[Congressional Record Volume 168, Number 81 (Thursday, May 12, 2022)]
[House]
[Pages H4872-H4875]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  IT IS TIME TO ACT ON SOCIAL SECURITY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Connecticut (Mr. Larson) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. LARSON of Connecticut. Madam Speaker, I am here this morning to 
talk about Social Security.
  Madam Speaker, I include in the Record two articles: The first is 
entitled, ``It's time for U.S. Congress to debate Social Security 
reform in the light of day'' by The New York Times reporter Mark 
Miller.
  The second is ``The Early Impact of COVID-19 on Job Losses among 
Black Women in the United States'' submitted by Michelle Holder.
  

  


  It's Time For U.S. Congress to Debate Social Security Reform in the 
                              Light of Day

                     (By Mark Miller, May 5, 2022)

       (Reuters).--Social Security has never failed to make its 
     benefit payments since the mailing of monthly checks began in 
     1940, but most Americans these days are worried about the 
     future of the program.
       Who can blame them? Social Security's two trust funds are 
     projected to run dry in 2034, and the program would be able 
     to pay only 80 percent of its obligations to retirees and 
     disabled workers at that point. Politicians don't exactly 
     generate confidence when they make irresponsible--and wrong--
     comments claiming that Social Security is going bankrupt or 
     running out of money.
       The result is public skepticism and concern. Forty-two 
     percent of working Americans tell Pew Research Center 
     pollsters that they doubt they will receive any benefits from 
     Social Security. An equal share thinks they will receive a 
     benefit, but at a reduced level.
       The Social Security trustees have been projecting this 
     shortfall since the early 1990s, but the U.S. Congress has 
     failed to act. What we need is a full, public debate on 
     reform legislation--and an actual vote by lawmakers. The 
     window is open for that to happen this year--the Democratic 
     Party has developed an internal consensus on legislation that 
     addresses the solvency problem, and also expands benefits 
     modestly. It controls both legislative chambers--at least for 
     now. The Social Security 2100 Act is supported by 202 House 
     Democrats--in other words, nearly the entire party caucus. 
     The bill probably cannot jump the hurdle of a Republican 
     filibuster in the U.S. Senate, but it is imperative to get 
     everyone in Congress on the record with a vote on this issue.
       ``People have got to know where you stand,'' said U.S. 
     Representative John Larson, a Connecticut Democrat and chief 
     sponsor of the legislation.


                           EXPANDED BENEFITS

       The Social Security 2100 legislation would close 52 percent 
     of the long-term shortfall, according to an analysis by the 
     Social Security actuaries. It would push the trust fund 
     depletion date back to 2038 by adding new payroll taxes to 
     wages over $400,000--currently, taxation stops at $147,000. 
     Earlier versions of the bill restored solvency for 75 years 
     by also gradually increasing payroll tax rates, but that has 
     been eliminated to reflect President Joe Biden's campaign 
     pledge not to raise taxes on people with incomes below 
     $400,000 per year.
       The bill does recognize the need to expand benefits, which 
     can help address rising income inequality, and racial and 
     gender gaps in retirement security. The COVID-19 pandemic has 
     widened those gaps. What's more, Gen-Xers and Millennials are 
     likely to fare even worse than boomers and today's seniors 
     when they reach retirement. This is the result of factors 
     including escalating higher-education costs, staggering 
     student debt burdens, wage stagnation, soaring housing costs 
     and the decline of traditional defined benefit pensions.
         
       Social Security 2100 includes a modest 2 percent across-
     the-board boost in benefits, and it would shift the annual 
     cost-of-living

[[Page H4873]]

