Inflation
continues to rise in the United States.
Although gas prices have recently fallen since
their record high over the summer, the
cost of groceries rose by 11.4 percent over the
last year, and there is no expectation that they will
fall back to reasonable levels. Prices
overall have risen by 8.2 percent,
according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor
Statistics’ Consumer Price Index report
covering September 2022 as compared to the
same month last year. While most working
Americans are not getting hefty wage
raises to compensate for inflation,
seniors will see their Social Security
benefits—which are pegged to inflation—rise next
year. Starting in January 2023,
beneficiaries will see an 8.7 percent
cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) bump in
their Social Security checks.
Conservatives are scoffing at this
automated increase, as if it were a
special treat that the Biden
administration has cooked up to bribe
older voters. Fox News reported that
there was a “social media backlash”
against White House Chief of Staff Ron
Klain’s tweet lauding
the upcoming increased COLA benefits for
seniors. The outlet elevated comments by
the conservative America First Policy
Institute’s Marc Lotter, who retorted to
Klain, “Nice try Ron. Raising benefits
next year does not help seniors with the
higher prices they are paying today or the
higher prices they’ve been paying since
you took office.”
But Social Security benefits have risen
automatically with inflation since 1975 by
design, precisely so that the livelihoods
of seniors are not beholden to
partisanship. This is an imminently
sensible way to ensure that retired
Americans, who spent their working lives
paying Social Security taxes, can have a
basic income.
If conservatives are complaining that an
8.7 percent bump is not enough to counter
inflation, one might expect them to demand
an even greater increase
to Social Security benefits.
But, as is often the case with
conservative economic logic, hypocrisy
abounds. Bloomberg Government reporter
Jack Fitzpatrick recently reported that
several House Republicans who are vying to
chair next year’s House Budget Committee
if their party wins a majority in the
November 2022 general elections are
crafting plans for reductions, not
increases. They hope to leverage
negotiations on raising the 2023 debt
ceiling by demanding cuts to Social
Security and Medicare—programs that the
GOP loves to deceptively label
“entitlements.”
Fitzpatrick, using conservatives’ nakedly
partisan language, said that Republican
negotiators “could subsequently put major
entitlement programs in play.” One of the
GOP members of Congress eyeing the
committee leadership, Georgia’s Buddy
Carter, was more forthcoming about his
plan, saying, “Our main focus has got to
be on nondiscretionary—it’s got to be on
entitlements.” Another Republican
lawmaker, Jodey Arrington of Texas, also
hoping to chair the crucial committee,
understood the value of discretion when
discussing cuts to programs favored by his
constituents. He warned his Republican
colleagues against getting too specific
because “this can get so politicized.”
But Republicans have been demanding cuts
to so-called entitlement programs for at
least the past seven years running, in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021.
Oddly, the Washington Post’s fact checker
Glenn Kessler found no
evidence to back up Democratic Senator
Patty Murray’s recent claim that
“Republicans plan to end Social Security
and Medicare if they take back the
Senate.” Awarding Murray four
“Pinocchios”—the Fact Checker column’s
highest possible rating for lies—Kessler
assured readers, saying, “Don’t worry,
seniors: There is no such plan.” (In the
hundreds of comments on the piece, many
readers called out Kessler’s obvious
service to Republicans in helping to hide
their agenda.)
Social Security is one of the best, most
popular government-funded programs in the
nation. I recently explained its workings
to my parents who emigrated from the
United Arab Emirates to the U.S. a year
ago. The custom they are familiar with in
countries like the UAE is that of a
“gratuity” or severance, paid to retiring
workers—a lump-sum tip—based on their
salary and number of years worked.
I explained that in contrast, U.S. workers
pay a small percentage of their wages into
the Social Security fund their entire
working life. Upon retirement, workers
draw a monthly sum based on their salary,
years worked, and the current cost of
living. While this may not sound as
enticing as receiving a large sum of money
at once, the monthly payments will never
run out and last from retirement until
death. My parents were duly impressed.
This year, to mark the 87th anniversary of
Social Security, Data for Progress found in
a poll that the program remains extremely
popular and that a majority of voters want
to increase benefits.
Those surveyed also worried that Congress
could cut current or future benefits, or
privatize the program. Most had not heard
about Republican plans for cuts, however,
suggesting that the efforts to hide the
GOP’s real agenda have generally worked.
And, most were in favor of a very simple
solution to ensure that Social Security’s
funds don’t run out as revenues have dropped due to increasing
inequality, and
life expectancy has increased: make the
wealthy pay their fair share. Social
Security payroll taxes are capped at
$147,000 in wages currently (and beginning
in 2023 will increase a modest 9 percent
to $160,200). That
means those earning a million dollars a
year in 2022 pay the same amount into
Social Security as those earning $150,000.
Removing the cap ensures
that the fund will remain solvent and
stable.
Social Security, in spite of some flaws,
is also one of the nation’s most
progressive programs, helping to further
racial and gender justice among older
Americans.
According to the Center on Budget and Policy
Priorities (CBPP),
“Social Security is a particularly
important source of income for groups with
low earnings and less opportunity to save
and earn pensions, including Black and
Latino workers and their families, who
face higher poverty rates during their
working lives and in old age.”
Furthermore, CBPP finds that
“Social Security is especially important for
women, because
they tend to earn less than men, take more
time out of the paid workforce, live
longer, accumulate less savings, and
receive smaller pensions.”
In spite of enduring Republican desires to
cut the program, it is not nearly as
generous as it ought to be. A global comparison of
government retirement benefits by the
Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development (OECD) in 2019 found that the
U.S. ranked 24th on the ratio of worker
benefits to earnings. This is below
average for OECD countries, and lower than
the benefits paid by countries like
Turkey, Greece, Estonia, and Latvia, in
spite of the U.S. being the richest nation in the
world.
In other words, there is a basis for the
conservative critique that an 8.7 percent
increase in Social Security benefits
slated for 2023 is insufficient. But the
solution is to make benefits more
generous, rather than to cut the program
as Republicans aim to do.
This commentary was produced by Economy for All, a
project of the Independent Media
Institute.