October 15, 2005 | Volume 2, Issue 2
Social Security Reform:
How Will Women Fare if Private Accounts are in the Mix?
Introduction
President Bush's plan to reform Social Security will penalize women, who make up the majority of beneficiaries, because he has failed to analyze the centerpiece of his plan private investment accounts from a gender perspective.
The President and his advisors incorrectly assume women and men behave similarly in situations that involve risk-taking, negotiating, saving and investing money, planning for retirement, and partnering with the government. Participation in private investment accounts calls on women to behave in ways that evidence shows they do not feel confident or comfortable. The Government Accountability Office in a 1998 report found that women, who often have less to invest, do so more conservatively than men. They tend to choose low-risk strategies with smaller returns. By opting for a safer investment, a woman could end up with a smaller nest egg than a man even if they invest the same amount, so the existing gap in benefits paid to men and women could widen (Bovbjerg 5).
Private investment accounts also perpetuate what scholar Virginia Valian (1999) calls the "accumulation of disadvantage that women incur over the course of their lives." In the context of private accounts, this disadvantage will be compounded not only by their investment behavior, but because they are financially undervalued in the workplace compared to men. Of course, some individual women might benefit from private accounts, but women as a group will be disproportionately harmed by the President's reform plan and more susceptible to economic instability in old age. With the likelihood that the majority of the beneficiaries will find themselves in a weaker financial position in a partially privatized system, any "winners" men or women will see their gains eroded by higher rates of poverty among the elderly. Add to that other projected deleterious effects on the U.S. economy brought about by the administrative and other costs of privatizing the system, and this reform idea has the potential to make "losers" of us all.
The Bush Administration contends Social Security, arguably the most successful government program in U.S. history, is in financial crisis. Long-range forecasts predict that as the baby boomers begin retiring in large numbers in the next decade, the benefits being paid out eventually will exceed revenues if no changes are made to the program. The president, therefore, has proposed transferring a portion of the responsibility for a baseline retirement income from the government to the individual, which represents a radical change from the current system. Nowhere in the planning for such a seismic departure is a comprehensive analysis of how women who make up almost 60 percent of the recipients of Social Security, will behave in such an arrangement. This paper concludes that the absence of gender analysis and sensitivity in the President's private investment account proposal means his reform plan will benefit men more than women. The reform will continue a pattern of policy-making based on the prism through which men view the world. Even more troubling for those who must rely on Social Security, the Bush Administration has not disclosed how it proposes to pay the trillions of dollars of estimated cost that will be needed to convert to a partially privatized system. Consequently, that has led critics to charge that such a move will be detrimental to the U.S. economy and lead to deep benefit cuts in the future, which defeats the principles on which Social Security was founded (Orszag).
Reform proposals have been debated since Franklin D. Roosevelt ushered in Social Security in 1935, but few policy-makers have directly taken an aggressive reform approach as President Bush has. In the 1990s, reform ideas were discussed in the context of a U.S. budget awash in surplus revenue. In 2005, spiraling fiscal deficits and war-related expenditures are framing the dialogue. Fresh from re-election, President Bush, who both cut taxes and went to war in his first term, announced that reforming Social Security to save it from becoming "bankrupt" would be among the priorities of his second term (White House). Bush's critics, both inside and outside the Republican party, acknowledge the program needs an adjustment to meet future obligations, but have resisted his portrayal of the system as "flat busted" (Kraske).
The degree to which the system needs attention is not the focus of this paper. Instead, the purpose is to examine how private investment accounts likely will affect the majority of Social Security's beneficiaries: women. What follows is a discussion of the history of Social Security; the demographic trends of its beneficiaries; its 70-year track record; hints from what is known of the Bush reform plan; lessons of privatization plans implemented abroad; and how a lack of attention to gender differences will lead to potentially dire consequences for a majority of beneficiaries.
Old Problem, New DealSocial Security joined other New Deal programs that reflected changing societal attitudes about poverty that were brought about by the Depression, when many formerly middle-class wage earners found themselves standing in bread lines, hungry and out of work. Prior to the 1930s, government treated poverty as the responsibility of the individual, except in cases when the poor were deemed "deserving" of aid, such as widows with children and disabled war veterans.
