Hilda L. Solis: “women earn 70 cents on every dollar earned by a man. On the average, that is about $11,000 less income earned each year…”

“women earn 70 cents on every dollar earned by a man. On the average, that is about $11,000 less income earned each year compared to men. So that is something that we have to put in perspective. And as a result, women have less money to invest in private accounts, so there goes that theory about, gee, we have disposable income to put away to put in a private account. That is not necessarily the case for many people that I represent in my home district. In fact, in my office alone, we have received well over 300 correspondence saying no privatization. Privatization, what does that mean? In my opinion, it means that there is going to be money that is actually going to be taken out of their benefits, and in the long run, our young people that are paying, say, would pay into something like that are not going to receive the same return once they are eligible for that. And, in fact, those people that choose not to set up a private account are also going to be penalized. So over the long haul, I do not think that privatizing Social Security is actually going to end what the President is saying is a crisis because it is bankrupt. In fact, it will not do anything to make it solvent. Privatization will not do that.”