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News May 2015

Aid for Age

Not Everyone is Betty White

By Tait Trussell

Among 55- to 64-year-olds, women’s rate of labor force participation increased from 41.3 percent in 1980 to 59.4 percent in 2012, and is expected to reach 66.6 percent by 2020. But evidence of discrimination has appeared against women.

Betty White, who brought laughs to Americans for years in the TV show “The Golden Girls,” reached her 92nd birthday this year. But not every woman is Betty White.

Many women won’t live to Betty’s age, and even fewer will work as long as actress Betty. So, what does this mean for our Social Security system? What does it means for the policy proposals that people should work longer to get Social Security benefits or that benefits should be cut to help save the system?

As we know, fewer people are paying into Social Security and more seniors are collecting from it. Even though Social Security has to be changed to save it from eventual bankruptcy, the prospect of changing the system would have sizeable effects, particularly on women. Presently payroll taxes apply to incomes up to $106,800. In past years, this covered 95 percent of all workers. Currently it covers only 85 percent of those employed. So, some believe the amount of earnings subject to the Social Security payroll tax should be jacked up.

Another proposal receiving an even harder look from policymakers is the plan to raise the age for Social Security collecting payments to begin at age 70.

According to the federal Department of Labor, among 55- to 64-year-olds, women’s rate of labor force participation increased from 41.3 percent in 1980 to 59.4 percent in 2012, and is expected to reach 66.6 percent by 2020. But evidence of discrimination has appeared against women. A study involving entry level jobs among women in St. Petersburg, Florida, and Boston, Massachusetts, showed older workers sending in resumes to potential employers were 40 percent less likely to get a call back than younger workers.

We know that on average women live longer than men. But mortality gains have not been rising as quickly for women as they have for men.

Another problem with leaning on rising life expectancy as a reason for increasing retirement age is that added years of life are not necessarily healthy ones. Starting in the 1990s, “there was increasing evidence that older Americans had declining levels of activities of daily living limitations...such as eating, dressing, and bathing,” according to Pamela Herd, associate professor of public affairs and sociology at University of Wisconsin-Madison.

These trends were said to be especially strong among those women who were overweight. The rising level of obesity doesn’t bode well for senior women in the future. Disability is a particularly serious issue for older women. Even though they live longer than men, they have higher rates of illness and disability, meaning they aren’t able to keep working as long as men, generally.

Those arguing for increasing the retirement age say that these people should begin drawing Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) rather than the retirement portion of the Social Security program. In other words, the argument goes, increasing the retirement age should not cause a real hardship for the unhealthy because they can qualify for SSDI instead.

One glitch in this argument is that early eligibility would actually increase the costs. Also administrative costs for disability benefits are much higher.

But the main fault is that SSDI payments are made only after a five-month waiting period after the onset of a disability. “Many people wait over two years to receive benefits after their initial application,” says Professor Herd.

Herd says, “The consequences of raising the Social Security eligibility for those who cannot continue to work could be economically catastrophic.” Women, blacks and Hispanics and those with low education would be most at risk, Herd points out. And 22 percent of black and Hispanic women age 65 live below the poverty line compared to 9.2 percent of white 65-year-old women.

No, certainly not every woman is Betty White.

 

Tait Trussell is an old guy and fourth-generation professional journalist who writes extensively about aging issues among a myriad of diverse topics.

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