When President Roosevelt put forth his Social Security proposal in early 1935, it presented a three-pronged approach to ensuring economic security for the elderly. The first prong consisted of old-age welfare pensions; the second was a compulsory social insurance plan; and the third was an optional annuity certificate sold by the government that could be used to supplement the basic retirement benefit. Congress rejected Roosevelt's optional annuity proposal, and the Social Security Act the president signed into law later that year centered largely on the compulsory social insurance plan and additional income support for the elderly poor (Social Security Administration, History). Coverage eventually extended to some non-retirees, such as the disabled and survivors of deceased wage-earners. Since its inception, Social Security has been a cyclical pact among workers, employers and retirees. The government takes in money by taxing workers and employers and pays out benefits to retirees, which are guaranteed for life. Social Security was intended as a baseline income, a safety net, rather than the sole source of retirement income. It guarantees that beneficiaries can count on a certain amount of income throughout their retirement years.
Social Security's effect on poverty has been dramatic. Without it, nearly half of retirees would live below the poverty line. Because of the program's benefits, poverty is about 10 percent among Americans older than 65, less than the rate for the population as a whole, which is 12 percent (Starr). The program has been an important source of support for women. Historically, women received benefits based on their husbands' work records. Since 1960, the number of women who earned benefits based of their own employment records quadrupled, increasing to 48 percent by 1990 (Social Security Online). Social Security is especially critical for single women and more acutely for single minority women. Benefits comprise 52 percent of unmarried retired women's total income compared to 38 percent of unmarried men's. It is the only source of retirement income for almost one-third of unmarried elderly women (Social Security Administration, Women).
Since 1973, spending on Social Security has accounted for about 20 percent of the U.S. budget (DeWitt). Its system of collecting revenues through payroll taxes has resulted in a surplus, which is saved in a Social Security Trust Fund, because revenue has exceeded benefits paid to retirees. By 2018, the Social Security Administration predicts that revenue will begin falling short of benefits being paid. At that point, the Social Security Administration will tap the Trust Fund to maintain benefit levels until it is depleted, which is estimated to occur by 2042. If no changes are made to the current system, benefits will fall to about 73 percent of those being paid today in 2042. That percentage will continue to decline, reaching an estimated 68 percent by 2078 (Social Security Online, 2004). While that is far from being "flat busted," as the President contends, it is a matter of concern nonetheless.
Who Counts on Social Security?More women rely on Social Security than men. In 2002, more than 50 million people received Social Security benefits, including retirees, survivors, and the disabled. Of all adults receiving monthly Social Security benefits, 57 percent were women, and of those women, 57 percent received retired-worker benefits. About one-fifth of the women received survivors' benefits, which is especially important for women who have not worked in a paid job. Social Security provided at least half the income for 65 percent of the aged overall (Social Security Online, Fast).
Social Security plays a larger role in retirement income for minorities than for whites. About 75 percent of minority beneficiaries rely on Social Security for at least half their income (Hendley). Women and minorities rely more on Social Security than white men and receive less in average monthly benefits, because they share several employment realities, including overrepresentation in low-wage jobs, lower labor participation rates, and limited access to other types of income support, such as private-sector pensions.
At the end of 2003, women's average monthly retirement benefit was $798 while the average men's benefit was $1,039. That $241 gap becomes even more significant because elderly women are less likely than men to have additional income from pensions other than Social Security (Social Security Online, Women). In 2002, African-American and Hispanic men received higher monthly benefits than all women did in 2003, but averaged about $184 less per month than men in general did in 2003. Also in 2002, African-American women and Hispanic women received about $147 less than all women did on average in 2003 (Social Security Online, African and Hispanic).
Although their monthly benefits fell below that of white men, both women and minorities benefit from the progressive aspects of the Social Security benefit formula used to calculate individual benefits. The formula "replaces a relatively larger proportion of lifetime earnings for people with low earnings than for people with high earnings (Bovbjerg 2)." The formula also does not penalize women for living longer than men. Unlike private insurance companies that sell retirement annuities (investments that pay out a fixed sum over a pre-determined length of time), Social Security does not penalize women with reduced monthly benefits because they live longer on average than men. Social Security also includes a provision that adjusts monthly benefits to make sure they keep pace with inflation, which means the beneficiary's purchasing power does not decline over time (Porter 23). An aspect of the Social Security benefit formula that has a deleterious effect on women and minorities is its reliance on labor participation over a 35-year span. Social Security averages the taxable earnings of a worker's 35 years of highest earnings in calculating the monthly benefit. Women and minorities generally spend more time out of the workforce for a variety of reasons, so they have fewer years of taxable earnings, so more years with zero earnings are included in their calculations (Bovbjerg 3 and Hendley 61).
