[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 21 (Wednesday, March 1, 2000)]
[House]
[Page H628]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           SENIOR CITIZENS' FREEDOM TO WORK ACT PASSED TODAY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Kuykendall). Under a previous order of 
the House, the gentleman from California (Mr. Royce) is recognized for 
5 minutes.
  Mr. ROYCE. Mr. Speaker, the Social Security earnings limit is a very 
outdated provision in the Tax Code. In fact, it goes back to the Great 
Depression. It was designed at that time to open up more jobs for young 
people during the Great Depression. The idea was that this would force 
seniors out of the workforce by putting this special earnings limit on 
them. But today in this era of low unemployment and in this era of much 
longer life spans, seniors should be welcome to stay in America's 
workforce.
  What we did today in this House is to pass a bill that repeals this 
penalty on senior citizens who make the choice to continue to work. 
This was long overdue. Our seniors have worked their entire lives to 
build our country into what it is today. It is wrong for the Government 
to force them to choose between contributing to society or receiving 
their full Social Security checks.
  In my home State of California alone, there are more than 161,000 
seniors affected by the Social Security earnings test that were 
penalized by that test.

                              {time}  1700

  If this legislation is passed by the Senate and signed into law, that 
means all these Californians over the age of 64 will be able to 
continue adding to our economic productivity while keeping all of their 
Social Security. These are individuals who paid into Social Security on 
the assurance that their money would be there when they retired.
  The idea that the Federal Government can withhold access to their 
money, frankly, is outrageous. However, this is precisely what the 
Federal Government has done with the earnings test. It is denying 
seniors the benefits that they have paid for. It is denying them their 
earned right, and this is wrong.
  With this booming economy and tightening of the labor force, the 
Federal Government should not discourage Americans from working. 
Rather, it should encourage people to be more productive. By repealing 
the earnings limit, more individuals will now work, pay more social 
security taxes, increase Federal revenues, and improve economic 
efficiency. America would also benefit from older workers' valuable 
work experience and work skills.
  The earnings test discriminates against those who must work to 
supplement their benefits, because only wages are counted for purposes 
of this test. Income from hard-earned paychecks should not be treated 
less fairly than income from investment, and that is another reason why 
we needed to repeal it.
  Repealing the Social Security earnings limit will also eliminate the 
need to recalculate affected retirement credits and benefits. And how 
much would that save a year? One hundred fifty million dollars annually 
is spent by the bureaucracy in doing this calculation.
  Now, I constantly hear from seniors in my district about this issue. 
Whenever we hold a town meeting, or if we stop at a senior center or 
community center, the issue of allowing senior citizens to work without 
losing Social Security comes up.
  Senior citizens have a place in our society and in our work force, 
and no one should ever discourage or deny that. It is unfair for the 
government to penalize them for wanting to work, and that is why the 
best thing we can do to honor seniors and their contributions is to 
repeal this senseless outdated earnings limit.
  So, Mr. Speaker, I hope the Senate and the President move quickly on 
this legislation that we have passed today and which I coauthored.

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