[Senate Hearing 118-422]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 118-422
SOCIAL SECURITY FOREVER: DELIVERING
BENEFITS AND PROTECTING
RETIREMENT SECURITY
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HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
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September 11, 2024
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Printed for the use of the Committee on the Budget
[GRAPHICS NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
www.govinfo.gov
__________
U.S. GOVERNMENT PUBLISHING OFFICE
56-945 WASHINGTON : 2024
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COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET
SHELDON WHITEHOUSE, Rhode Island, Chairman
PATTY MURRAY, Washington CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa
RON WYDEN, Oregon MIKE CRAPO, Idaho
DEBBIE STABENOW, Michigan LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina
BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont RON JOHNSON, Wisconsin
MARK R. WARNER, Virginia MITT ROMNEY, Utah
JEFF MERKLEY, Oregon ROGER MARSHALL, Kansas
TIM KAINE, Virginia MIKE BRAUN, Indiana
CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland JOHN KENNEDY, Louisiana
BEN RAY LUJAN, New Mexico RICK SCOTT, Florida
ALEX PADILLA, California MIKE LEE, Utah
Dan Dudis, Majority Staff Director
Kolan Davis, Republican Staff Director and Chief Counsel
Mallory B. Nersesian, Chief Clerk
Alexander C. Scioscia, Hearing Clerk
C O N T E N T S
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WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2024
OPENING STATEMENTS BY COMMITTEE MEMBERS
Page
Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Chairman............................. 1,34
Prepared Statement........................................... 42
Senator Charles E. Grassley...................................... 3
Prepared Statement........................................... 44
STATEMENTS BY COMMITTEE MEMBERS
Senator Patty Murray............................................. 12
Senator Rick Scott............................................... 14
Senator Ron Wyden................................................ 17
Senator Ron Johnson.............................................. 18,36
Senator Tim Kaine................................................ 21
Senator Jeff Merkley............................................. 23
Senator Chris Van Hollen......................................... 25
Senator Mike Braun............................................... 38
WITNESSES
The Honorable Martin O'Malley, Commissioner, Social Security
Administration................................................. 6
Prepared Statement........................................... 47
Ms. Rebecca D. Vallas, Chief Executive Officer, National Academy
of Social Insurance............................................ 27
Prepared Statement........................................... 64
Mr. Roger Boudreau, President, Rhode Island AFT/Retirees, Local
#8037R......................................................... 29
Prepared Statement........................................... 74
Dr. Molly Dahl, Long-Term Analysis Unit Chief, Congressional
Budget Office.................................................. 31
Prepared Statement........................................... 76
Mr. Shai Akabas, Executive Director, Economic Policy Program,
Bipartisan Policy Center....................................... 32
Prepared Statement........................................... 82
APPENDIX
Responses to post-hearing questions for the Record
Hon. O'Malley................................................ 90
Ms. Vallas................................................... 92
Dr. Dahl..................................................... 94
Mr. Akabas................................................... 98
Charts submitted by the Honorable Martin O'Malley................ 101
Documents submitted for the Record by Chairman Sheldon Whitehouse 103
Statement submitted for the Record by Senator Charles E. Grassley 108
Document submitted for the Record by Senator Ron Johnson......... 109
Document submitted for the Record by Honorable Martin O'Malley... 119
SOCIAL SECURITY FOREVER: DELIVERING
BENEFITS AND PROTECTING RETIREMENT SECURITY
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WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2024
Committee on the Budget,
U.S. Senate,
Washington, DC.
The hearing was convened, pursuant to notice, at 10:00
a.m., in the Dirksen Senate Office Building, Room SD-608, Hon.
Sheldon Whitehouse, Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
Present: Senators Whitehouse, Murray, Wyden, Merkley,
Kaine, Van Hollen, Lujan, Grassley, Johnson, Romney, Braun and
Scott.
Also present: Democratic Staff: Dan Dudis, Majority Staff
Director; Tyler Evilsizer, Director of Scorekeeping; Sion Bell,
Tax Policy Advisor.
Republican Staff: Chris Conlin, Deputy Staff Director;
Krisann Pearce, General Counsel; Erich Hartman, Director of
Budget Policy and Review; Ryan Flynn, Budget Analyst.
Panel One Witness:
The Honorable Martin O'Malley, Commissioner, Social
Security Administration.
Panel Two Witnesses:
Ms. Rebecca D. Vallas, Chief Executive Officer, National
Academy of Social Insurance.
Mr. Roger Boudreau, President, Rhode Island AFT/Retirees
Local #8037R.
Dr. Molly Dahl, Long-Term Analysis Unit Chief,
Congressional Budget Office.
Mr. Shai Akabas, Executive Director, Economic Policy
Program, Bipartisan Policy Center.
OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN WHITEHOUSE \1\
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\1\ Prepared statement of Chairman Whitehouse appears in the
appendix on page 42.
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Chairman Whitehouse. Good morning everyone. This hearing of
the Senate Budget Committee will come to order. I am delighted
to be back with my distinguished Ranking Member, Senator
Grassley, who had a wonderful August in Iowa, and to be joined
by Appropriations Chairman Murray and Finance Chair Wyden.
We will proceed with opening statements from myself and
Senator Grassley. Chairman Wyden has asked to make a brief
statement also, so I will recognize him for that, and then we
will proceed on with the regular order of questioning.
I want to welcome Governor O'Malley here. We are delighted
that he is here, and obviously today's hearing is going to
examine the challenges facing the agency that he runs, one of
our most important government programs, Social Security.
Social Security has been a pillar of retirement security
for millions of seniors for nearly 90 years, and it continues
to be the nation's most effective anti-poverty program. Social
Security distributes benefits to nearly 70 million Americans,
20 percent of the U.S. population, and in 2022, it lifted 28
million Americans out of poverty.
But Social Security is facing a looming solvency problem,
and immediate budgetary issues as it modernizes and improves
customer service. We will explore these challenges today.
Social Security Commissioner Martin O'Malley has already
improved the agency's customer service and benefit delivery.
In less than a year, he has reduced wait times for a
disability hearing by almost 30 percent, reduced phone call
wait times by more than 40 percent, and ensured that more
Social Security beneficiaries get their benefits within just
two weeks of applying.
The Commissioner is here to testify about the agency's
budget request for fiscal year 2025, and about how more than a
decade of shortfalls made things worse for Social Security
beneficiaries. Social Security must have the resources to do
its work properly. So I was pleased to see that fully funding
the Social Security Administration is part of the Biden
administration's request for the September continuing
resolution.
Our second panel will focus on protecting Social Security
forever, and strengthening retirement security for all
Americans. Rhode Island's own Roger Boudreau is here, a
tireless advocate for the state's retirees and pensioners. He
will testify about the importance of Social Security in
providing a strong foundation for American retirement.
Without new revenue, this bedrock of the American
retirement system will only cover 83 percent of benefits
beginning in 2035. So it is incumbent upon us in Congress to
examine real solutions, to close the revenue gap and preserve
the promise of Social Security for our kids and grandkids.
The promise of Social Security is a promise we cannot
break. At last year's State of the Union, President Biden
received a standing ovation from Republicans and Democrats
alike, when he proclaimed that cutting Social Security and
Medicare was off the table.
As he said that night, we got unanimity. But Republican
claims that they do not want to cut benefits do not match the
Republican House's actions. The current Republican Study
Committee budget, representing 80 percent of House Republicans,
has proposed cutting $1.5 trillion of Social Security benefits
over the next ten years.
It would reduce the benefit formula and raise the
retirement age to 69, which would especially hurt low income
retirees. But let us say that Social Security benefit cuts
really are off the table. If cuts are truly off the table, then
that leaves only one other option to prevent insolvency: raise
revenue. There is no third option, and that means it is time to
get to work identifying smart, fair ways to raise revenue, fund
the Social Security Trust Fund, and preserve and protect
benefits.
Fortunately, there are solutions that would both extend
Social Security solvency indefinitely with zero benefit cuts,
and make our tax system fairer, like my Medicare and Social
Security Fair Share Act. Right now, the cap on Social Security
contributions means that if you are a Chief Executive Officer
(CEO) making $10 million a year, you only pay into Social
Security for the first week of your paycheck.
A school teacher or a nurse, however, will pay into the
program with every single paycheck. That just is not fair. My
Medicare and Social Security Fair Share Act would fix that by
requiring contributions to Social Security on all wages above
$400,000.
Further, people living off of non-wage income make no
Social Security contributions. That is not fair either, and my
bill would also fix that. Those making more than $400,000 in
investment income would contribute just like those who are
working.
These reforms raise enough revenue to make Social Security,
and by the way Medicare too, solvent indefinitely, as far as
the actuarial eye can see, according to the respective
actuaries for the two programs. At the moment, there are no
Republican proposals to restore solvency to Social Security
without benefit cuts. The last Republican-sponsored legislation
to preserve Social Security's long-term solvency was in 2016,
eight years ago, and that legislation was 100 percent benefit
cuts.
So if benefit cuts are now off the table, that proposal is
dead, yet there is no other Republican bill. My bill would
protect Social Security and Medicare without cutting benefits
by making wealthy non-taxpayers pay their fair share.
If Republicans want to come up with a proposal that
restores solvency while avoiding benefit cuts, as the standing
ovation at the State of the Union promised, Democrats are all
ears.
Here is what I think the plan is for Republicans. Run out
the clock until insolvency, and then when there is a crisis,
try to get Democrats into a back room, where Republicans can
secretly negotiate benefit cuts, and then bring them out to the
public under cover of bipartisanship.
That will not work. But if that is not the plan, then show
us a proposal. Americans care about Social Security and
Americans are watching. Senator Grassley.
OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR GRASSLEY \2\
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\2\ Prepared statement of Senator Grassley appears in the appendix
on page 44.
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Senator Grassley. Mr. Chairman, before I continue my
opening statement, I want to also acknowledge today being the
23rd anniversary of 9/11 attacks. Time cannot erase the horrors
of that day. We must always remember the thousands of Americans
who lost their lives to terrorism, and we are forever grateful
for those heroes and first responders who made tremendous
sacrifices trying to save fellow countrymen.
Now to today's subject. You will not find disagreement from
my side of the aisle on the need to strengthen and preserve
Social Security for generations to come. As I often say, Social
Security is part of the social fabric of America.
Unfortunately, Social Security is presently on a path of
insolvency. Congressional Budget Office (CBO) tells us that by
2033, Social Security primary Trust Fund will only be able to
pay 75 percent of scheduled benefits. Congress must work in a
bipartisan fashion to save Social Security once and for all.
This will require listening to multiple points of view, not
just those with which we agree.
Towards that end, I have invited Molly Dahl of the non-
partisan Congressional Budget Office to give us the straight
facts on Social Security finances. And I have--also with us, at
my request, is Shai Akabas of the Bipartisan Policy Center. He
will provide a sober view of the different choices and
tradeoffs inherent in any serious proposal to address Social
Security looming funding shortfall.
My hope is for us to have a serious discussion, void of
political fearmongering that too often dominates this debate.
But I will not hold my breath. We are in the midst of a
presidential election, and one of the Democrats' favorite
campaign tactics over many years has been to suggest
Republicans want to pull the rug out from under our seniors and
end Social Security as we know it.
We saw that in the 2020 presidential election when the
Biden-Harris allies in the Senate decided to manufacturer a
crisis. At that time, the Senators snookered the Social
Security Chief Actuary into analyzing non-existing legislation
to eliminate Social Security payroll taxes.
They then characterized the actuary's analysis as evidence
that President Trump sought to defund Social Security. That
went too far even for the liberal Washington Post, which
awarded that claim four Pinocchios. Even so, that did not stop
a cottage industry of left wing groups from running ads,
scaring seniors about a false Republican effort to destroy
Social Security.
It is scare tactics such as these that are the true threats
to Social Security. Why? Because they stifle honest debate and
delay bipartisan action, and nothing is going to happen without
a bipartisan approach, action that is necessary to prevent
automatic cuts to retirement benefits that will occur under
present law.
With that said, I want to welcome our Social Security
Commissioner, Governor O'Malley, who will testify first today.
I trust he will do his best to avoid the Social Security
Administration being dragged into election year scare tactics
as occurred in 2020.
Even though both the House and Senate Appropriations
Committees have already rejected the Biden-Harris budget
request for Social Security Administration in their committee
reports of the Labor-Department of Health and Human Services
(HHS) bills, I still look forward to hearing Commissioner
O'Malley on his plan to improve customer service at the agency.
I regularly hear from Iowans who find it challenging to get
in touch with Social Security, whether by phone or in person.
