fighting to expand Social Security.

They are fighting to increase Social Security’s modest benefits for all current and future beneficiaries. They are also fighting for targeted improvements. They want to restore the minimum benefit, which no longer provides a meaningful floor because it has eroded so substantially. They are also fighting to update the method of indexing benefits, because the current method under-measures the cost of living of seniors and people with disabilities, who have, on average, higher medical and other costs.

Updating both the minimum benefit and the automatic inflation index disproportionately benefits women. So do other improvements Democrats in Congress are fighting for. These include providing caregivers credit toward Social Security for their invaluable but unpaid caregiving work, and improving benefits for those who are divorced and widowed.

Historically, forward-looking women and men have improved Social Security for those who would follow. It is so appropriate that today’s Democratic leaders, who are growing more diverse, have taken their place in the fight. Perhaps the best way to celebrate this Mother’s Day is for all of us to commit to fighting to expand Social Security, in memory of those brilliant, hard-driving, creative, and compassionate Mothers of Social Security.

Nancy J. Altman is a writing fellow for Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute. She has a 40-year background in the areas of Social Security and private pensions. She is president of Social Security Works and chair of the Strengthen Social Security coalition. Her latest book is The Truth About Social Security. She is also the author of The Battle for Social Securityand co-author of Social Security Works!.

This article was produced by Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

IMAGE: Former Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins and Eleanor Roosevelt at the 50th anniversary commemoration at the site of the Triangle Shirtwaist fire in New York City, March 25, 1961.

Honor Frances Perkins By Fighting To Expand Social Security And Medicare

Honor Frances Perkins By Fighting To Expand Social Security And Medicare

Wednesday, April 10, is the birthday of Frances Perkins, the first woman ever to serve in a presidential cabinet. Remarkably, she took this historic step just over a decade after women won the right to vote.

As President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s secretary of labor, she was instrumental in the creation of Social Security. She also played a key role in the enactment of other labor protections, including the minimum wage. A fighter for universal national health insurance, she died just 10 weeks before the important first step of Medicare was signed into law.

Like the other founders of Social Security, Perkins understood Social Security to be, in the words of Roosevelt, “a cornerstone in a structure which is being built but is by no means complete.” In a radio address Perkins gave in 1935, when Social Security was before Congress, she too explained that the program was simply a first step to be expanded upon in future years:

“If put into effect…[the Social Security legislation] will provide a greater degree of security for the American citizen and his family than he has heretofore known. The bill is, I believe, a sound beginning on which we can build by degrees to our ultimate goal.

“We cannot hope to accomplish all in one bold stroke.”

In 1960, at the 25th anniversary celebration of the signing of the Social Security Act, Perkins analogized Social Security to a growing child:

“I think… that as we stand here, and as we sit here and think about this precious child we want to see it grow. It has grown enormously in these years, it has improved… but there is yet much that needs to be done…”

On April 10, the anniversary of Perkins’ birth, two different events taking place on Capitol Hill will mark important next steps toward that not yet completed vision. One is a hearing in the Social Security Subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee, focused on expanding Social Security. [Author Nancy Altman is one of several witnesses who will be testifying.] The other is the introduction of the Medicare for All Act of 2019 in the U.S. Senate.

The hearing will focus on several proposals Democrats have introduced to expand Social Security, just as Perkins envisioned in 1935. These proposals include the Social Security 2100 Act, which is sponsored by Rep. John Larson (D-CT), chairman of the Social Security Subcommittee. This bill, which is co-sponsored by over 85 percent of House Democrats, would address our nation’s looming retirement income crisis by increasing benefits across the board. It also includes additional targeted benefit increases. Larson intends to bring the Social Security 2100 Act to the House floor for a vote this spring.

It is just as appropriate that the Medicare for All introduction is happening on Perkins’ birthday. Making high-quality health care a right for all was one of the chief causes that Perkins fought for throughout her life.

The Senate Medicare for All bill is sponsored by Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and co-sponsored by over a dozen other senators including Sanders’ fellow 2020 presidential contenders Kamala Harris (D-CA), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Cory Booker (D-NJ), and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).

Like the House version introduced on February 27, this bill improves the current Medicare system by adding long-term care services, as well as hearing, vision, and dental treatments and devices. Both bills lower drug prices. They eliminate all premiums, co-pays and deductibles, and they extend the successful, efficient and popular Medicare program to everyone. Medicare coverage now extends to the grave. These bills will have coverage start at the cradle.

Expanded Social Security and Medicare are important building blocks on the foundation laid down in 1935. It is important to recognize that Perkins and her contemporaries in FDR’s administration had a much broader definition of Social Security than the one we use today. They used the term as a synonym for economic security.

Perkins knew that the base of economic security is a good-paying job. She understood that to achieve security, workers need a strong minimum wage, maximum hours, and the right to collectively bargain. All of us need housing and education. We need insurance against the loss of wages. And we need the assurance that if faced with an illness, we or our loved ones will receive high-quality treatment without being faced with destitution to pay for it. To be economically secure, we must have universal, guaranteed health care.

As we fight to expand Social Security and to improve Medicare and expand it to all, we also fight for a $15 minimum wage nationwide, for sick pay, vacation pay, paid parental leave, short-term disability benefits, and so much more to make the vision of the Social Security founders a reality.

All of this was essential to Perkins’ view of economic security. In a 1962 speech at Social Security headquarters, she described her response to FDR when he asked her to become his secretary of labor:

“Before I was appointed, I had a little conversation with Roosevelt in which I said perhaps he didn’t want me to be the secretary of labor because if I were, I should want to do this, and this, and this. Among the things I wanted to do was find a way of getting unemployment insurance, old-age insurance, and health insurance.”

As we continue to fight for Perkins’ vision, her life should both inspire us and drive us forward to success. We are confident that is the best birthday present we could give her.