By Bill Johnston
Martha Shedden has years of experience in Social Security advocacy work as co-founder of the National Association of Registered Social Security Analysts (NARSSA). She was recently accepted into the National Academy of Social Insurance (NASI).
NASI is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization made up of the nation’s leading experts on social insurance. Its mission is to advance solutions to challenges facing the nation by increasing public understanding of how Social Security, Medicare and federal unemployment benefits contribute to economic security.
Shedden focuses on improving politicians' and the public's understanding and believes there is widespread support among Americans for raising payroll taxes and lifting the tax cap.
When one sets politicking aside, there is far more agreement than disagreement about the ways to fix Social Security, she believes.
She sees her most important professional goal is to reduce the amount of “unnecessary partisan division” that has prevented the uptake of sensible and concrete corrective actions the vast majority of Americans support.
A wealth of public survey data shows the vast majority of Americans actually agree on the importance of Social Security and on the best ways to shore up the program’s finances.
Nearly three in four Americans say they “don’t mind paying for Social Security” because they value the benefit for themselves and their families, and for the security and stability it provides to millions of retired Americans, disabled individuals, and children and widowed spouses of deceased workers.
Nearly nine in 10 Americans agree current Social Security benefits do not provide enough income for retirees, and seven in 10 agree Congress should seriously consider raising future Social Security benefits in order to provide a more secure retirement for working Americans.
According to Shedden, even more important is the consensus about changes that could be made to ensure the program can remain finically viable for the long term. She pointed to a NASI trade-off analysis that shows seven in 10 Americans would support a package of changes that increases Social Security revenues, pays for benefit improvements and eliminates the projected financing gap.
Specifically, the vast majority of Americans say they would support a plan that would gradually eliminate the cap on earnings that are taxed for Social Security, currently set at $160,200 for 2023, especially if the benefits formula was adjusted to allow higher earners to garner a higher benefit in retirement.
Politics Are the Problem
Shedden said she was equally troubled and encouraged by the current moment in the national politics of the United States.
In the discouraging column is the fact political leaders on both sides of the aisle continue to use Americans’ deeply felt beliefs about Social Security and other major government programs as a means of rallying their own base of support, often at the expense of eliminating the opportunity to strike what Shedden sees as “very attainable compromises.”
More encouraging is the fact many lawmakers on Capitol Hill are putting together and introducing thoughtful pieces of legislation that would go a long way toward shoring up Social Security. For example, Shedden said she continued to closely track the Social Security 2100 bill and a variety of other reform proposals in Congress, such as the plan put forward by the Republican Study Committee to gradually raise the full retirement age to 70.
While she personally disagrees with the RSC’s age-based solution to Social Security’s funding woes, she still credits the lawmakers for engaging in a difficult conversation with the American public.
“It is positive to see many high-ranking legislators getting engaged on this topic and offering their proposals.” “We only have about a decade to address the current projected funding gap. That may seem like a long time, but it is not, and so it is crucial to keep up the current sense of momentum. The good news is there are so many options for addressing the problem, and there is near-universal agreement among lawmakers and the public that something has to be done.”
The Public Plays a Part, Too
Getting the American people better educated about “all things Social Security” is just as important.
One harmful perspective is the Social Security program is “somehow going to bankrupt the federal government and the U.S. economy as a whole, and so we have to make dramatic cuts even if we don’t want to.”
“Really the opposite is true.” “The program supports the U.S. economy by keeping millions of retirees out of poverty. The truth is we cannot afford to not have a healthy and viable Social Security system.”
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