     increase to a more generous formula. It also includes 
     targeted benefit increases such as a new minimum benefit 
     level for very low income seniors, and improved benefits for 
     widows and widowers. It also would provide caregiver credits 
     that increase benefits for people who take time out of the 
     workforce to care for dependent family members. And it would 
     repeal the Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and 
     Government Pension Offset (GPO), which currently penalize 
     many people who work in the public sector.
       What would Republicans do to solve the Social Security 
     problem if they take control of Congress next year?
       Earlier versions of Republican reform plans have called for 
     benefit cuts in the form of higher retirement ages and means 
     testing. U.S. Senator Rick Scott, a Florida Republican, 
     recently set off a small firestorm with a proposal to sunset 
     all federal legislation every five years--an idea that at 
     least in theory would require regular reauthorization of 
     Social Security and Medicare. He also wants every American to 
     pay income taxes--no matter their level of income.
       Republicans have also made clear that they prefer to handle 
     Social Security reform behind closed doors. Senator Mitt 
     Romney, a Utah Republican, has proposed the ironically named 
     TRUST Act, which would create a closed process for 
     legislators to propose changes to the Social Security and 
     Medicare trust funds, culminating in an up or down vote 
     process.
       This approach is a favorite play for lawmakers looking to 
     keep their fingerprints off unpopular legislation--bills 
     emerge from faceless, bipartisan committees. The last time it 
     was attempted for Social Security was the unsuccessful 
     Bowles-Simpson commission, which proposed a range of 
     unpopular benefit cuts in 2011 that would have impacted 
     middle-class seniors.
       Fighting to improve Social Security would fulfill a promise 
     that Biden made as a presidential candidate, and it could 
     energize voters. Public opinion polling has consistently 
     shown strong public support for maintaining current benefit 
     levels, even if new taxes are needed.
       New polling by Data for Progress shows that increasing 
     benefits would make a large chunk of independent voters more 
     likely to support Democratic candidates for Congress this 
     fall. The idea of shoring up Social Security polls extremely 
     well with middle-class Americans: 63 percent of those without 
     a college degree tell Pew pollsters that Social Security 
     finances should a top priority for Congress and the 
     president.
       This is a battle worth fighting in 2022.
                                  ____

  


       [From Levy Economics Institute of Bard College, July 2020]

                         Working Paper No. 963

  The Early Impact of COVID-19 on Job Losses Among Black Women in the 
                             United States

                                   By

    (Michelle Holder, John Jay College, City University of New York)

               (Janelle Jones, Groundwork Collaborative)

      (Thomas Masterson, Levy Economics Institute of Bard College)

         


                              INTRODUCTION

       The COVID-19 pandemic seemingly appeared out of nowhere but 
     changed nearly everything. Until February of 2020, the 
     American economy had been at what is considered full 
     employment levels--3.5 percent overall. Even African 
     Americans, who traditionally occupy a less favorable position 
     in the labor market (as measured by unemployment and wage 
     disparities) were experiencing historically low levels of 
     unemployment. However, the first signs of the massive job 
     losses that were to come appeared when initial claims filed 
     for unemployment insurance rose to unprecedented levels in 
     March, leaping from approximately 220,000 new claims filed 
     each week since the start of the year to an astonishing 3.3 
     million by the third week in March, then more than doubling 
     the following week to 6.9 million. While this pace slowed 
     down in May, new claims for unemployment insurance in the 
     United States still numbered in the millions each week. With 
     shelter-in-place orders implemented across the country in 
     February and March, along with state-by-state mandatory 
     shutdowns of ``nonessential'' businesses, aggregate demand 
     for many goods and services ground to a halt, leaving tens of 
     millions of American workers jobless.
       As the pandemic unfolded, industries deemed nonessential, 
     such as leisure, hospitality, and retail trade, were leveled. 
     Many occupations in these industries are low-wage, and women 
     constitute a greater share of the low-wage labor force in the 
     United States than men (Holder 2018, 689). Moreover, the 
     largest share of minimum wage workers in America is female 
     (Holder 2017, 12). Thus, when the US Department of Labor's 
     Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released their monthly 
     ``Employment Situation'' report for April on May 8 (a week 
     later than it normally would have) it was met with only 
     modest surprise that the April unemployment rate for women 
     exceeded the unemployment rate for men--16.2 percent versus 
     13.2 percent, respectively (US DOL 2020). The pattern of 
     higher unemployment for women as compared to men is also true 
     in the Black community, along with the US's long-standing 
     pattern of an unemployment rate for Blacks that routinely 
     exceeds that of Whites--16.7 percent and 14.2 percent, 
     respectively (US DOL 2020).
       As COVID-19 deaths began to mount, it became clear that 
     African Americans were disparately affected not only with 
     regard to their livelihoods, but also their very lives; while 
     the Black community is 13 percent of the US population, given 
     inequitable access to healthcare as well as other structural 
     inequalities, they accounted for roughly one-quarter of all 
     deaths in the country as of May 28, 2020 (US CDC 2020). 
     Moreover, as some American workers were able to do their jobs 
     from the comfort of their homes, a high proportion of 
     ``essential'' workers (somewhat loosely defined as those who 
     work in supermarkets, public transportation, pharmacies, 
     grocery stores, nursing homes, hospitals, and correctional 
     facilities, among other industries) were African American, 
     other people of color, women, and an intersection of the 
     these groups--women of color. The goal of this paper is to 
     closely examine the contours, depth, and causes of COVID-l9's 
     impact on Black women's employment in the United States. 
     Because the early job loss numbers indicate that women in the 
     United States have thus far borne the brunt of the COVID-19-
     inspired downturn, most demographic comparisons we make in 
     this text will be between female demographic groups, 
     primarily Black and White women, using the lenses of both 
     feminist economic theory and stratification economics.


