[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 10]
[House]
[Page 13582]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                       WOMEN AND SOCIAL SECURITY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Ros-Lehtinen) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN. Mr. Speaker, I welcome this opportunity to speak 
about women and Social Security reform.
  President Bush is exploring different ways to save Social Security 
for future generations. And as the mother of two young daughters, I 
realize that we must tackle this inevitable reform of Social Security 
now and not defer the debate to future generations. I applaud the 
President for his strong leadership and his vision.
  Women have a particularly large stake in Social Security reform; and 
I thank my colleague, the gentlewoman from Florida (Ms. Ginny Brown-
Waite), for her leadership on this issue, and we will hear from her 
later tonight. Social Security may be actually reflecting a bygone 
America where most American women worked at home and received a spousal 
benefit based on their husband's earning.
  Today, according to the Government Accountability Office, nearly 60 
percent of American women participate in the labor force which helps 
make America the most productive economy in the world. Not only are 
more women working than when Social Security was formulated; they are 
working in ways that the framers of this program could not have 
imagined. The GAO has also found that women are more likely to work 
part time and work intermittently as they may take time out of the 
labor force to rear children or care for their elderly parents.
  However, Social Security as currently formulated penalizes many of 
these working women. For example, a homemaker can receive a higher 
spousal benefit than a woman working in a low-wage job receives based 
upon her own earnings. In some cases, the household benefit from Social 
Security is no greater than if these women had never worked at all.
  The fact is that under the current system, Social Security earnings 
cannot be transferred or shifted should a woman unfortunately become a 
widow. Sadly, this occurs all too often and a woman's total household 
income can be greatly reduced if she was receiving benefits based on 
the earnings while her husband was alive, compared to a widow whose 
benefits are based solely on her husband's earnings. So Social Security 
should not penalize women in their old age because they decided to join 
the workforce rather than stay at home.
  Social Security must be reformed to better protect women and the 
invaluable roles that they play in our economy and in our society. We 
should reward those women who try to balance work in the home and work 
in the labor force and not ask them to choose one or the other. By 
reforming Social Security to include private accounts, we can ensure 
that women receive all of the benefits that they earn in the workplace 
as well as being entitled to those that their husbands have earned once 
they have passed on. Forty percent of elderly women in America rely on 
Social Security for 90 percent of their income.
  I join President Bush in assuring elderly women that Social Security 
reform will not impact their benefits by one penny. At the same time, 
the reforms that President Bush has envisioned will safeguard Social 
Security for those women's grandchildren and for all of our children 
and grandchildren. If we do not reform it, Social Security will be a 
pay-as-you-go system which is doomed to fail.
  In the 1940s, as we have heard many times when Social Security was 
designed, there were 41 workers paying into the system for every person 
who was receiving benefits. Today there are only about three workers 
for every one person receiving benefits. By the year 2042 when workers 
who are currently in their mid-20s begin to retire, the system will be 
bankrupt. If we do not reform Social Security, those of us who are 
drawing or who will draw benefits will be doing so at the expense of 
our offsprings' future.
  Without reform, we would also continue to penalize our daughters and 
our grandchildren for mixing a career in the workforce with a 
dedication to family life. Also, 2.3 million Hispanics receive Social 
Security benefits and 41 percent, a majority of them women, depend on 
it as their full source of income.
  As the first Hispanic woman elected to Congress, I am committed to 
ensuring that all women are protected and all are afforded every 
opportunity. Remember, we are talking about American women here, not 
Republican women, not Democrat women, but American women. Social 
Security reform is too important an issue to be left to partisan 
politics.

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