In June at the Finance Committee hearing, I asked a Social
Security field office manager how many of her employees come to
the office during work week. She responded that only five of
her 40 employee were in the office five days per week.
I cannot help but wonder if that may be a reason so many
Iowans struggle to get assistance that they need. And then one
comment to where the Chairman ended up, if you would allow me
to say, you mentioned that we are going to sit back until this
program goes broke. Then we are going to put a plan out,
secretly, and ask for your bipartisan support.
Let me suggest to you that when you blame Republicans for
waiting for the thing to go broke, you remember in '84 after
what, 24 years of Democrats controlling the U.S. Senate, and at
that point about 30 years controlling the U.S. House of
Representatives, the Democrat Congress let it go broke in 1984
before they sat down.
And the reason it was finally solved, if you remember there
were Reagans and Tip O'Neills in Washington, D.C. at that
particular time that said we are not going to let this good
program go broke. We have got to solve a problem. The trouble
is there is no Reagans or Tip O'Neills in Washington right now.
That is a sad commentary of why something is not getting done.
So maybe some Tip O'Neill and Reagan will rise in 2025 to
help solve this. I hope so.
Chairman Whitehouse. I hope so, too. I think that would
probably be encouraged by having two proposals to compare. At
the moment, we only have proposals on the Democrat side.
Chairman Wyden asked to be recognized briefly. I am delighted
to turn to him.
Senator Wyden. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I will be
brief. First of all, we want to thank the Commissioner for
being here and talking about bipartisanship. We all in the
Finance Committee remember his confirmation hearings, and he
set targets, specific targets for improving services, and he is
on track to meet those targets.
So with respect to Social Security, and we have got a
number of Finance Committee members and members on other
important committees, we are interested in working in a
bipartisan way in every opportunity possible. First with
respect to the revenue, you know, issue.
We have had ideas. We have had concrete, specific
proposals. Senator Whitehouse has talked about one, I have
talked about one. I said everybody has got to pay their fair
share. No special exemptions for billionaires. The fact here is
we Democrats know that the ultra-wealthy are avoiding nearly $2
trillion in taxes every ten years.
That is enough to keep Social Security whole till the end
of this century. Those are facts. We have proposals to offer to
colleagues on both sides of the aisle to carry that out.
Second, you contrast this again with the facts on the
ground. Chairman Whitehouse just talked about the House already
laying out various proposals that would end up cutting
benefits. These reimbursement rate proposals are always
configuring the system in a way that cuts benefits for seniors.
That is what the Cost-of-Living Adjustment (COLA) changes
are all about. That is what the age proposals are all about. So
at the end of the day, the question for the Congress and for
the Senate is do we want to take the steps that the Chairman
outlined, that I have said on the Finance Committee we will
work in a bipartisan way to carry out and protect the Social
Security guarantee, or do we want to start down the path as the
House already did with those proposals that Senator Whitehouse,
you know, talked about, and basically toss the guarantee in the
trash?
The American people do not want to see that happen to the
Social Security guarantee. I am here as Chairman of the Senate
Finance Committee to work with my colleagues on both sides of
the aisle, specifically to get started on the fact that the
ultra-wealthy are avoiding those $2 trillion in taxes every ten
years.
That is where we ought to go to start making progress, and
I am interested in doing that in a bipartisan way. Thank you,
Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Whitehouse. Thank you, Chairman Wyden. As the old
advertisement used to say, when the Chairman of the Finance
Committee talks, people listen. So thank you for talking.
Commissioner O'Malley, thank you for being here. The
Commissioner was Senate confirmed in a bipartisan vote,
including the support of both myself and Ranking Member
Grassley. He has done terrific work, as I outlined in my
remarks already, with more to do. He previously served as
Governor of Maryland from 2007 to 2015, and before that Mayor
of Baltimore.
And we are delighted, Governor, that you are here, and I am
sure that your colleague, Senator--the Senators from Maryland,
who are here, Senators Cardin and Van Hollen, will be taking
the chance to greet you as you visit us here in the Senate.
They are big fans of yours as you know. We are sorry to be
losing Ben at the end of this term.
STATEMENT OF THE HONORABLE MARTIN O'MALLEY, COMMISSIONER,
SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION \3\
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\3\ Prepared statement of Hon. O'Malley appears in the appendix on
page 47.
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Commissioner O'Malley. Mr. Chairman, thank you. Thank you
to all of the members of the Committee. I have had the honor to
speak with each of you and to receive your advice during that
confirmation process. It has been invaluable to me in these
last 270-some days in leading this agency.
I want to thank you so much for holding this critically
important hearing, to consider the staffing levels and customer
service at the United States Social Security Administration. We
do so on September 11th, and Ranking Member Grassley, I join
you in solidarity with every American in remembering that day.
I do not think I can ever experience a clear sky in
September without thinking of that day, and on that fateful day
Social Security was also present, not sorting through the
physical rubble but we were there to make sure survivor
benefits were paid to all of the kids that lost parents in
those attacks.
Perhaps after sustaining this republic through the
pandemic, the challenge we face today at Social Security is
perhaps the most daunting in its 89 year history, and that is
saying a lot. This is the very first Budget or Appropriations
Committee hearing Social Security has been granted in ten years
of steady declines in customer service provided to the American
people.
And the fundamental reason for this precipitous decline is
not the pandemic and it is not telework. It is this. Social
Security today is struggling to serve more customers than ever,
with staffing that Congress has reduced to a 50 year low.
Allow me to repeat this hard but essential truth. Social
Security today, not ten years from now but today, is struggling
to serve more customers than ever with staffing levels reduced
to 50 year lows, and I do not believe for a moment that this
was the intention of Congress.
But the cold result is customer service for which Americans
have already paid by working their whole lives, has now been
reduced to crisis levels. What does that crisis level look
like? You have heard the calls and you have heard the cries.
Hour-long waits, sometimes an hour and a half on the 800
number. Financial hardships inflicted, oftentimes on our
elderly and most vulnerable citizens through no fault of their
own, because of overpayments and the injustice of
underpayments, that it takes us too long to catch up to.
And in far too many states, almost a year-long wait now, a
year-long wait just for the initial disability determination,
with a record backlog of 1.2 million cases. Members of the
Committee this is what happens when an agency is forced to
serve more and more and more people, with fewer and fewer and
fewer staff. And the American people deserve better. In fact,
they have already paid for better.
I know your offices have received their calls. We see their
faces every day in 1,211 now understaffed field offices all
across America. So you might be heartened to learn that in
recent months, with your advice, consent and support,
notwithstanding the enormity of the challenge we have taken
bold steps to achieve real and measurable progress on some of
our toughest problems.
We have now reduced the wait times on the 800 number by 50
percent. We have eliminated the callback cruelty by changing
policies so that we no longer intercept 100 percent of a
retiree's check in order to recoup the overpayment. We have
learned now for the first time in recent memory, we have
cleared more cases every week for 12 weeks in a row in the
initial disability determinations than have been filed on the
front end of that process.
And we have reduced the Administrative Law Judges (ALJ),
you know, the appellate level hearing backlog to a 30 year low.
But make no mistake about it. These recent gains will be short-
lived without your immediate attention and support.
True story. In 2018, you allowed this agency to operate on
1.2 percent overhead, compared to annual benefits paid out. If
you were to compare that to a private insurance company,
Allstate operates on 19 percent overhead. Liberty Mutual,
Liberty Biberty, on 23 percent overhead.
When Congress allowed Social Security to serve our
customers and to serve them well, we operated on just 1.2
percent overhead compared to benefits paid. But over the last
ten years, that has been reduced to less than one percent, and
that is why we are now at a 50 year low in staffing and crisis
level in terms of customer service.
So what can be done? The good news is like the solvency
challenge in 2035, the good news is this customer service
crisis is also solvable. This is a solvable problem. Allowing
Social Security to provide the customer service for which
people have already paid is not a new idea.
The money for the most part is already there. This is
merely a return to normalcy, common sense tradition, and a
restoration of the customer service for which people have
already paid. Now the President's budget for Social Security
would be a big step in the right direction. It would allow us
to improve customer service and reduce those unacceptably long
wait times and backlogs across a range of services.
With your support, the $15.4 billion proposed by the
President would allow us to greatly restore staffing at our
field offices and at our teleservice centers, where by the way
attrition has run at 22 and 24 percent for the last several
years. It would allow us to greatly restore staffing of
disability examiners in our 52 state disability offices,
including District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.
And finally, it would allow us to make some meaningful
headway on modernizing the technology that it takes to speed up
processing times for millions of claims, while expanding online
services options for our citizens.
So in conclusion, I continue to be inspired every single
day by the commitment, the grit and the heart of the men and
women of the Social Security Administration. They have
soldiered on in the face of this daunting mismatch between
staffing and customers, and I am especially grateful to them
for the hard-won progress of these recent months.
But we need your urgent attention now. As the number of our
customers continues to climb, there is no act of Congress that
will change those demographics. But your action now to give us
the support, to allow us to use the dollars people have already
paid is critically important. I thank you so much for holding
this hearing. I look forward to answering your questions.
Chairman Whitehouse. Well, we are delighted that you are
here Commissioner, and I guess I will ask three questions. The
first is give us some examples of things that would improve if
we were able to give you the funding levels that Office of
Management and Budget (OMB) has requested?
Commissioner O'Malley. Mr. Chairman, thank you. A few of
the things that we have been able to improve, and it is--you
know, the main--about eight million people call our 800 number
every month. Not every year, every month. Another eight million
go into the 1,211 field offices. I think we still have 1,211.
Every now and again one of them implodes without warning, given
the shortness of staff.
But the two things that it would primarily allow us to do
is to start to staff up in those critically important customer-
facing places, namely the 800 number. My father-in-law, who is
93 years old, says to me in other context, but it applies in
this one, he says ``You know Mart, when I call an 800 number I
just want to get a person. I just need to talk to a person.''
So being able to restore those teleservice numbers, to keep
pace with the rise in volume, and secondly the field offices--
the 1,211 field offices are also suffering from that short
staffing. When Congress passed the budget for the year, we came
out of seven months of a hiring freeze, and with those dollars
we are able to start to replace in the teleservice centers and
the disability determination offices some staff.
In the field offices, we are only backfilling some places,
one for every ten that we had lost in the course of that year,
and the final one I just mentioned that there was the
disability determination offices, which have suffered a lot of
loss over the last year.
And undergirding all of that, of course, is the Information
Technology (IT) platform, and a modernization that is
desperately needed on what is a very old Common Business-
Oriented Language (COBOL)-based system with green screens.
Chairman Whitehouse. Ranking Member Grassley mentioned the
last major Social Security legislation 40, 4-0, years ago, and
one of the things that I noticed has changed since then has
been dramatically worsened income inequality in the United
States. What has that change in income inequality meant for
Social Security and its revenues?
Commissioner O'Malley. Yeah. It is a question that I did
not--that I ask myself. Well, actually I did not ask it that
way. But I learned the answer, which goes to the call of your
question.
I had asked our public actuary/chief actuary Steve Goss,
you know, given the history and what happened in the 75 year
what we--what Congress had hoped in the days of President
Reagan and Speaker O'Neill, would be a 75 year fix. I said what
did you all get wrong? And he said the main thing, 90 percent
of the reason why what some call the solvency event, what
others call the cliff, what others call the 17 percent
shortfall, the reason that that was moved forward was because
actions taken after that compromise took more and more income
out of the band, that as you mentioned Social Security, to
which Social Security applies.
In other words, changes in our economy, changes in our tax
policies, other things meant that in the ensuing years, while a
majority, vast majority of Americans saw no real increase in
their wages, the top six percent did.
That that entire six percent, the lopsided nature of those
income gains was all outside that band that, as you pointed
out, the people who guard these buildings, the people who keep
these buildings clean and safe, pay all year. Someone like
Warren Buffet pays for like 30 seconds of a New Year.
And so it was the taking of those earned dollars out of
that narrow bracket that caused the shortfall to be advanced
from 2050 to 2034, excuse me. It is now pushed off to 2035 due
to better job and wage growth.
Chairman Whitehouse. My last question is a very simple one.
There are places in the Social Security rules where very
significant consequences follow from very small changes. So you
hit your income cap, you go one dollar over and suddenly there
are very dramatic changes that happen. These cliffs, I think,
are really hard for people that get caught by surprise by them,
and they are also, it seems to me, pretty terrible just public
policy.
And I would just like to ask you if you would be willing to
work with me, and I know Senator Wyden is interested in this on
the Finance Committee as well, in a general look at how to do
cliff smoothing, so that these dramatic consequences for
earning one dollar more are mitigated for American families.