                GENDER AND RACE IN THE COVID-19 DOWNTURN

       The recession of the early 1980s, as well as the Great 
     Recession, were downturns in which men, Black workers, and 
     Latinx workers experienced disproportionate job loss, mostly 
     attributable to the industrial distribution of these groups--
     they tend to be employed in industries that are more 
     vulnerable to cyclical downturns (Hoynes, Miller, and 
     Schaller 2012). Although there were across-the-board job 
     losses among all major demographic groups during the Great 
     Recession, according to Haynes, Miller, and Schaller (2012) 
     the smallest absolute increase in unemployment during that 
     downturn occurred among White women. Those researchers 
     attributed this to the industrial distribution of women whom, 
     they posited, tend to be employed in industries less 
     vulnerable to cyclicality than industries in which men are 
     concentrated. Women of color, however, were more vulnerable 
     than women overall, given the roles of race and ethnicity in 
     that group's industrial distribution.
       The current economic downturn in the United States, 
     however, is quite unlike business cycle downturns of the 
     past. The normal predictions and expectations of where job 
     losses were going to occur have not closely followed past 
     patterns. Industries such as leisure and hospitality, retail 
     trade, construction, manufacturing, and ``other services'' 
     (including personal care services) were labeled as 
     ``nonessential,'' and companies operating in these industries 
     were ordered, state by state, to temporarily cease or slow 
     down operations. Industries operating in the sphere of 
     ``essential services'' were allowed to continue, but with 
     significant restrictions, resulting in significant declines 
     in economic activity. With much of the US population 
     sheltering in place during the early phases of the pandemic--
     including those employees who were able to work from home--
     other industries still considered essential, like 
     transportation, experienced a massive slowdown m activity. 
     Unlike the Great Recession and the recession of the early 
     1980s, women, particularly women of color, were bearing the 
     brunt of early job losses given the extraordinary nature in 
     which economic activity was deliberately, not organically, 
     slowed down or halted. Rising unemployment among women, given 
     their overrepresentation in service industries and 
     occupations, became pervasive (see Boushey and Sanchez 
     Cumming 2020). While jobholding by Black women in services 
     deemed essential (like hospitals and supermarkets) offered 
     some insulation against job loss, this was not enough to 
     offset large job losses in other sectors.


 CHANGES IN LABOR FORCE INDICATORS FOR WOMEN DURING THE EARLY PANDEMIC

       The seasonally adjusted US unemployment rate for April 2020 
     climbed by slightly more than 10 percentage points, to 14.7 
     percent from 4.4 percent in March. This increase was the 
     largest month-to-month change in over 70 years. Moreover, the 
     April unemployment rate was nearly 50 percent higher than the 
     average US unemployment rate during the 18-month period of 
     the Great Recession. This was clearly an astonishing rate of 
     job loss. Drilling down the numbers by gender and race, 
     Latinas appear to have experienced the highest unemployment 
     rate in April--20.2
   percent--followed by African American women at 16.2 percent; White 
     women's unemployment rate reached 15 percent (US DOL 
     2020). However, the change in the rate of unemployment 
     only captures part of the story; after averaging 
     approximately 63 percent for the first quarter of 2020, 
     the overall labor force participation rate declined to 
     just over 60 percent in April, signaling the start of an 
     exodus from the American labor force. The official 
     unemployment rate does not capture individuals who are not 
     in the labor force, and that number swelled by about 8 
     million in April, with nearly half of this increase 
     attributable to persons who wanted to work but who could 
     not find employment.
       Among major female demographic groups for whom the BLS 
     provides monthly data, Black women possessed both the highest 
     labor force participation rate as well as employment-
     population ratio, leaving this