In sum, the benefits that accrue to women and minorities in the current program help offset societal factors that limit their employment options during their working years. Even though their monthly average benefit payments are lower than men's, women and minorities enjoy the advantages of a progressive benefit calculation, protection from inflation, and relief from the fear that they will outlive their sources of income. Any reform plans that do not include those protections will put women and minority retirees at a disadvantage. For minority women, those disadvantages will be doubly harsh. An area that should be studied for potential reform is the current benefit calculation that penalizes women and minorities who are periodically out of the workforce.
The Bush PlanPresident Bush has offered few details, but has spoken in forceful and broad terms of his vision for "to fix the Social Security system for future generations of Americans" (White House). The president contends that failing to address the program's funding issues will cost $10.4 trillion (White House), which reflects the estimate of how much subsidy is needed to shore up the current system through payroll tax hikes, benefit cuts, or general revenue funds.
On Jan. 11, 2005, the president outlined some principles for his plan (White House), which include: no change in benefits for today's retirees or near-retirees; no hike in payroll taxes; an added option for private accounts that can be inherited by survivors; investment choices in private accounts limited to low-risk, low-cost options; and, an opt-out provision for those not wanting a private account to draw benefits "as Americans have long done." What is unknown is the overall condition the program will be in if private investment accounts are used, and what happens if beneficiaries opt out of private accounts.
Bush Plan eventually would allow workers to invest 4 percent of their wages in a private account. If a worker earned 3 percent above the inflation rate in interest, the amount of the private nest egg would be exactly offset by a reduction in her Social Security benefit. If she earned more than 3 percent above inflation, she would more than offset the benefit cut. If she earned less than 3 percent above inflation, she would have been better off sticking to the traditional plan, rather than the private account, because her monthly benefit would be lower (Furman 2).
The President has yet to articulate how to replace those proceeds from today's workers that will be diverted to their private accounts instead of channeled into the current system to pay benefits. That has led critics to charge that the government will have to borrow trillions of dollars to make way for the private accounts, which will worsen the financial situation rather than improve it (Krugman). The President also has not disclosed how the private accounts will be managed, who will manage them, and what management fees will be charged, all factors that could have a significant effect on a retirees monthly benefit.
Peter R. Orszag (2005), an economist with The Brookings Institution and a former adviser in the Clinton Administration, argues that if Bush adopts the second of three alternative models developed by his Commission, it will increase government debt for the next 60 years and reduce benefits. All three models include private accounts, but Orszag believes Model 2 has emerged as the leading candidate. Model 2 would result in reductions in benefits, because it indexes them to keep pace with slower-growing prices, rather than wages, which is the index in the current formula. Orszag contends that "Social Security would wither away over time" as benefits became so insubstantial they would fail to provide and adequate amount of retirement income on which to build other retirement savings.
The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities analyzed the president's public statements, including those in his Jan. 29, 2005 State of the Union Address, as well as those offered by an undisclosed "senior Administration official" in a media briefing several days later. The Center pointed out that the official conceded the private accounts would have a net neutral effect on the program's future solvency issue, which the President puts forth as the basis of his reform plan. If the unidentified official is correct that private accounts do not solve the very problem the President says motivated his call for reform, then why press for private accounts? One possible answer is that private accounts address two ideological issues that are important to political conservatives. They represent ownership of an asset, which was an oft-repeated concept in Bush's re-election rhetoric. And, they put the onus on the individual rather than government for retirement income, which helps conservatives shrink government spending by "starving the beast" through reduced taxation. Privatizing government retirement programs is not a new idea, and the U.S. can learn from the experiences of the handful of countries that have tried it.
Lessons from Abroad: Chile, Britain, and SwedenIn 1980, Chile fully replaced its original social security system, which had been established in the 1920s based on collective insurance that covered about 70 percent of the population, with a mandatory privately managed pension system. While the new Chilean system improved some pitfalls of the original system, the reformed version has significant shortcomings, including high administrative costs and limited coverage of poor and self-employed workers (Arenas de Mesa 2).