Commissioner O'Malley. Yes sir. Mr. Chairman, we would love
to work with you on that. There is a lot of really important
work that is already ongoing. Advocates like National
Association of Disability Representatives (NADR) and National
Organization of Social Security Claimants' Representatives
(NOSSCR) and others talking about how we get people back to
work, and remove that fear that they are going to, in a split
second, lose medical coverage for their family.
National Federation for the Blind was talking to me
recently about some of the cliffs in that program. There has
been a bipartisan effort by Senators Cassidy and Brown to raise
the asset limit, where Supplemental Security Income program is
concerned. So on many of these fronts----
Chairman Whitehouse. I look forward to working with you on
the cliff smoothing issue.
Commissioner O'Malley. Thank you.
Chairman Whitehouse. And I turn to Ranking Member Grassley.
Senator Grassley. Yeah. You cosigned the recent Social
Security Trustees report, recommending that lawmakers take, in
your words, timely legislative action to protect Social
Security for future generations. Of course, saving Social
Security and preventing a 25 year cut in senior benefits will
require Presidential leadership.
You are here to testify on the administration's budget
request for your department. Have you encouraged the
administration to include any legislative proposals in their
budget to extend the solvency of the Social Security?
Commissioner O'Malley. Senator, I am very mindful that the
prerogative of policy and timing is that of your august body,
Article I, along with the President of the United States. I
have expressed to the administration that, just as I promised
you in our meetings and all of you that served--that on the
confirmation hearing, that we have an actuary who is top notch,
has served under Democratic and Republican Presidents alike.
I stand ready, willing and able to provide any data, any
information that would inform the debate and make sure that it
is grounded in the truth, and the sooner we get to the truth, I
think the better for the American people.
Senator Grassley. Not only does the Biden-Harris budget
fail to extend Social Security's solvency, their budget
projects that the policies it contains would reduce Social
Security payroll tax revenues by $17 billion. As a result,
their budget would worsen the program's finances.
Which policies in the Biden-Harris budget are responsible
for this reduction in Social Security revenues?
Commissioner O'Malley. Senator, I am sorry. I was not
following the call of your question. Can you come at me again
with that?
Senator Grassley. Which policies in the Biden-Harris budget
are responsible for this $17 billion reduction in Social
Security payroll taxes that comes to support Social Security?
Commissioner O'Malley. Senator, I am not aware of anything
in their budget being responsible for that. However, I am aware
that the dynamics in our, you know, the demographics are always
constantly changing. Ratios of workers to beneficiaries, birth
rates, which has really taken a hit, and what had been the
strengthening of our country's finances by the arrival of
immigrants has been greatly slowed in some cases.
Senator Grassley. Since you are not prepared to answer that
or able to answer it today, I would like to have an answer in
writing.
Commissioner O'Malley. Yes sir. If I find one, I will get
back to you in writing, whether I find anything in the budget
or not on that.
Senator Grassley. Well, let my staff help you find
something.
Commissioner O'Malley. Yes sir. Chris is very diligent.
Senator Grassley. As I mentioned during my opening
statement, I regularly hear from Iowans who struggle to get in
contact with anyone from Social Security. Despite increased
staffing needs, the administration of Social Security continues
to allow for flexible telework for frontline employees such as
field office workers.
In fact, I said earlier a field office manager told me in
June that only five of her 40 employees come to the office five
days per week. What steps are you taking to, as Commissioner,
to ensure more employees do show up to the office?
Commissioner O'Malley. Yes sir. Mr. Chairman, thank you.
One of the issues I had to deal with immediately upon your
sending me to the Social Security Administration was a change
in our telework posture. I do not believe that anybody in
public or private sector got this right the first try, and
neither did we.
But the second try was on February 2nd, about 30 days after
I walked into that headquarters, and we changed our telework
balance. Now in truth, the field offices have been open five
days a week ever since vaccines were available, and in a sense
never closed because managers went in anyway and opened the
mail all through COVID to make sure that, you know, we did not
stop doing what we needed to do.
But our posture at the headquarters and in the regions--in
the field offices, by the way sir, it is--they are open five
days a week. Three of those days are in person, in the office
because you cannot--you have to be able to see people, and two
of those are telework where things get processed.
Interviews happen on the phone, interviews happen by video.
As I traveled around, I indeed, as you did, found some people
that choose to come in all five days out of the week. With
regard to the regional headquarters and the headquarters in
Baltimore and Washington, the office in Washington here, the
change was to go to three days a week in person, two for
telework.
If you--the latest report that came out from the OMB report
to Congress on telework, showed that we had more on site
presence than the Department of Education, U.S. Department of
Housing and Urban Development (HUD), Labor, Treasury,
Environmental Protection, General Services Administration
(GSA), National Science Foundation and an article, I believe
was Federal News Network, said that we may have struck the
balance that will be an example to other federal agencies.
So we are open in other ways to improve, but right now the
balance is a lot better than it was.
Senator Grassley. Thank you.
Chairman Whitehouse. Chairman Murray is now recognized. If
Senator Scott returns, he will be next.
STATEMENT OF SENATOR MURRAY
Senator Murray. Thank you. Thank you very much, Chair
Whitehouse. Governor, good to see you. Thank you for the job
you are doing. Social Security is more than a lifeline. It
really is a promise we make to the American people. If you work
hard, the benefits you earn will be there for you when you
retire, and if you have a disability, you will not be left out
on your own.
We have an enormous responsibility to do everything we can
to protect this program for the future, and make sure that
right now today, it is working for folks back home. Now when it
comes to the future, there are straightforward ways to
strengthen Social Security by making it a little fairer.
Right now, someone making a billion dollars a year pays the
exact same amount into Social Security as someone who makes
$170,000. We could fix that, so the wealthiest people no longer
have the smallest Social Security tax rate. Sounds simple and
sounds fair.
But instead, the Republicans 2025 plans, like the
Republican Study Committee budget called for, raising the
retirement age and cutting benefits for some people. Democrats
have been very clear. We are not going to let anyone weaken
benefits and break our promise--not for seniors today and
certainly not for seniors tomorrow.
I want to see us do more to live up to our promise to
people who are getting benefits right now, like repealing the
windfall elimination provision and government pension offset
that actually unfairly reduces pensions for hard-working public
servants.
That would help 40,000 people in my home state, and
millions more nationwide including many of our current
retirees. And as Chair of Appropriations, I have to underscore
keeping our promise is not just about how Social Security is
structured. It is about adequately funding the office charged
with prosecuting and executing on that promise.
I fight hard every year to make sure we secure necessary
funding for the Social Security Administration, and I am always
pushing for more because I hear personally from so many
constituents who are fighting their own long uphill battles,
trying to get help.
I had one constituent who was trying to sign up for
Medicare. First she was told she could not sign up online. Then
she was told she would receive an appointment email in 30 days.
She waited 45 days, no update, called and was told to call
again in ten days. Fourteen more days, no update. She calls and
is directed to the local office.
Now I want to be clear. We have very hard, dedicated public
servants at the local Social Security Administration (SSA)
office. They work very hard to help our constituents. But the
problem is here we do not have enough of them, because for her
there was no opening through October and no guarantee she will
get an appointment after that, given how many others are
waiting in line.
Mind you, she first reached out in July. She is not alone,
not in Washington where I know other constituents have been
trying to get an appointment since May, and not across the
country, where I have no doubt other families are facing
similar challenges.
So we have to remember that promises like Social Security
are not magic words. They do not keep themselves, they do not
run themselves, they do not fund themselves. Keeping our
promises requires the hard work of public servants at the
Social Security Administration, and that requires federal
funding.
Every time House Republicans propose blanket across-the-
board cuts to domestic spending or an extended Continuing
Resolution (CR) that would leave SSA at its lowest staffing
levels in more than 50 years, they are in effect proposing that
more seniors waiting longer and longer for benefits they were
promised and getting less help.
That is just not acceptable to me. It is not what we
promised our families, and I am really glad that we have the
opportunity today to talk about what is required to deliver
this promise to our constituents. So Commissioner O'Malley, you
have to have the resources to provide the staffing to be able
to help our constituents, and to hire and train the personnel
in all of the work they do.
Which is why the Senate Appropriations Committee recently
advanced a bill to increase SSA funding by $509 million over 24
levels. I wish we could have provided more, but the Fiscal
Responsibility Act (FRA) spending limits not only constrain and
threaten our defense and national security, but they also
threaten us to be able to adequately administer Social Security
and Medicare.
So I am glad you are here, because I want to ask you: how
would that increase included in the Senate Labor-HHS bill for
Fiscal Year (FY) `25, help you improve your personnel and
customer service?
Commissioner O'Malley. Senator, thank you. Thank you for
the question and thank you for your past help a couple of years
back, that allowed us to keep our nose above water coming out
of the pandemic. The Senate mark is certainly far preferable to
what the House proposed to do to us.
The swing there is almost a billion dollar swing between
what the House proposed, which would entail 20 furlough days,
the net losses of 3,400 staff, and that is just in the SSA
staffing. The Disability Determination Services (DDSs) would be
cut by 1,500. The IT funding would be barely lights on.
By contrast, the Senate mark would be the better. It would
allow us to not only keep the lights on in IT funding, but an
additional $50 million to do some needed modernization on
customer-facing aspect. It would still have 1,000 net losses in
overall staff at SSA, but not as bad as the 3,400 that I would
say would be--I do not want to call it catastrophic. It would
be devastating if the House mark were to go through.
On DDS staffing, instead of losing 1,500 initial disability
examiners as the House proposes, we would only lose 500, and
you know, the overtime would be level as you would know from
understanding our budget. We use overtime to put down spikes
and other things in the backlogs.
So that is the summation. That is the compare and contrast.
The Senate mark is much better. The only option before you that
actually guarantees that we will restore customer service is
really the President's budget or the anomaly in the CR. But the
Senate mark is much better, and I thank you for that.
Senator Murray. So for my colleagues, it is critical that
we look at what the Finance Committee is doing, which Chair
Wyden and Chair Whitehouse talked about. But we also have to
make sure we have people to process these claims, and that is
through the appropriations process and these dramatic across
the board cuts, CRs for six months, are not going to be able to
make sure that we provide our constituents with the promise we
have given them.
Commissioner O'Malley. And may I also thank you for the
bipartisan nature of that, because it meant a lot to our
workers, to see such a strong bipartisan rebuke to further cuts
of customer service as were proposed in the House.
Senator Murray. Absolutely. Thank you.
Chairman Whitehouse. Senator Scott, followed by Chairman
Wyden. Senator Scott.
STATEMENT OF SENATOR SCOTT
Senator Scott. Thank you, Chairman. Thank you, Commissioner
O'Malley for being here. When we spoke back when you came right
before the Aging Committee, we talked about how unsustainable
Social Security is, and it is not something you can fix. It is
something that Congress has to fix with the--with the support
of the White House.
I stress the fact that the Biden-Harris administration has
not taken a single action to actually improve the solvency of
Social Security. President Biden and Vice President Harris have
pretended throughout their administration that somehow massive
tax hikes can solve the problems with Social Security's
insolvency. But as we all know, that is a lie.
Biden-Harris proposed budget admits that we will not work.
I mean that it is not going to work, and that is under their
plan the federal government will continue to run trillion
dollar deficits. According to the Biden-Harris budget proposal,
even if they get all the tax hikes they want, our federal debt
is going to continue to grow by $6.4 trillion in the next four
years, and we already have over $35 trillion worth of debt, and
we are going to hit $36 trillion by the end of this year.
To add insult to injury, the Biden-Harris administration's
plan to fix our economy is to borrow more money, spend more
money and tax more while we give illegals more free stuff. So I
think it sums up in one phrase: illegals get more free stuff
and citizens pay more.
I think we all know that Social Security has got to get
fixed. It is at risk because of billions that we are spending
on--some of it is because of the billions we are spending for
housing and safeguarding illegals. I think we all know it is
unsustainable.
So I wish the administration was doing something about
this. Unfortunately, there is nothing this administration is
doing. Of course, it is not something that in sitting in your
job you can make happen like that. I am also very concerned
with the levels of customer service that Floridians are
receiving from the agency, and I think we talked about that.
You announced a new telework policy for some SSA employees,
but not others. You did not change telework policies for
frontline workers such as field office employees, who have two
days of optional telework per week. So in my state, and I do
not know if it is true around the country, but in my state, you
know, a lot of people are complaining, and I think we talked
about that.
