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And today I’m announcing a plan to provide the biggest and most progressive increase in Social Security benefits in nearly half a century. For years, I’ve helped lead the fight in Congress to expand Social Security. We should be increasing Social Security benefits and asking the richest Americans to contribute their fair share to the program. After signing a $1.5 trillion tax giveaway that primarily helped the rich and big corporations, Donald Trump twice proposed cutting billions from Social Security. When Washington politicians discuss the program, it’s mostly to debate about whether to cut benefits by a lot or a little bit. So Elizabeth called for the biggest, most progressive increase in Social Security benefits in nearly 50 years.Īnd here’s the even scarier part: unless we act now, future retirees are going to be in even worse shape than the current ones.ĭespite the data staring us in the face, Congress hasn’t increased Social Security benefits in nearly fifty years. Today's Social Security benefits are too small to give retirees financial stability, and the situation is even more dire for Americans who haven’t retired yet. That’s well short of the 70% many financial advisers recommend for a decent retirement –– one that allows you to keep living in your home, go to a doctor when you’re sick, and get the prescription drugs you need. For someone who worked their entire adult life at an average wage and retired this year at the age of 66, Social Security will replace just 41% of what they used to make. In 2019, the average Social Security beneficiary received $1,354 a month, or $16,248 a year. Social Security is an earned benefit –– you contribute a portion of your wages to the program over your working career and then you and your family get benefits out of the program when you retire or leave the workforce because of a disability –– so decades of stagnant wages have led to smaller benefits in retirement too. Yet typical Social Security benefits today are quite small. And the numbers are even more stark for seniors of color: as of 2014, 26% of Asian and Pacific Islander beneficiaries, 33% of Black beneficiaries, and 40% of Latinx beneficiaries relied on Social Security benefits as their only source of retirement income. More than 20% of married seniors and 45% of unmarried seniors rely on Social Security for 90% or more of their income. About half of married seniors and 70% of unmarried seniors rely on Social Security for at least half of their income. At the same time, fewer people have access to the kind of pensions that used to help fund a comfortable retirement.Īs a result, Social Security has become the main source of retirement income for most seniors.
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Millions of families have had to sacrifice saving for retirement just to make ends meet. One thing is clear: it’s getting harder to save enough for a decent retirement.Ī generation of stagnant wages and rising costs for basics like housing, health care, education, and child care have squeezed family budgets. I’ve dedicated most of my career to studying what’s happening to working families in America. Try it nowĪs published on Medium on September 12, 2019: Use this handy calculator to see how much your Social Security benefits would increase under Elizabeth's plan. This plan was originally released during Senator Elizabeth Warren’s presidential campaign.