[[Page H4874]]

     group especially vulnerable to the COVID-19-inspired 
     downturn, given their strong attachment to the workforce. 
     Black women's unemployment rate for April shot up to 16.4 
     percent, higher than that for Black men, whose unemployment 
     rate reached 16.2 percent that month. Unlike the Great 
     Recession of 2007-9, where the unemployment rate for Black 
     men significantly exceeded that of Black women, the early 
     impact of COVID-19 on unemployment has clearly been 
     ``gendered,'' with more intense ramifications for African 
     American women.
       In comparing Black and White women, in February of this 
     year, prior to the initial impact of COVID-19 on US 
     employment, Black women not only had a higher unemployment 
     rate than White women (4.8 percent versus 2.8 percent, 
     respectively), but also a higher labor force participation 
     rate (63.8 percent versus 58.2 percent, respectively). 
     Feminist economists such as Nina Banks (2019), Cecilia Conrad 
     (2005), and Randy Albelda (1985) have long highlighted the 
     historically higher labor force participation rate of Black 
     women compared to White women in the United States. As noted 
     in the preceding paragraph, this attachment to the labor 
     force also makes Black women more vulnerable during economic 
     downturns. In examining table 1, while there appears to be 
     little difference in the increase in the unemployment rate 
     from February to April for Black women compared to White 
     women, because of Black women's more entrenched--and, at the 
     same time, more precarious attachment to the American 
     workforce (evidenced by historically higher unemployment 
     rates than White women)--the impact of COVID-19 on Black 
     women's position in the labor force has been somewhat deeper 
     than that for White women, with slightly larger (and 
     statistically significant) declines for Black women than 
     White women in both the labor force participation rate and 
     the employment-population ratio.


                       DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

       The early job losses during the COVID-19 pandemic were 
     characterized by gender and racial disparities. With regard 
     to job losses by industry, the ``healthcare and social 
     services'' industry accounted for nearly 14 percent of all 
     workers in the United States but 28 percent of employed Black 
     women and 22 percent of employed White women; the 17 percent 
     decline in employment in this industry, therefore, was bound 
     to have an outsized impact on women. Feminist economic theory 
     has explored the role that discrimination plays in 
     occupational crowding by gender, notably the historical 
     exclusion of women from jobs that are deemed more appropriate 
     for men (see Beller 1982). In addition, Black women, along 
     with Black men, suffered disproportionately staggering losses 
     in the ``accommodation and food services'' industry, an 
     industry leveled during the pandemic, where the 
     overrepresentation of Black female and Black male workers 
     exceeds that of their White counterparts. This industry 
     offers notoriously low wages and stratification economic 
     theory suggests that privileged groups have a material 
     interest in maintaining sexism and racism--as well as other 
     forms of oppression--because benefits accrue to advantaged 
     groups as a whole (see Darity et. al. 2017). This is true 
     even though the benefits do not necessarily accrue to all 
     individual members of the privileged group at all times. 
     Thus, discrimination can and does persist in market-based 
     economies. The crowding of Black workers in low-wage 
     industries is suggestive of opportunity hoarding by White 
     workers, consistent with stratification economic theory.
       Occupationally, the roles of both gender and race proved to 
     be disastrous for employment losses for Black women. The only 
     two major occupational categories that experienced employment 
     declines greater than 50 percent--``food preparation and 
     serving'' (which accounts for just over 5 percent of all 
     workers) and ``personal care and services'' (which accounts 
     for nearly 3 percent of all workers)--are two occupations 
     where, among Black and White employees, Black women are the 
     only demographic group overrepresented in both.
       The pandemic has catalyzed a public health and economic 
     crisis on a scale not seen since the Great Depression. In one 
     month, the unemployment rate increased by 10 percentage 
     points, the largest month-to-month increase in more than a 
     generation. While the devastation has been widespread, it is 
     not shared equitably across race and gender. There are two 
     main reasons why Black women are disproportionately impacted 
     by the COVID-19 recession. First, Black women in the labor 
     market face high levels of occupational and industrial 
     segregation. Second, Black women's strong attachment to the 
     labor market, as measured by their labor force participation 
     rate and employment-to-population ratio, makes them more 
     vulnerable to economic downturns, and this current recession 
     is no exception.
       Unlike previous economic downturns, industries once thought 
     immune to recessions were ordered by government officials to 
     stop or significantly slow their activity. Between February 
     and April, when the economy shed millions of jobs, Black 
     women experienced larger-than-overall declines in employment 
     due to their concentration in parts of the economy. Black 
     women are overrepresented in ``essential'' jobs, like nursing 
     assistants and cashiers, while at the same time also 
     overrepresented in occupations and industries that are 
     shedding workers by the millions, such as hotels, 
     restaurants, and retail trade. In responding to this economic 
     crisis, policymakers must firmly commit to a policy agenda 
     that provides immediate relief to those who need it and make 
     our economy more stable and equitable in the future. In the 
     short term, we should continue to give direct support to 
     families through cash payments and an expansion of 
     unemployment benefits. In the long term, we can enact 
     policies that fix the structural flaws of our system, 
     including using economic measures tied directly to the 
     position and status of Black women in order to more 
     accurately determine when an economy has reached those often 
     left behind.