So there is serious customer service issues at the agency,
which I think you admitted you were going to work really hard
on when you got started. So can you explain, you know, your
concept as to telework when COVID's passed and, you know, most
of the work--the working world is back to work?
Commissioner O'Malley. Sure. Senator, thank you.
There was a lot packed in your question, but I will focus
on the customer-facing stuff and the balance between onsite
presence and telework. I want to show you--I know it is kind of
far away, but it is also in the written testimony.
This is a graph that shows the rising number of customers,
which are just going to continue to rise. I know you are much
younger than me, but people like baby boomers my age are
continuing to enter the beneficiary pool. So the customers
continue to go up, but Congress has reduced our staffing to ten
year lows.
Let me talk about the telework, the effectiveness and the
productivity. Our productivity has actually increased over the
last year by 5.7 percent on--we are not done with the fiscal
year, but as of the end of July, let me see--June or July, our
productivity was up 5.7 percent.
We are not only an entity that receives customers when they
walk in or answers their calls when they call on the 800
number. The same people in those field offices are also the
ones that process the insurance claims, that need time away
from the windows and away from the conversations to actually
make real and effectuate the things for which people are
applying.
Whether it is a waiver on the overpayments that you and I
talked about that grave injustice, which we have done a lot of
good to stop, or whether it is applying for their retirement or
their Medicare. Time is required to process and put those
things through. So yes, in the field offices, which have been
open since the close of COVID, we do have a posture of three
days on site, two telework.
Senator Grassley saw in one of his offices that five of the
people in that office said they come in five days a week, and I
have noticed in visiting field offices in Florida and South
Florida, I ran into people like that as well. But what they do
when they are doing teleservice are things we can measure and
things we can see, because it is the production.
Similarly, with the teleservice people on the 1-800 number,
almost all modern teleservice centers operate on voiceover
Internet with an amazing amount of management intelligence
coming in real time, feedback----
Senator Scott. The people who work in your offices are good
people, by the way.
Commissioner O'Malley. What is that?
Senator Scott. The people who work in your offices are good
people.
Commissioner O'Malley. Well thank you for saying that. What
I hear generally once I caught this nomination, as I run into
my own neighbors and friends, they say you know, I found that
once I got to a person, it was actually pretty good. But I had
a heck of a time getting to somebody.
And that again is a reflection of 50 years lows in staffing
and all-time high in customers. And in the regional
headquarters of the regions and national headquarters, we did
make a big change in the onsite work, and we are now pretty
much in the mid-range of federal agencies and ahead of about
ten of them.
Senator Scott. So we--I know I am out of time. Will you
just call when you get a chance, to explain the overpayment
stuff again, how you are doing?
Commissioner O'Malley. Sure, yes sir. We did some action
very----
Senator Scott. I know we are out of time. I do not know if
you want to do that now or you can just give me a call.
Commissioner O'Malley. But it is such a good story.
Senator Wyden. And I want my colleague to know I will work
with him on it, because that was going to be my question.
Commissioner O'Malley. Does that mean I get to answer the
question?
Chairman Whitehouse. It is Chairman Wyden's time now.
Senator Scott. I would like----
Commissioner O'Malley. Yes sir.
Senator Scott. I mean I hope it is a good story.
Commissioner O'Malley. Yeah, it is a great story. So this
is what we do----
Senator Scott. Because I assume it happens in all of our
states, right?
Commissioner O'Malley. Yeah, and we were on 60 Minutes.
Anderson Cooper backed up and ran over us two more times in
reruns. So here is what we did on overpayments. We had a policy
in Title 16, Supplemental Security Income (SSI), that if
someone did not call us when we notified them of an
overpayment, we would intercept ten percent of every check
moving forward until we recouped it.
The default setting in Title 2, namely the retirees, was
100 percent of the check. So in my first day on the job, I
asked my outgoing head of the legal department--where is it
written that we have to intercept 100 percent of the check? He
said very quickly it is in statute. I said it is in statute?
You said that very quickly. Are you sure? Can you show it to
me?
And he could not find it that day, but the next morning he
came back and I asked him. He said well it turns out it is not
in statute, to which I said is it in the Constitution or is it
one of the 10 Commandments? He said no, it is not in those
either.
It is actually sub-regulatory. I said ahh. So that means we
can change it, and so we have. And now we have gotten to a
point where--this is a smaller graph. But because of that
policy change, you have seen us pretty much reduce to almost
zero the numbers of people that ever have 100 percent of their
benefits newly intercepted.
Now we still execute on your intent to have us recoup
overpayments, but no longer with the sort of cruelty that would
put elderly people under a bridge for not being able to get
back to us.
Senator Scott. Have you got--have you got ahead of it----
Chairman Whitehouse. I think--at this point I think I need
to let Chairman Wyden have his time?
Senator Scott. Yes sir, and I will follow up with you on
those things.
Commissioner O'Malley. Yes sir. We have done a lot of
unpacking of that.
Chairman Whitehouse. Thanks, Senator Scott. Chairman Wyden.
STATEMENT OF SENATOR WYDEN
Senator Wyden. Thank you, Chairman Whitehouse, and let me
just say to my colleague and others, the number one issue in
the confirmation hearings for the Commissioner was this
overpayment question. Number one, and I think Senator Johnson,
Senator Grassley, all the Members here understand that.
You know, back in the day when I was director of the Gray
Panthers, the problem was modest but growing. Now it has
mushroomed out of sight, and here is the question I have,
because we have all been talking about that House Republican
budget proposal.
And as my staff has examined it with the kind of across the
board cuts, it would make it harder to do the bipartisan work
on overpayments that we talked about in the Finance Committee,
because here is what is going to happen. I say to my colleague
Senator Scott just real quickly, what will happen in Florida,
Oregon, anywhere else, people who bump up against this
bureaucratic water torture of overpayments want to get on the
phone, they want to talk to the agency and the like.
If the House Republican proposal goes through, it is my
understanding across the board it could make it harder for you
to continue to keep that bipartisan promise you made to Senator
Johnson and Senator Grassley, Whitehouse, all of us in the
Finance Committee; is that correct? I mean it would make it
harder for us to do this priority that was the number one
concern in your confirmation hearing?
Commissioner O'Malley. Mr. Chairman. Do we call you Mr.
Chairman here? I guess we call you Chairman.
Senator Wyden. Call me Ron.
Commissioner O'Malley. Everything that you said is
absolutely true. What we notice and Senator Scott asked me
about the causes of the overpayments. Part of it was a bit of a
backlog from the pandemic. Nobody wanted to tell people they
had--so we had--and other nations that have similar programs to
our also experienced that.
But the other part of it was the short staffing meant that
not only was it harder for people to get through to us to work
out a repayment; it took us longer to catch up with it.
Therefore the overpayment amount, as months ticked by before we
caught up with it, went up and up and up.
So our inability to catch up to the inadvertent mistakes,
it is not as if we were making them. We did look at this in
excruciating detail. It was not as if we were making more
mistakes, but because it took us longer to catch up to them, it
was a bigger burden for the beneficiaries to suddenly have to
repay.
So the House cutting us by half a billion dollars would
undo much of that progress that we have made to put on the
flags and alerts, because you still need people to work out the
repayments.
Senator Wyden. Very good. I want to wrap up my remarks as
Chairman of the Finance Committee to repeat what I said
earlier, and it touches on what Chairman Whitehouse was talking
about. We want to work in a bipartisan way on both of the big
issues of our time.
The Commissioner is talking about the major problem today,
which is these overpayments. We want to derail this ill-advised
House proposal to not make things worse. But on the question of
revenue, I want my colleagues to pick up on what the Chairman
and I have both been saying, is that we know that ultra-wealthy
Americans are avoiding nearly $2 trillion in taxes every ten
years, and this would help us make it to the end of this
century.
And we can work on this in a bipartisan way. We can deal
with both of these issues in a bipartisan way. I just want to
make it clear that my door is open. We have got Finance
Republicans here, but Members of both sides of the aisle who
are not on the Finance Committee are invited to work with us on
both of these kinds of issues.
Because what Chairman Whitehouse has been able to do today
is allow us to cover what is important within the budget frame.
We are fortunate in the fact we have got Finance Committee
folks who are here to talk about the future, which involves
this question of revenue, and we will hear guests from the
second panel doing that. So this is an opportunity today to
make real, bipartisan progress in both of these areas, service
and revenue for the future.
I want to secure that kind of work around here. Thank you,
Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Whitehouse. Much appreciated. As most viewers will
understand, the Budget Committee has very specific
responsibilities related to the actual budget process here in
the Senate under the Budget Control Act, and we can put the
spotlight on a lot of issues that will help with future
budgets.
But the actual legislative authority in this area is over
at the Finance Committee under Chairman Wyden. So his offer to
all of us to get working on this is truly significant, and I am
grateful to him for making it. Next is Senator Johnson,
followed by Senator Kaine.
STATEMENT OF SENATOR JOHNSON
Senator Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to
take my opportunity to just kind of go back and take a look at
the historical conception of Social Security. It was never
intended as a welfare program; correct?
I mean this was people who were planning for retirement, so
this was a paternalistic move on the part of the government to
say we are going to force you to save. We are going to create
this Trust Fund, not invest real assets. Just, you know, we
spent that money, it is gone. We invested in U.S. government
bonds, which are relatively low rate of return instruments and
by the way, have no value to a federal government agency.
We have got to--you know, when the trustees turn that over,
we just have to float another bond; correct? But anyway, when
we first initiated--by the way, isn't that the basic concept of
Social Security? You are going to pay in. We are going to save
this money for you, and then you are going to pay it out in
retirement. Isn't that the basic concept? And again----
Commissioner O'Malley. That concept is true. The notion
that it was paternalistic, I think Frances Perkins would
disagree with.
Senator Johnson. Okay. So set that aside. But again, it is
supposed to be----
Commissioner O'Malley. Yes sir. A pay-as-you-go.
Senator Johnson. You pay it in, you earn money in
investment, and then you get the money out, right?
Commissioner O'Malley. Well, kind of yes.
Senator Johnson. Back then it is----
Commissioner O'Malley. A pay-as-you-go program.
Senator Johnson [continuing]. It was a pay-as-you-go
system?
Commissioner O'Malley. Yes sir.
Senator Johnson. Back then, it is kind of hard to get the
exact number of workers versus beneficiaries. I have heard as
high as 150 to 1, 30 to 1, whatever. It was a high number of
workers.
Commissioner O'Malley. 2.8 to 1 right now.
Senator Johnson. Right now. But it started out as 30, 40, a
lot of workers for every beneficiary, with a life expectancy of
61.3; correct?
Commissioner O'Malley. Yes sir.
Senator Johnson. And the retirement age, that said, is
something like 62?
Commissioner O'Malley. Yes sir.
Senator Johnson. So you have got a lot of workers paying
into beneficiaries, with the life expectancy not even ever
hitting that retirement age. So that is a pay-as-you-go system
that is going to work. Okay. A lot of people paying in, very
people--very few people coming, you know, getting the benefits.
Now of course that has flipped. We have far fewer workers,
2.8 to 1, and the life expectancy is now 77.5. So it has
increased 16 years----
Commissioner O'Malley. Except for some Native Americans,
for whom it is still 42 years.
Senator Johnson. Okay. But again--but again so----
Commissioner O'Malley. And for people that work hard----
Senator Johnson. So it has increased 16 years and how much
have we adjusted the retirement age over that time period? A
couple of years, right?
Commissioner O'Malley. From 62 to 70.
Senator Johnson. So again. We have not kept up with
reality, and now the solution here is to really kind of break
with the original concept of this being a you pay into the
system and you get what you pull out. And you know, I would
like to end this on the record, without objection, from I guess
our people serving as Chairman right now.\4\
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\4\ Statement submitted by Senator Johnson appears in the appendix
on page 109.
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Chairman Whitehouse. Without objection.
Senator Johnson. This is an actuary--this is a--you are
getting a donut. This is an actuarial note by the Social
Security system. Money's worth ratios under the OSA--Old Age,
Survivors and Disability Insurance (OASDI) program. But this is
interesting, because it shows that if you are a low income
worker, you get more than you ever put in?
Commissioner O'Malley. Correct.
Senator Johnson. Okay. But if you are a higher income
worker, you are going to get a lot less. So we have----
Commissioner O'Malley. Correct.
Senator Johnson. Correct, right?
Commissioner O'Malley. Yes. It is intended to keep people
out of poverty.
Senator Johnson. I mean it is a big long table and it is,
you know, very complex. But one example would be a single
person that has been paying in the maximum rate all his life,
will get about 70 percent of what he put in. Is that--I mean is
that roughly accurate?