The Chilean reform benefited employers because it eliminated their contribution requirements. It also reduced the employees' contribution to 10 percent of wages, from a high of 65 percent in some cases, and protects the investments from inflation. It did not, however, reduce the government's involvement in social security nor improve the solvency of the system. It fattened the coffers of the private insurance companies, but created a sizable budget deficit (Borzutzky 95). Most important, it eliminated the principle of "social solidarity," making retirement in Chile an individual responsibility, except for the very poor (Borzutzky 91). Chilean reform also turned out to be a worse deal for most Chilean women. In the old system, women received more generous benefits with fewer requirements, and the gap between men's and women's payments was smaller. The old benefit formula used earnings from the last few years of employment, while the new system includes the entire working life of the beneficiary, which disproportionately harms women who have gaps in their paid work history (Arenas de Mesa 9).
About the same time that Chile instituted its reforms, the United Kingdom also grappled with its retirement system. The British experience is held up by the American Association of Retired Persons in the United States as an example of why Americans should be opposed to Bush's reform plan. The influential membership organization contends the British regret their reforms and look at the simplicity of the current U.S. model as the ideal (Cohen 11). Britain underwent a significant reform of its pension system 25 years ago, when Conservative politicians led by Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher decided government needed to "reduce its role in the economy." Britain's current system is made up of three facets: a basic state pension, a mandatory earnings-related pension (either through the government, private investment, or an employer-sponsored plan), and an optional savings plan. By 1995, about 25 percent of Britain's workforce participated in the personal pension option. The British government also substantially cut future benefits (Congressional Budget Office).
In its analysis, the Congressional Budget Office found the British government succeeded in reducing its long-term costs by transferring responsibility to individuals and cutting benefits. While good for the government, British workers have fared less well, according to the Congressional Budget Office's analysis. First, the system is complex, requiring workers to choose from a variety of options. The benefits of each option differ by individual behavior, such as how often an employee switches jobs. Second, while the private pension option can be advantageous for young workers, there are indications that they are not saving enough to see them through retirement. And, finally, low-wage earners are not attracted to the private pension option because those pensions charge higher fees for low and unstable contributions (Congressional Budget Office).
The Swedish government, long known for its generous support of its citizens, embraced private accounts as part of its retirement system five years ago. A deep recession, growing unemployment, and a strained pay-as-you-go system similar to that of the U.S, motivated Sweden's reform movement. Unlike U.S. policy-makers, who are motivated more by ideology than economics, the government achieved consensus on its reform plan and achieved 80 percent support in the Swedish Parliament (Cowell).
In an analysis of the implementation of the Swedish individual investment option, R. Kent Weaver, a professor of public policy at Georgetown and a senior fellow with the Brookings Institution, compared the participation behavior of Swedish citizens at various points in the investment process since its inception in 2000. When it began, about two thirds of those eligible actively chose to invest among the "staggering array" of 465 available funds. Contradicting U.S. research that suggests women are more likely to opt for default funds, Swedish women were overrepresented, along with those with advanced educations and higher incomes, among participants who were "more likely to make an active choice in the initial 2000 round" than end up in the default fund (Weaver). Citing a study by the Stockholm School of Economics and the National Social Insurance Board, Weaver described a dramatic fall-off in subsequent years by Swedish participants who actively chose their investments. Only 10 percent of those eligible from 2003 to 2005 actively chose from a list of what had ballooned to 674 funds. Weaver does not describe the gender characteristics of those who actively participated after 2000. Weaver contends widespread publicity about negative returns, including those among the most popular funds, was a significant factor in the drop-off. When participants made their initial choices in 2000, the global equities market was near its peak. When they had the opportunity to make choices in later years, their decisions "occurred against a backdrop of losses" by most account holders (Weaver).
While the lessons from abroad offer a few positive notes on reform plans that include private accounts, they mostly offer cautionary tales. Britain and Chile reformed their systems for ideological reasons and the results have at best been uneven and in some cases harmful. For Sweden, it is too soon to tell, but already there is a movement to reduce the investment options to a more manageable number (Cowell).
Implications for WomenIn its final report, the President's Commission to Strengthen Social Security Reform (2001), which offered three models for reform, contends private investment accounts will benefit women in three ways. First, the three models "institute new protections against poverty" by guaranteeing that workers would retire with an income that is 100 to 120 percent of poverty guidelines. Second, two of the models would increase benefits for low-income widows to 75 percent of the total couple's benefit, rather than the 50 to 60 percent they receive in the current system when a spouse dies. Third, divorced women, who must be married 10 years under the current system to receive credit toward benefits based on her husband's earnings, will be eligible to take half of the private investment account accumulated during the marriage. While the Commission can be commended for including issues of such importance to those particular constituencies of women and low-income beneficiaries, its and the President's focus on private investment accounts fails to take into account how gender issues will affect women as a group in a partially privatized system.