  Mr. LARSON of Connecticut. Madam Speaker, I think as Martin Luther 
King would say, it is the ``fierce urgency of now'' that we are dealing 
with, and by that I mean the fierce urgency being the pandemic that 
this country is currently going through.
  That pandemic has taken more than 740,000 Americans over the age of 
65. That same group over the age of 65 is the group that is hurt most 
by inflation. Why? Because they are on fixed incomes. They are Social 
Security recipients. And they need our help now.
  The good news, thanks to the efforts of Chairman Neal and the Ways 
and Means Committee, we have established a Racial Equity Task Force. 
The gentlewoman from Alabama (Ms. Sewell), the gentleman from Nevada 
(Mr. Horsford), and the gentleman from California (Mr. Gomez) have all 
put together extensive reporting that talks about the inequality that 
exists in what our colleague John Lewis said was the next civil rights 
movement, and that is to make sure we uplift everybody in this country 
who has worked all their lives, paid into a system, and receives below-
poverty-level checks from their government.
  That is about to end with the passage of Social Security 2100: A 
Sacred Trust, called the sacred trust by President Biden because it is. 
We no longer have to go back to the Great Depression to talk about the 
impact of Social Security and why it came into prominence. You only 
have to go back as far as 2008-2009 to understand that during that 
recession, people saw their 401(k) become a 101(k).
  During that same time period, Social Security never missed a payment, 
not a spousal, not a dependent coverage payment, not a pension payment, 
and not a disability payment.
  With Memorial Day approaching, it was good listening to the Members 
come and talk about honoring our veterans on Memorial Day. Several came 
down this week honoring National Police Week as well, talking about 
police officers who need help. Millions of police officers and their 
spouses across this country, because of WEP and GPO, are penalized and 
don't receive the Social Security benefits that they richly deserve. 
President Biden has put an end to that.
  Richard Neal has also introduced legislation as well with respect to 
that. So has Mr. Davis and Mr. Brady on the Republican side. It is long 
overdue. If you want to help police officers, if you want to help our 
veterans, so many of whom rely more on Social Security Disability than 
they do on the VA, we need to reform Social Security. Congress has not 
enhanced Social Security in more than 51 years. A gallon of milk in 
1971 cost 72 cents. Look at the cost now, not only of milk but of bread 
and butter and gas and rent, and understand the absolute necessity to 
help out the people who during this pandemic need it the most.
  Congress can no longer kick the can down the road. This is our 
responsibility on our watch; and on Memorial Day, every citizen in this 
country ought to be asking Congress what it is going to do. What do we 
have to do? A very simple thing that we take an oath of office and 
raise our hands and pledge allegiance to the Constitution, and that is 
vote. Vote on an issue that will help the people of this great Nation 
out: People who have been neglected, more than 3 million who have paid 
in all their lives and get below-poverty-level checks; millennials and 
Gen Xers, who are going to need Social Security even more than the 
10,000 baby boomers a day who become eligible for Social Security. The 
time to act is now.
  Let's heed the words of Martin Luther King and understand the 
``fierce urgency of now'' so that people won't have to put food back on 
the shelves that they can't afford or be turned

[[Page H4875]]

back from the drugs that they need to purchase and that they have a 
quality of life that they richly deserve in the wealthiest nation in 
the world.
  We can pay for this all by just simply raising the cap on people over 
$400,000. Those wealthy people can afford to pay the same level that 
people making $50,000. It is long overdue. The time to act is now.

                          ____________________