Commissioner O'Malley. I do not have the benefit of the
table.
Senator Johnson. I mean it goes----
Commissioner O'Malley. That I trust that you are reading
off of it.
Senator Johnson. It literally goes as low as 54 percent
for--54 cents on every dollar invested. So the reason----
Commissioner O'Malley. For the very highest earner.
Senator Johnson. The reason I bring that out is, you know,
the Chairman's solution to this is tax the wealthy. Well again,
anybody who has just hit like $100,000, I mean the maximum.
What is the maximum amount of earnings right now subject to the
tax?
Commissioner O'Malley. $168,800, I do believe.
Senator Johnson. Ok so if you have been paying all that in,
you are only going to get 54 to 70 percent of the benefits, and
now the Chairman, what he wants to do is increase people's
taxes to basically about 57 percent, when the Tax Cut and Jobs
Act expires.
That would be the top marginal rates under the Chairman's
proposal, 57 percent. That is federal tax. Tack on top of that
state. I think I will ask the next panel. I mean is not that a
disincentive to work? Is that going to work? So again, my point
is just laying out the historical perspective. The concept was
you pay in, we invest.
They did not invest. That money is spent, it is gone, and
then people, particularly the higher end, they are not going to
even get close to what they put in. And the Chairman's solution
is raise taxes.
I think you are not going to get even close to the revenue
you think you are going to get, because you are going to create
a huge disincentive for work, and you have completely busted
the concept of the fact that this is a forced retirement
savings plan, as opposed to kind of just general welfare
program. That is my point. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Whitehouse. Point taken.
Commissioner O'Malley. May I just offer to--Senator, I
enjoyed our talk and I really appreciate you giving me the time
to meet with you and talk about these things. I would love to
come back around. There are some things that you said in there
that I would not agree are historically accurate, including
whether the surplus money in the Trust Fund that has been
paying benefits is worthless.
I mean if it is worthless, then the $20 in my wallet is
worthless, because it is backed up by the full faith and credit
of the United States of America. But I would love to come by--
--
Senator Johnson. I said it has no value to the federal
government, because the federal government when they take that
bond just has to issue another bond?
Commissioner O'Malley. Well----
Senator Johnson. It is literally more like you have a piece
of paper that says $20 and you are saying I have got 20 bucks.
No, you do not. You just have a piece of paper that says $20.
Commissioner O'Malley. Well, I bet I can go to the
cafeteria with it after this and they will--I think what you
are distinguishing in as dollars that are owed to the Trust
Fund, versus dollars that have to be borrowed in public debt.
Having said all that, Social Security does not contribute
to the debt. Social Security is a pay-as-you-go system, and in
point of fact there is a--Warren Buffet stops paying into
Social Security 30 seconds into the New Year, and the people
that clean these buildings pay in all through their paychecks.
I do not think Warren Buffet is going to miss the fact that
he is not getting as much back on what he has put in, because
it is frankly not as important to him.
Chairman Whitehouse. Senator Kaine.
STATEMENT OF SENATOR KAINE
Senator Kaine. Governor, good to see you again. You and I
had the wonderful opportunity to serve as mayors of two great
cities at the same time, and governors of two great states at
the same time, and I really cherish the earlier chapters in our
working relationship. You are so well-suited for this position.
I am going to probably ask you questions about something
that nobody else will talk to you about. I want to talk to you
a little bit about Social Security Disability, and I know that
that is not the main reason for the hearing. But I am not sure
I am going to see you at a----
Commissioner O'Malley. Well, it is a big part of what we
do.
Senator Kaine. Right, and I am not sure I am going to see
you at another hearing. Two of us in the Senate have been
pretty public about dealing with Long COVID symptoms, Senator
Young and I. Thankfully mine are annoying but not debilitating.
But because Senator Young and I talk about our experiences,
our office has become kind of a repository for others who are
seeking help. They like the fact that they have Senators who
acknowledge that they are dealing with a real condition, and
one of the issues that a lot of folks with serious Long COVID
deal with is Social Security Disability challenges.
Seven colleagues and I wrote a letter to you all last
month, just asking about a number of questions that we are
hearing from folks attempting to maneuver the system. My wife
and I have a friend in Richmond who is a single mom with three
special needs kids that she has adopted.
We have helped her negotiate, because of her serious Long
COVID symptoms, the Social Security Disability process, and it
has been very, very difficult even for two lawyers who know a
lot about this stuff, to help our friend go through the
process.
We asked just some questions about Social Security
Administration tracking and publishing data on Social Security
Disability Insurance (SSDI) applications relating to Long
COVID, on expanding disability policy rules to include criteria
for evaluating claims regarding Long COVID.
There was a report that was issued earlier this summer by
the--I believe it was the National Science Foundation. The
National Academy of Science Engineering and Medicine convened a
panel that met frequently and then issued a 200 page document
outlining long COVID's reach.
The Social Security Administration is looking at that
report. It only came out in June, and the agency I understand
is in the process of updating its Long COVID guidance. Could
you just share a little bit about what the agency is doing with
respect to Long COVID claims?
Commissioner O'Malley. Yes sir. And Senator, thank you. I
saw your letter when it came in and I told everybody ``He used
to be a mayor, so he will follow up,'' and we have been
following up as well. I talked about the dynamism of our
country, our history, our demographics, but also the dynamism
of the disability program as well, because of your good work in
Congress, the things you have done on the Americans with
Disabilities Act.
The accommodations that have been made for people have made
us entirely have to rethink a lot of the aspects about what
functions are required for new jobs that are created in this
world. And we saw a slight dip in the numbers of people
actually applying for disability, I think, because of those
accommodations.
So back to the call of your question and the point of the
long term COVID. Long term COVID effects, as you pointed out
yourself, I mean you have experienced some of those symptoms.
They are obviously not debilitating and they have not affected
your ability to function and to earn, you know, Substantial
gainful activity (SGA) as a United States Senator and fulfill
your duties.
For other people like your friend, it is a lot more severe.
There is a five point process in our statute, which sometimes
is confusing to the general public, and I have had to learn it
myself as a generalist. One of the steps in that process is do
you have a recognized medical listing that has been recognized
to have certain debilitating effects?
But even if you do not, if we get to the next step in the
process, the fourth step--about your ability to function and
that your physical, your increasingly, your mental agility/
acumen, you know, you can still be judged to be worthy and be
given an allowance on a disability.
What we see within the long term COVID is a pretty wide
spectrum of people who do not have it affect them much at all
in their functioning, and those who do. So we are in fact
taking a look at our policies and we will be responding to your
letter and the particularities of the letter by its due date.
And I want to assure you that we have heard you, that we do
want to work with you, and to anyone who is suffering from long
term COVID, the biggest impediment to your getting a decision
is not the fact that it is long-term COVID. It is the fact that
we are struggling to serve people with staffing reduced to 50
year lows.
Senator Kaine. Thank you. I yield back, Mr. Chair. I
appreciate your answer.
Chairman Whitehouse. Senator Merkley.
STATEMENT OF SENATOR MERKLEY
Senator Merkley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you
Governor O'Malley. So my colleague from Wisconsin pointed out
that folks who are at the lower end of the income receive more
than they put in; at the higher end receive less. And Social
Security always kind of has this combined part savings/part
insurance design. So is that basic structure that he accurately
described, is that a flaw or is that a future?
Commissioner O'Malley. I think it was more a practice of
how our economy worked 40 years after Social Security, 50 years
after Social Security was put in place. We always talked about
the three-legged stool. You would have Social Security. That is
America's guarantee to one another that we are not going to let
anybody live in poverty in their golden years.
The second leg of the stool was oftentimes we used to say
your own private pension from your private employer, and then
the third one being your own personal savings. Increasingly
what we have seen in our economy where the vast majority of
Americans saw no real increase in their earnings for the last
30 years, was that income was really earned at the top spectrum
and the private sector started doing away with private
pensions, leaving people with only the one leg left in the
stool.
Senator Merkley. Well, I would describe it was a feature,
to answer my own question, and as you have described it. I know
back when I was working for Habitat for Humanity and had no
retirement plan, I would have been on the lower end of that
world quite possibly, and but as life evolved and I am serving
here, I am probably on the other end, where I will probably
receive less than I put into it.
That seems to me like America working together to have
partly an insurance element to this plan, to make sure the
lowest income Americans are not out on--out on the street.
Commissioner O'Malley. Yes sir. I misunderstood your
question. That is a feature of the program.
Senator Merkley. Thank you. I wanted to turn to the
description of when the Trust Fund reaches zero. We depend on
incoming revenues to pay off benefits, and I know the now of
the estimate, if I read the brief right, was about 2035 if that
happens.
Commissioner O'Malley. Yes sir.
Senator Merkley. And we are 11 years out from that, and
that we would have about 80 percent of the current benefit
levels could be sustained with incoming revenue. That is
unacceptable that we would be in that position.
Is it smarter for us to fix that now and have 11 years in
which we boost the Trust Fund, or wait till the last desperate
second in 2035, when we are on the verge of a 20 percent cut in
Social Security benefits across America?
Commissioner O'Malley. The answer to that is better sooner
than later. If in your own family or your own family owned
business, you were told in 11 years you are going to face a 17
percent shortfall in revenues, you would want to start acting
now in order to head that off before you come up to it.
Senator Merkley. It makes a lot of--a lot of sense to me,
and I encourage all of us to actually act now, rather than
waiting. Now we hear sometimes a fair amount of whining from
rich Americans saying hey, we get out less in Social Security
than we put into it, and yet we have these other programs,
including IRAs, where affluent people put into a tax shelter
enormous sums.
And we have, for example, the Chief Operating Officer (COO)
of Walmart. He has in his Roth Individual Retirement Account
(IRA) or some version of IRA $170 million. We have got Peter
Thiel with $5 billion in his IRA, $5 billion. And because there
are these tricks that have been allowed, these loopholes that
allow you to do things like put in stock options, value them as
basically worthless and yet they have enormous value, and then
suddenly your IRA.
What social value do we have in tax sheltering hundreds of
millions of dollars for the richest Americans for retirement?
They are already rich, so they already have retirement all set.
There is really--I do not see much, much value in that.
Why are we enabling them to dodge taxes to the tunes of
hundreds of millions of dollars in these accounts. And if we
fix that so that we protect IRAs, so that people can have a
decent retirement and not have it be a tax dodge for mega
millionaires, could not we fund a good share of the Social
Security shortfall?
Commissioner O'Malley. Senator, you are trying to drag me
into the policy arena, which I realize is your prerogative and
not mine.
Senator Merkley. And I invite you to join me in that.
Commissioner O'Malley. I believe--I will say this.
I think Social Security is the greatest act of compassion
and caring for one another that any freedom-loving people have
ever put into place for one another, and millions of our
seniors live only on Social Security right now.
Senator Merkley. Well, thank you and I will just close with
that point, that Social Security is only part of the structure
in which we help with retirement, and more affluent Americans
benefit enormously from tax-sheltered retirements, sometimes
being able to stash hundreds of millions of dollars away that
they are not experiencing taxes, and that that is way--a
benefit way beyond what ordinary people get from Social
Security.
Chairman Whitehouse. And now for the hearing's Marylander
on Marylander moment, Senator Van Hollen.
STATEMENT OF SENATOR VAN HOLLEN
Senator Van Hollen. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and welcome
Commissioner. I do want to take this opportunity to thank you
for your great service, first as mayor of Baltimore and then
governor of our great state of Maryland, and now as
Commissioner of the Social Security Administration.
And as you know, our state is proud be home to the Social
Security Administration and all the good people who work there.
You have the headquarters at Baltimore. You have got field
offices around the country with a critical customer service
role, averaging around 500 million interactions annually.
To ensure that Americans get the benefits they have earned
and have the disability claims processed as quickly and as
fairly as possible.
You and I have talked about the chronic underfunding of the
Social Security Administration for many years. Despite that,
you have made the best of limited resources and an expanding
set of requirements. I mean more Americans on Social Security,
even with limited budgets.
I also serve on the Appropriations Committee. We reviewed
your request. I was sorry we could not meet the full request,
but we tried to get close. Since we are in the budget season
and since, you know, we have a risk of a government shutdown at
the end of the year and we have to resolve at the end of this
month--and we have to resolve other issues.
Could you just describe the impact of the House Republican
budget cuts on your operations, if they were ever to go into
effect? I saw a letter that you wrote to the Chairman of the
House Appropriations Committee, to Chairman Cole.
