Political Quotes

“Social Security benefits have steadily increased over the years because they have long been calculated by indexing them to wage increases which on the average go up 3.6 percent a year, so Social Security benefits increase with rising wages. The administration wants to change all of that. They want to index Social Security benefits according to price increases, not wages. As a result, millions of future retirees will see their future Social Security benefits reduced as much as 40 percent because prices do not increase as fast as wages. Let me give an example. If you began work in 1959, retired in 2003 at age 65, under wage indexing where benefits rise with rising wages, you get $1,158 a month. Under price indexing, your benefits would be frozen. You would get only $701 a month. So there would be a 40 percent cut in benefits with price indexing and a person would lose over $100,000 in retirement benefits over a lifetime. Why the switch to price indexing? Because privatization is going to create an additional shortfall. The administration is going to have to borrow money to set up private accounts, and the shortfall is going to be for 45 years. They are going to have to borrow up to $15 trillion. They are going to try to get the money off the backs of America's retirees. It is wrong. No to privatization and no to price indexing.”