Issue Position: Retirement Security-Social Security

Issue Position

Social Security is a contributory social insurance system that covers 164 million workers (94 percent of workers in paid employment or self employment) and provides monthly cash benefits to 51 million beneficiaries, including retired and disabled workers and their dependents, as well as the dependents of deceased workers.

Social Security was enacted in 1935 and was intended to improve the economic circumstances of older adults during the Depression. As more and more people were covered and living longer, Social Security has been modified to address these changes over the years.

Social Security has been, for 75 years, a bedrock promise. You have earned it with a lifetime of hard work, and it should be there for you and future generations.

In 2008, the Social Security trust fund assets were at $2.4 trillion.Although the trust fund is projected to have a positive balance until 2037, costs are projected to exceed income by an average of 14 percent over the 75-year projection period as our population ages.

Considering the large and important role that Social Security has in America's safety net for older and disabled, widowed and orphaned citizens, comprehensive Social Security reform has been a perennial and contentious item on the Congressional agenda.

I fully support maintaining traditional Social Security and finding ways to effectively extend it without cutting benefits to our nation's seniors.

According to the Congressional Research Service: "In 2008, 69% of aged Social Security beneficiaries received more than half of their income from Social Security, and 41% received more than 90% of their income from Social Security. Moreover, Social Security is credited with keeping many of the nation's elderly out of poverty. An estimated 8% of aged Social Security beneficiaries fall below the poverty line, compared with an estimated 22% of aged non-beneficiaries."

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