But if you could just take a couple of minutes to distill
what the harmful consequences of those cuts would be on your--
the Social Security Administration's ability to serve the
American public?
Commissioner O'Malley. Yes sir, thank you. And thank you
for your service, Senator. The House cut of a half a billion
dollars would be devastating to customer service at Social
Security, and the sad thing is it is just at a time when
notwithstanding the daunting mismatch between ever-rising
customers and reducing our staffing to 50 year lows, we are
actually making some good progress.
We have cut in half the wait times on the 800 number. That
would be undermined. We have been able to reduce the backlot at
the ALJ level to a lower rate than we have seen in modern
memory. We have talked earlier about the overpayments that we
have made some great strides in addressing.
But at the DDS level, and nothing underscores it more than
this, our Public Actuary estimates that more Americans die
today awaiting their initial disability determination than ever
before in the history of that program that Dwight Eisenhower
signed into law.
So I do not think anything can more underscore just how
damaging the customer service reductions have been for people
that are truly in need. If the House cut of a half billion
dollars to Social Security's customer service were to go
through, it would mean 20 furlough days throughout the agency.
It would mean that our IT funding, which is already, you
know, it is not as if we have been increasing IT funding while
Congress has been reducing staffing, it is a very old legacy
system with systems built on top of the legacy systems. We
would only have a budget to really keep the lights on, not to
do anything that would improve it or improve its resiliency,
let alone customer service.
It would mean a further reduction of 3,400 staff from what
we already see is the mismatch between rising customers and
declining staff at the Social Security level. It would be 1,500
fewer of those initial DDS examiners, the ones that people are
waiting so long to make their initial determination.
In our own state of Maryland, the wait time for an initial
disability determination is 361 days. And if appeal, if you are
denied, you have to go back to the same office and wait another
361 days. So the House mark would be devastating to us. I
hesitate to use the word ``catastrophic'' because I have seen
this agency somehow continue to keep its nose above water.
But it would definitely be a huge hurt to people throughout
the country, for the customer service they have already paid
for.
Senator Van Hollen. Well, thank you for painting that
picture. I am pleased to say in the Senate Appropriations
Committee, we worked on a bipartisan basis to put forward the
budget that we did, which again does not fully meet the mark,
but is certainly a lot better than what would happen with the
House budget.
Commissioner O'Malley. And people, the SSA employees,
Social Security employees, Senator, saw that bipartisan
action you took and it--the bipartisan rebuke to cutting Social
Security's customer service I think was heard throughout the
country, and was a great encouragement to our workers.
So I thank you for on their behalf for what you did in both
parties in the Senate.
Senator Van Hollen. Thank you.
Chairman Whitehouse. We had not only Senator Van Hollen,
but Senator Merkley and Chairman Murray, very significant folks
on the Appropriations Committee here in the Senate. I am
particularly grateful to them with their work. With that,
Commissioner O'Malley, thank you for being here.
Commissioner O'Malley. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Whitehouse. You are excused. I will ask the team
to allow you to clear your materials, and then call up our next
panel of witnesses, and while that task at the table is being
performed, I will make my introductions of the next four
witnesses on the second panel.
We will have Rebecca Vallas, the CEO of the National
Academy of Social Insurance, a non-profit that works to improve
public understanding of how social insurance contributes to
economic security. Previously, she was the managing director of
the Poverty to Prosperity Program at the Center for American
Progress, and served as a senior fellow at the Century
Foundation and we are delighted that she is here as a witness.
Next, we will have a personal favorite of mine on the
panel, Mr. Roger Boudreau. Mr. Boudreau is president of the
Rhode Island American Federation of Teachers, Retirees, Local
8037R, and a member of the American Federation of Teachers
Standing Committee on Retiree Issues.
Mr. Boudreau has also served as a board trustee
representing retirees on the Employees Retirement System of
Rhode Island, and as chairman of the Rhode Island Public
Employees Retiree Coalition. All of this after serving for 28
years as a public school teacher in Lincoln, Rhode Island.
Roger, welcome. Delighted that you are here.
Then we will hear from Dr. Molly Dahl, the Chief of the
Long Term Analysis Unit at the Congressional Budget Office, a
position she has held since 2020, where she oversees CBO's
annual long-term budget outlook report and crucially the
agency's projections for the long-term health of Social
Security.
She holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of
Wisconsin. Dr. Dahl, we are glad you are here.
Our final witness is Shai Akabas, Executive Director of the
Bipartisan Policy Center's Economic Policy Program. In that
capacity, Mr. Akabas oversees work on a variety of economic
issues including fiscal policy, retirement and financial
security, labor market policy and the financing of higher
education. Mr. Akabas, welcome.
Dr. Vallas. Each of you will have five minutes for your
testimony. Your full statements will be made a matter of
record, and then we will have a chance to ask you some
questions. So if you would please proceed.
STATEMENT OF REBECCA D. VALLAS, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER,
NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SOCIAL INSURANCE \5\
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\5\ Prepared statement of Ms. Vallas appears in the appendix on
page 64.
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Ms. Vallas. Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. Chairman
Whitehouse, Ranking Member Grassley and Members of the
Committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today.
My name is Rebecca Vallas, and I have the privilege of
serving as the chief executive officer of the non-partisan
National Academy of Social Insurance. My testimony today
reflects my own views, and may not reflect the views of the
Academy's members.
As the Chairman has noted, Republicans and Democrats alike
agree it is essential that we keep Social Security's promises
to the American people, and leaders of both parties are well
aware that benefit cuts are toxic on both sides of the aisle.
So one of the questions I am most frequently asked about
Social Security is can we secure the program's future without
cutting already modest benefits. And as Chairman Whitehouse's
legislation demonstrates, the answer is yes.
It is against this backdrop that I will offer three main
points today. First, Social Security is key to the economic
security of American workers and families, and policymakers
should center the well-being of the program's current and
future beneficiaries as they consider policy options to secure
the program's future. Benefits are already incredibly modest,
as we have heard today. The average retirement benefit is just
over $1,800 per month, yet for most retirees they are the
backbone of retirement income.
What would the picture be without Social Security. Well,
according to new Census data released just this week, as we
have already heard more than 28 million more American adults
and children would live below the poverty line. Nearly four in
ten older adults would be officially poor today if not for
Social Security, compared with one in ten.
When we talk about Social Security, it is easy to get lost
in facts and figures, and most of the hearing today has been in
that terrain. But all too often, that is where ivory tower
debates around Social Security stay.
But Social Security is not just a government program, and
it is not just a math problem to be solved. It is reflection of
our shared values as Americans, and a commitment that we make
to each other. The reason there is so much bipartisan support
and love for this program is that we feel this, not just at a
financial level but at a human and a spiritual level too.
When you ask people receiving Social Security what it means
for them and what they would do if it were cut, you hear that
they would not be able to pay their bills. They would not be
able to live independently, that they would have to work until
they die. These are the people that we must keep front of mind
as we think about the future of this vital program.
They are our grandmothers and our grandfathers, our
parents, our sisters and brothers, and friends and neighbors
and some day, if not already, they will be us. Which brings me
to my second point, and that is that keeping Social Security's
promises to current and future generations will require that
policymakers strengthen the program's revenues to ensure that
we are not asking low and moderate income workers to shoulder
the costs.
While the Trust Funds currently have $2.8 trillion in
reserves as we have heard today, they are projected to be
depleted by 2035 if policymakers do not act. In that event, we
would see an across-the-board benefit cut that I know none of
you want to see jeopardize the financial well-being of millions
of your constituents.
So what are policymakers' options? Address the program's
revenues or cut already modest benefits. That is what it comes
down to. Now my time is short so I will refer you to my written
testimony for an overview of some of the most frequently
discussed proposals in both categories, and their relative
tradeoffs for the program's financing and beneficiaries.
But the top line is this. The program's financing gap can
be more than fully addressed without cutting benefits, and a
key economic trend worth considering as we evaluate policy
options. Is that due to rising income inequality, a growing
share of high earners' wages now fall outside that cap on
contributions that the Commissioner spoke about. It slipped
from 90 to 82 percent of covered wages, a 50 year low.
Had the cap remained fixed at 90 percent, the Trust Funds
would have more than $1.4 trillion in additional reserves
today. That would close more than a quarter of the current
shortfall.
Now reforming Social Security's payroll tax cap and
treating investment income and income from pass-through
businesses like wages for Social Security purposes, as proposed
in Chairman Whitehouse's Fair Share Act, could close more than
100 percent of the long-term financing gap.
By contrast, policymakers should consider with great
caution proposals to further raise the retirement age. The
Academy's Task Force on Older Workers Retirement Security found
last year that those types of proposals would cause serious
hardship for low income workers, who have not seen the gains in
life expectancy that people at higher incomes have.
And that brings me to my third and final point, which is
that delivering on Social Security's promises to the American
people, as you heard on the first panel, requires ensuring that
SSA has the resources it needs to deliver high quality customer
service. Commissioner O'Malley deserves significant credit for
making improving Social Security's customer service a top
priority.
But Congress must do its part too, to ensure that your
constituents are all able to access SSA's critical programs
when they need them most. The human consequences of inadequate
funding to this agency are as preventable as they are shameful.
Thousands of people die every single year waiting for
disability benefits. It does not have to be this way, and you
have the power to change it. Thank you for inviting me to be
part of this important conversation, and I look forward to
answering any questions that you have.
Chairman Whitehouse. Thank you so much. Mr. Boudreau,
welcome.
STATEMENT OF ROGER BOUDREAU, PRESIDENT, RHODE ISLAND AFT/
RETIREES, LOCAL #8037R \6\
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\6\ Prepared statement of Mr. Boudreau appears in the appendix on
page 74.
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Mr. Boudreau. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Chairman Whitehouse,
Ranking Member Grassley and Members of the Committee. It is an
honor to participate in this important meeting.
Mr. Chairman, I would especially like to thank you for the
opportunity to speak on behalf of my fellow Rhode Islanders who
rely on Social Security to make ends meet in retirement. In my
capacity as president of the Rhode Island American Federation
of Teachers (AFT) Retirees chapter and Vice President of our
state's chapter of Alliance of Retired Americans, I have worked
and advocated for and with Rhode Island seniors from across our
great state since retiring from the teaching profession.
My activism is driven by the belief that older Americans
deserve to retire with dignity after years spent in the
workforce and caring for their families. Before retiring, I
worked for 28 years first as a middle school and then high
school English teacher in the Town of Lincoln Public Schools in
Rhode Island.
Social Security plays a significant role in the lives of so
many older citizens in Rhode Island and around the country.
Since its enactment in 1935 by President Franklin Roosevelt,
Social Security has been transformative. When it became law, an
estimated 50 percent of American seniors lived in poverty.
Nearly nine decades later, elder poverty hovers around ten
percent.
Social Security Administration estimates that 97 percent of
older adults ages 60 to 89 either receive or will receive
benefits. That universality provides some level of retirement
security at all income levels, but it is especially important
for lower income earners for whom in many cases it is the sole
source of income.
Without Social Security benefits, four in ten seniors, as
you have heard, would become--would have incomes that fall
below the poverty level. In Rhode Island, over 230,000 people,
more than 20 percent of our state's population, receives Social
Security benefits.
Nearly half of Americans age 55 and older have no
retirement accounts. When I speak with retired and older Rhode
Islanders and other seniors around the country, the future of
Social Security and Medicare is always paramount. It does not
matter if they have worked in factories, offices, hospitals or
classrooms. The health of these programs is the top priority.
When we talk about Social Security, it is often cast as an
issue only impacting older Americans. But we should not forget
that it is also the largest anti-poverty program for children
in the United States. As someone who spent my career teaching
young people, I would be remiss not to remind the Committee
that the benefits Social Security provides for children when
they have a parent die or become severely disabled can make all
the difference in the world.
Ask any teacher and they will tell you that problem-
solving, no matter what subject they teach, is one of the key
skills you work to instill in your students. The challenge
protecting and strengthening Social Security is a problem with
a clear solution.
Finally, ensure that the wealthy pay their fair share in
taxes. To this end, it is time for Congress to enact the
Medicare and Social Security Fair Share Act, which would ensure
solvency for the Social Security Trust Fund for the next 75
years by taxing all income over $400,000.
This would provide enough revenue to preserve the program
with room to strengthen and expand Social Security in the
following ways. We could raise benefits for the poor Social
Security recipients, and the oldest recipients.
We could finally do away with the windfall elimination
provision and the government pension offset, which hurts so
many retired public servants across Rhode Island and the
country by passing Senate Bill 597, the Social Security
Fairness Act, legislation co-sponsored by more than 60 Senators
that recognizes the unfairness and importance of repeal.
And I want to thank Senator Murray for referencing her
40,000 constituents who are among almost three million public
servants who are affected by this, and I want to thank the
Chairman of this Committee for co-sponsoring that bill. We
could restore the students benefits up to age 22 for children
of disabled or deceased workers, and we could strengthen
benefits for people with disabilities.
The wealthy finally paying their fair share is long past
due, and now is the time to act. If federal lawmakers do
nothing, millions of Americans will see a cut in their earned
Social Security benefits. The impending threat of Social
Security's benefit cuts, especially to those most financially
vulnerable, should be totally unacceptable when multiple
options to address Social Security funding are available.
While Congress often awaits until the 11th hour to address
critical issues like preserving the stability of the Social
Security Trust Funds, Mr. Chairman, you understand that many of
the people I represent are facing real challenges in making
ends meet in retirement. Many of us have been public servants
dedicated to doing our part in building and improving our
communities.
Rhode Island retirees and seniors deserve dignity and
respect, not uncertainty about whether they will be financially
secure in their retirement years. Thank you again for the
opportunity to be heard on these most critical issues for
senior Americans.
Chairman Whitehouse. Thank you very much, Roger, Mr.
Boudreau, and thank you for coming down from Rhode Island for
this. Dr. Dahl.
STATEMENT OF DR. MOLLY DAHL, LONG-TERM ANALYSIS UNIT CHIEF,
CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE \7\
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\7\ Prepared statement of Dr. Dahl appears in the appendix on page
76.
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Dr. Dahl. Chairman Whitehouse, Ranking Member Grassley and
Members of the Committee, thank you for inviting me to testify
about the Social Security program. Social Security faces a
significant financial challenge. CBO projects that in ten
years, the resources available to the system under current law
will not be sufficient to cover scheduled benefits.
In CBO's projections, the balance of the Old Age and
Survivors Insurance Trust Fund declines to zero in fiscal year
2033, and the balance of the Disability Insurance Trust Fund
declines to zero in 2064. If the two Trust Funds were combined,
they would be exhausted in fiscal year 2034, ten years from
now.
In the first year after the Trust Funds are exhausted, the
resources to pay benefits would be 23 percent less than the
amount of scheduled benefits, CBO projects. The shortfall would
increase over time. About 82 million people, roughly one-fifth
of the population will receive Social Security benefits in
2035.
If all benefits were reduced by the same percentage, lower
income households would reduce their spending by more, and
increase the amount they work by more, measured in percentage
terms than households with higher lifetime incomes. Legislative
action would be needed to avoid this scenario.
Looking over a longer time horizon, the actuarial deficit
over the next 75 years would equal 1.5 percent of GDP or 4.3
percent of taxable payroll--the total payroll subject to the
Social Security tax. That is, scheduled benefits could be paid
through 2098 if payroll tax rates were increased from 12.4
percent to 16.7 percent, a relative rise of 35 percent CBO
projects.
Alternatively, a reduction in scheduled benefits of 24
percent would permit full payment of those smaller benefits
through 2098. A combination of changes to taxes and benefits or
relying on resources from the Treasury's general fund could
also suffice. Policymakers can have different changes apply to
people of different income and ages. Additional changes would
be needed to ensure solvency beyond 2098.
The aging of the population is a key factor affecting the
finances of Social Security. The number of people age 65 or
older who are less likely to work and pay payroll taxes, and
who are generally eligible for Social Security benefits, is
projected to grow faster than the number of people ages 25 to
54 who are more likely to work and to pay payroll taxes.
Population growth is determined by births, deaths and net
immigration. Fertility in our projections remains lower than
replacement. We project that life expectancy will continue to
increase, and immigration is an increasingly important part of
growth of the population and the labor force. All of these
changes affect the financial status of Social Security.
A feature of CBO's work is that the demographic and
economic projections used in our Social Security analysis are
consistent with those used in the agency's baseline
projections, cost estimates and other analyses.
In closing, let me note that any projections over a horizon
of seven decades is uncertain. But it is clear that action is
needed to make Social Security financially sustainable. I am
happy to answer questions.
Chairman Whitehouse. Thank you very much, Dr. Dahl. Mr.
Akabas, please proceed.
STATEMENT OF SHAI AKABAS, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, ECONOMIC POLICY
PROGRAM, BIPARTISAN POLICY CENTER \8\
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\8\ Prepared statement of Mr. Akabas appears in the appendix on
page 82.
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Mr. Akabas. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Ranking Member
Grassley and distinguished Members of the Committee. I
appreciate you inviting me to testify here today about the
sustainability and efficacy of Social Security. I commend the
Committee for focusing on this critical issue.
My name is Shai Akabas, and I am the Executive Director of
the Economic Policy Program at the Bipartisan Policy Center, a
mission-focused organization helping policymakers work across
party lines to craft bipartisan solutions.
Social Security is the foundation upon which most Americans
sustain their lives in retirement. For generations, it has paid
out benefits to people with disabilities, older people and
their family members, lifting millions of households out of
poverty and providing essential financial support.
But today, the program faces a serious challenge, and it is
one that we have known about for many years. For several
decades, Social Security took in more income, mainly through
payroll taxes, than it paid out in benefits, building up a
large surplus in its primary Trust Fund, the one for Old Age
and Survivors Insurance.
That dynamic has now flipped. Benefit payments are
outpacing payroll tax revenues, depleting the Trust Fund
balance. Each year that gap grows wider, and here is the bottom
line. Unless Congress acts, the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance
(OASI) Trust Fund is heading for depletion in less than a
decade, in 2033 according to the latest projections.
At that point, approximately 70 million beneficiaries would
have their benefits cut by 21 percent. Let me repeat. We are
only nine years away from every single Social Security OASI
recipient facing an indiscriminate benefit cut. For the median
beneficiary, it would reduce their annual income by about
$4,500.
The American people are rightly concerned about that
possibility. As much as any of us can sit here and tell them
that that cut will not actually happen, it is what the law
says. Given this looming crisis, it is astonishing that we
barely hear Social Security discussed at all in the 2024
campaign.
When the issue is raised, it is usually either in the
context of proposals that would worsen the financial shortfall,
or pledges to change nothing. These pronouncements from both
sides of the aisle that we must protect Social Security from
any reforms obscure a hard truth. A vote for the status quo is
a vote to cut benefits for every single beneficiary starting in
less than ten years.
With all that said, my goal today is to inject optimism
into this Committee's work, because we at the Bipartisan Policy
Center know that Social Security's financial challenge can be
overcome. Before quickly outlining possible solutions, there
are two principles that should guide any reforms to the
program.
First, acting as soon as possible is paramount. The longer
Congress waits to strengthen Social Security's finances, the
more drastic the changes will have to be, and the more burden
will fall upon those who play little or no role in generating
the imbalance facing the program today. The lack of action by
policymakers is unfair to the millions of American who are
trying to plan for their retirement.
Second, any legislative action must garner significant
bipartisan support. As you all know well, changes to Social
Security require a Super Majority in the U.S. Senate. Lawmakers
should abstain from pronouncements like no tax increases and no
benefit cuts. These red lines only add obstacles to action.
Social Security's financial challenge affects nearly our
entire society, and the solutions will require a broad-based
approach. In 2016, Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) convened a
Bipartisan Commission on Retirement Security and Personal
Savings, co-chaired by Kent Conrad, a former chair of this
Committee, and Jim Lockhart, a former deputy commissioner of
the Social Security Administration.
The Commission spent two years studying the state of
American retirement security and issued a report with
recommendations in six key areas, including Social Security.
The package of Social Security reforms was projected by the
chief actuary to make the program solvent for 75 years and
beyond, avoiding the steep benefit cuts that are set to take
effect.
It would also enhance benefits for vulnerable populations
and give Americans certainty about what to expect from the
program as they prepare for retirement. The package tackles
Social Security's financial gap through a balanced mix of new
revenue and benefit adjustments.
I would encourage you to review the 13 specific
recommendations outlined in my written testimony, and would be
glad to discuss them further during the Q and A. Critically,
the Commission recommended this plan eight years ago. Since
then, Social Security's financial challenge has grown, while
the time to address it has shrunk.
To restore long-term solvency now, policymakers will have
to phase in larger changes at a faster pace, or more
realistically include some type of temporary borrowing as part
of the solution. The alternative would be an unprecedented
departure from the pay-as-you-go structure of Social Security,
instead of allowing the program to begin permanently drawing
from general government revenue.
Not only would this sacrifice Social Security's special
status and make the program compete for resources with other
federal priorities, it would significantly worsen America's
fiscal woes. This would be irresponsible policymaking.
I want to conclude by thanking the Committee once again for
convening this important hearing, and continuing this essential
work. Social Security's financial and demographic challenges
are daunting, but they are not insurmountable if policymakers
put aside their red lines and work across the aisle.
With continued leadership from the Members on this
Committee and others, progress is possible. Together we can
solve this challenge. I look forward to your questions.
Chairman Whitehouse. Thank you very much. I have been
pretty candid about my views about our Tax Code. I assert that
our Tax Code has been corrupted by special interests, that
powerful interests rich enough to pay for lobbyists and fund
Super PACs have looted our tax system to make themselves even
richer, and that we have both a moral and a financial
obligation to de-corrupt the Tax Code.
So in my view, I see de-corrupting the Tax Code in order to
shore up Social Security and Medicare for future generations as
a twofer win. Very often in Congress, you have to balance one
thing off against another. This strikes me as a win-win. Ms.
Vallas, your comments on that?
Ms. Vallas. Thank you for the question, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Whitehouse. Your mic.
Ms. Vallas. It is like the modern day ``sorry I was on
mute'' when you are in your Zoom meeting. Thank you for the
question Mr. Chairman, and thank you for holding this hearing,
because it is incredibly important that people consider the
recent economic trends as I highlighted and as I had spoke
about in much more detail in my written testimony, in which
your bill also seeks to address as we think about the future of
this program.
The two key recent economic trends that in my opinion
warrant most significant consideration as we explore what are
the relative trade-offs for Social Security's future and the
policy levers available to this Committee and others, are both
part of what I spoke to briefly before and which I will speak
to a little bit more in depth now.
The massive revenue leak that Social Security now
experiences because of growing income inequality and the large
and growing share----
Chairman Whitehouse. That was to be my next question. So
let's focus for now on what the downside is of having people
basically have to pay what they should, and clawback from big
special interests all the exemptions that they have garnered
for themselves in the Tax Code.
Ms. Vallas. Well, I personally do not see a downside, Mr.
Chairman.
Chairman Whitehouse. Well, you and I agree on that then. So
let us move on to income inequality. We have basically three
tranches of income. You have got from zero to 168,000 on which
you pay Social Security. You have got from 168 to 400,000,
which is the band that President Biden has promised not to
raise taxes in, and then you have 400,000 to income infinity
and beyond.
And what we have seen is a larger and larger proportion of
the total personal income of Americans move out of zero to 168
and into 168 up to infinity and beyond. And as that has
happened, the share of total American personal income that
supports Social Security has diminished, as more and more of
the wealth and income of America has been diverted to wealthier
and wealthier individuals and corporations.
Is that a pretty fair summary of the problem here?
Ms. Vallas. It is a terrific summary Mr. Chairman, and it
is a subject that has been a topic of some of my research over
the years, because it has concerned me as well. And do not just
take my word for it.
If you were to ask the chief actuary of Social Security,
Steve Goss, if he were sitting here would tell you that that is
the number one reason, as we heard from Commissioner O'Malley
earlier, that we are now seeing reserve depletion projected to
take place much earlier than was anticipated in 1983, the last
time that Congress too significant action to change Social
Security.
They thought they were adding 75 years at the time, and
that reason--one of the core reasons, in addition to declining
fertility rates and others, but one of the core reasons that
that has not happened and that now we are having a conversation
about 2035 instead, is because frankly we have more and more
high earners who are seeing less and less of their earnings
captured by that payroll tax cap as it slips.
So I refer to this as a revenue leak, and it is something
that warrants serious consideration by this Committee.
Chairman Whitehouse. Mr. Boudreau, we often think of Social
Security as a program for seniors, and obviously it is an
important lifeline for a great many seniors, particularly a
great many seniors in Rhode Island. At the same time, young
families who are planning their future have a question in their
minds today about whether Social Security and Medicare will
actually be there for them.
I would love to hear your personal experience, what it
would mean to young members of unions, for instance, and the
people you talk with about retirement issues. If young families
could just like cross right off their worries list ``Social
Security and Medicare might not be there for me,'' what is the
benefit to a young family of knowing that Social Security and
Medicare will be there for them, secure and sound?
Mr. Boudreau. Thank you for the question, Mr. Chairman. I
have a granddaughter who just graduated from college last June.
My daughter and her husband are in their 50's. They are a
little ways from retirement, but I know that Social Security is
a significant part of their expectations for their future, as
well as for the future of their daughter and my granddaughter.
It is a tremendous burden and worry, particularly for young
people like my granddaughter, who with their friends and
colleagues are concerned about that very question, whether
Social Security will be there for them when they get to
retirement age.
Many of them do not believe that it will, and there is a
reason for that, and it has been expressed here today
extensively. But that reason has an answer, and the answer is
the bill that we are talking about. They should not have to
worry about whether or not Social Security will be there for
them when they reach retirement age.
This country made a promise to its citizens, and it needs
to keep it to all of them.
Chairman Whitehouse. Senator Johnson, and then Senator
Braun, and then we will conclude, because we have a vote coming
up.
Senator Johnson. So what I attempted to do in my first line
of questioning was just lay out the basic design and concept of
Social Security, which was again a forced retirement savings
plan to provide for that individual's retirement, where the
federal government was going to take the money, wisely invest
it so that that money was available.
I completely disagree in terms of the reason for the
problem now. The reason Social Security is in trouble is first
of all, the age expectancy since its inception has increased 16
years, and we have bumped up retirement eligibility age two.
The other reason is that when originally designed, there
was more than 30 workers to one beneficiary. Now we are down to
2.68, okay. The other problem is we did not save that money. I
mean that money was spent. It is gone. It was not invested in
assets that have value to the federal government. It was
invested in government bonds, which again has value to somebody
outside of the government. To the federal government, it has no
value.
I mean the trustees give that bond to the federal
government, and the federal government has to go issue another
bond. So those are the three main reasons.
And again, what I find galling about the solution is make
the wealthy pay their fair share, the downside of that is you
harm economic growth, which is literally the number one
component of the solution. We need to grow our economy so we
can pay for all of this.
We are $35 trillion in debt. The solution needs to be look
at all of this in total. I completely agree. I think our tax
code is a mess. It is complex, it is not rational. I would love
to simplify and rationalize our tax code, and start
acknowledging the fact that Social Security was grotesquely
mismanaged over the decades.
Again, this is--this was obvious. As life--again, it is a
program that works when there are 30 workers to 1, when the
retirement age is set three or four years higher than life
expectancy. Again, that is a pay-as-you-go system that is going
to work.
And then unfortunately, the government deceived the
American public thinking oh, just get to 65 and you are going
to be taken care of by Social Security. It was never enough to
retire on. So again, we kind of deluded the public here. So now
we are set in this time and place and trust me, Social Security
benefits is not enough to retire on. We have got a real problem
here.
But we are not looking realistically at what caused the
problem, so we are not going to be looking at realistic
solutions. So again, just raising taxes on a federal level up
to 57 percent. Tack on state, tack on property taxes, you are
going to create such a huge disincentive to work that will harm
economic growth. That is my whole point here.
Again, do you want to comment on this? I am going to
mispronounce your name so----
Mr. Akabas. Sure Senator, thank you. As you point out, I
believe there are a variety of factors that have led us to the
place that we are today, which is a very difficult financial
situation. And for that reason, I think we need to look at a
comprehensive solution.
We cannot point to any one piece. I certainly think that we
need to bring more revenue into the system because we are not
going to be able to solve it based on benefit adjustments
alone. But at the same time, we have broader fiscal challenges,
as you talked about, as we all know as a country, and we are
going to need a lot of revenue to fix those broader financial
challenges.
So we cannot just rely on revenue to fix the Social
Security challenge that we are facing today.
Senator Johnson. Again, the problem out of, you know, the
other side it is always make the wealthy pay their fair share.
Well you know, the top percent, the top one percent taxpayers
pays more than 40 percent of the total income tax burden.
I mean at what point is that fair share standard being met?
And also at what point do you raise marginal tax rates up to
the point where you literally harm economic growth? I do not
have my contacts in, so I cannot see the names. But do you want
to comment on that? I mean what--I have asked this question
frequently.
What is the top marginal tax rate? I mean what percent of
American a dollar's worth of income should the federal
government extract?
Ms. Vallas. I cannot speak to that because the Academy--the
Academy does not have a recommendation. We do not make
recommendations like that. We do analyze policy options. But
what I can say is that Social Security is not a marginal tax
rate program.
That is not how it operates. I think you know that,
Senator. It actually is, as we have talked about today, a
percentage, 6.2 percent on your wages----
Senator Johnson. I know, because it was really designed to
be kind of individualistic, and what you invest you are going
to get back. And that is not--I mean that is not what this
design move would be. This would literally turn at least a good
chunk of Social Security into more of a general welfare
program, as opposed to you pay in and then you are going to get
out your savings plus some kind of investment model.
Again, what they invested in, U.S. government bonds, do not
have value to the U.S. government. It is a pretty low return in
investment as well.
By the way, I just did--I did a spreadsheet a number of
years ago, had we actually taken that surplus, put it into and
I know Dow Jones index funds did not exist at the time. Back
then, the analysis showed seven to eight trillion dollars in
hard assets the federal government could actually tap into to
pay benefits.
But they did not do that, and they spent the money. Again,
so many people will not admit that. They will not admit the
mismanagement over the decades, but that is why we are in this
pickle. We did not have to be in this pickle if you would have
managed this just halfway effectively. But I think I have made
my point.
Ms. Vallas. Well Senator, I appreciate the question and if
I could, I think one other thing that is worth naming is that
you have mentioned several times now that life expectancy has
increased, and that is not true across the board. It is true
for people of higher incomes, but for people of lower incomes
and particularly people of color and others that----
Senator Johnson. I am quoting national averages. It is
indisputable, 61 up to 78 almost. Okay, 16 years. Yeah, I
realize every individual is different. But on average, life
expectancy has grown dramatically. The number of workers per
beneficiary has declined dramatically. That is the main problem
and policymakers, members of Congress ignored it for decades,
because it is a tough issue.
Ms. Vallas. And it is incredibly valuable to look at
averages for certain things, but just again urge this Committee
and policymakers generally to be aware of the disparities in
who has actually seen gains from those life expectancy
increases and who has not, given the significant hardship that
would be experienced by lower income workers if we----
Senator Johnson. And would warn you trying to raise
marginal tax rates to the extent you want to is going to really
harm economic growth, which is really going to blow the program
up.
Chairman Whitehouse. Senator Braun.
STATEMENT OF SENATOR BRAUN
Senator Braun. I have been here five and a half years, and
this is called the Budget Committee. I would like to point out
that we have not done a budget in two and a half decades that
we have adhered to. That is the last time we actually balanced
a budget. You would have to go into the late 1990's. The other
thing I would like to point out is that when it comes to
whatever we do to save Social Security, we have known it
actuarily for decades.
And my bet is that with the decade that we have got yet to
actually do something about it, I am not sure where I would go
on the over and under in terms of it being done in time. We
have never raised more than 18 percent of our Gross Domestic
Product (GDP) in federal revenues, other than one or two years
back then.
That is when the federal government was about 20 percent of
our GDP, which it has never been more than that other than in a
time of war. We are now so bloated, it is roughly 25 percent of
our GDP. What that means in the real world, you cannot get by
with it anywhere else, you would go to a line of credit.
This is the only place where it gets renewed regardless of
your results, and in the five and a half years, that has gone
from borrowing a trillion dollars once a year to now every six
months. It is called the modern monetary theory, which is
borrow it from your kids and grandkids.
That is a bad business plan, and until we get back on
track, a program like Social Security that has got strong
bipartisan support, the ultimately is to take it out of a
general fund. I wonder what the heck that is going to look like
in ten years, and I wonder if it will be available.
I want to focus on an inequity within the system. It is
called the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) Government
Pension Offset (GPO) penalty. This hearing is about Social
Security's fiscal health and fairness. I support a bill out
there called the Social Security Fairness Act, to fix the
penalty under the windfall elimination provision, WEP in
government pension offset GPO, because they overlook non-
covered work.
Mr. Akabas, I would like to ask you this. Can you explain
this over-adjustment made back in the 80's? How can a Hoosier
law enforcement officer who spent some of his career or her
career paying Social Security taxes, end up with lower benefits
than someone with the same lifetime earnings? And give us a
little history on why that occurred in the first place.
Mr. Akabas. Sure. Thank you, Senator, for the question. And
I would argue that the windfall elimination provision, the WEP,
is one of the most understood portions of the Social Security
program and has not----
Senator Braun. Understood or misunderstood?
Mr. Akabas. Most misunderstand. Least well understood.
Senator Braun. Okay, yeah.
Mr. Akabas. And it was conceived of back in the 1980's as
part of that reform that was alluded earlier in the hearing,
and the purpose was to ensure that individuals who work outside
of the covered earnings system, which is primarily in state and
local governments, are receiving Social Security benefits that
are equitable to their peers, that are working their entire
careers in covered earnings.
And by equitable, I mean Social Security has a progressive
benefit formula where it replaces higher percentages of
earnings for lower income individuals, and because of the way
uncovered earnings and covered earnings work, some of that
progressivity is undone by the standard benefit formula. So the
WEP tries to correct for that.
The problem is that it is inexact correction, and most
importantly nobody understands how it works. We have much
better data today than we did back in the 1980's, and so there
are better ways that we can do this. We at the Bipartisan
Policy Center are supportive of a replacement for the windfall
elimination provision that would be much more equitable to
people who serve in both covered and uncovered employment.
It would basically take a proportional benefit of their--a
proportion of their benefits that is equal to the amount that
they served in covered employment, as opposed to----
Senator Braun. And as we are discussing the overall
fairness and kind of soundness of the system, it would be your
opinion that this inequity needs to be fixed?
Mr. Akabas. Yes. I believe we need a reform to the WEP.
Senator Braun. Okay. Now one other question for Mr.
Boudreau. Regardless of what the solution is that we come up
with for WEP GPO, we can recognize that it is a crude formula
that does not really work, kind of misconstructed when it was
put in place.
Can you explain what do you hear from workers, regardless
of the arena, about the fairness of this crude formula, and is
it time to fix this now that we are looking at the overall
health of the system primarily? What about this?
Mr. Boudreau. Thank you for your question, Senator.
Clearly, this is an unfairness. I can tell you from a number of
my conversations with members of a national task force to
repeal the WEP GPO, of which I was founding member in May of
2020, we have been working on legislation to repeal both in the
last Congress and in the current Congress session.
And it is--I am going to give you one example of how
crudely unfair this is. We have members of the task force, one
in particular who happens to be a retiree living in
Connecticut, whose husband passed away and his Social Security,
because she receives a state public pension, disappeared,
unlike a woman who was a homemaker and raised a family and was
married to a husband who was the primary breadwinner, and who
received his Social Security benefits after he passed away,
after never contributing to the system.
This individual, because she worked in non-covered
employment as a school teacher, lost her husband's Social
Security after he passed as a partial income that sustained
their life together. She has a colleague who is 75 years old
who is still teaching, because her husband predeceased her, and
she cannot afford to retire on her teacher's pension because
much of her earlier adulthood was spent raising a family.
And so her teacher's pension should she retire now at the
age of 75 would not sustain her because she would lose her
husband's Social Security. As long as she continues to work,
she will receive it. So she is basically a slave to her job as
a result of the government pension offset.
Senator Braun. Well, thank you. That is a sad story and I
am a Republican co-sponsor of this bill. Anyone watching this
out there, get ahold of your representative of your Senator to
get on it, because this is part of a broken system. It is an
inequity that needs to be fixed. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Whitehouse. Thank you, Senator Braun, for raising
this. I am a co-sponsor of the bill. I appreciate your advocacy
for it and your call for further support for it. Very well
done, I may say.
Let me thank the witnesses for appearing before the
Committee today. Your full written statements will be made a
matter of record. I will also submit into the record written
statements received from American Federation of State, County
and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and the National Committee to
Preserve Social Security and Medicare, without objection.\9\
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\9\ Statements submitted by Chairman Whitehouse appear in the
appendix on page 103.
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Chairman Whitehouse. Questions for the record from Senators
are due by noon tomorrow, either by signed hard copy or email
to the Committee Clerk. And if we get those questions, we are
going to refer them to appropriate witness, and we would ask
you to turn around your reply within seven days.
With no further business to come before the Committee, this
hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 12:08 p.m., Wednesday, September 11, 2024
the hearing was adjourned.]
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