Differences in the way men and women view money, government intervention, and risk-taking play a role in how women will fare if private accounts become part of the Social Security system. As it is, women enter retirement now after a lifetime of accumulated disadvantage that leave them less well off than they should be (Valian 3). Adding private investment accounts to the equation without comprehending gender differences will mean a potentially substantial and disproportionate increase in elderly poor women. That is an even starker reality for women of color, who rely to a greater degree on Social Security for their retirement income than do whites of either gender or men of color (National Women's Law Center). While the current system also does little to ameliorate the societal disadvantages that women face throughout their lives, it makes amends for some of them in its progressive benefit formula. The formula replaces a higher proportion of a low-wage earner's income when he or she retires than it does for higher-earning beneficiaries.
The fact that women earn less than men over their lifetimes and participate more unevenly in the labor force is well documented (Bovbjerg). The reasons for that are complex but often can be traced to invisible barriers that Virginia Valian (1999) describes as gender schemas, the societal rules men and women follow that reinforce the norm that women are valued less than men. Those norms lead women to approach things differently than men, often in a less confident and less direct way. As mentioned previously, women, who often have less to invest, do so more conservatively than men. They tend to choose low-risk strategies with smaller returns. By opting for a safer investment, a woman could end up with a smaller nest egg than a man even if they invest the same amount, so the existing gap in benefits paid to men and women could widen (Bovbjerg 5).
In the Women's Retirement Confidence Survey (Turyn and Helman 2000), non-retired women expressed less confidence than men in having enough savings for long-term care. Lower-income and unmarried women anticipate Social Security being a major source of income. As for saving and investing, the survey found that "overall, men are more likely than women to indicate that they are disciplined at saving and that they are willing to take substantial financial risks for substantial gain." The National Center on Women and Aging (1998) interviewed 500 women across the U.S., all of whom were more than 50 years old and the majority of whom had household incomes greater than $50,000. The results showed that "most midlife and older women lack education in the basics of investing. Although the majority of the women surveyed said they understood certain investments â for instance CDs or Savings Bonds â they knew less about the mutual funds, corporate or municipal bonds, stocks, or annuities."
Not understanding the fine print of an investment decision, such as knowing how a private account will be disbursed once they retire, could be drastic for women. If it is a lump sum payment, she will have to guess correctly how long she will live to make sure she does not consume her account balance too quickly. If it is a lifetime annuity, there could be penalties for women because their life spans are longer than men's, which will again widen the gap in benefits paid to men and women (Bovbjerg 7).
Divorced women who were married for at least 10 years currently are entitled to benefits based on their ex-spouse's full earnings. That automatic provision will be lost if the private account plan does not expressly address divorcees and survivors as having a specific claim. In that case, the account could become part of a divorce settlement (Bovbjerg 7). The President's Commission on Social Security Reform included language that improved the chances that a divorced woman would retain credit accrued by her husband's earnings during their marriage, but it is not known if that provision will be taken up by President Bush.
Apart from the nuts and bolts of any privatized plan, how women participate in the dialogue about changing a program on which they rely more than men will be influenced by gender socialization. Women go through life believing they live in a meritocracy, and that they will be rewarded for playing by the rules. But as Linda Babcock and Sara Laschever (2003) found, women's unwillingness or inability to ask for what they want means they get less than they deserve. That has implications for their ability to negotiate for more money at work and achieve promotions. It also might lead to even less economic stability in retirement if they do not engage in the discussions of reform and articulate what they want from the Social Security system. Women approach aspects of retirement very differently than men, as well as from an economically disadvantaged position. Implementing a plan that asks women to compete, negotiate, invest, and take risks like a man lacks the rigorous analysis that should precede any overhaul of a system that is a lifeline for millions of American women.
ConclusionBush's plan, which relies on private investment accounts and future benefit cuts, will disproportionately harm women for a number of reasons: 1) It does not resolve the system's pending shortfall, which is the reason the President gave for proposing reform in the first place; 2) It violates the basic premise of social insurance, which is a guaranteed basic income that will not run out before the beneficiary dies; 3) It rends the cyclical nature of the current system by pitting the current needs of retired grandparents against the economic advancement of their grandchildren; 4) It offers no explanation about how the transition costs will be paid, which could lead to steep cuts in future benefits; 5) It ignores less drastic adjustments that could resolve the estimated shortfall; 6) It incorrectly assumes that men and women share the same behavioral norms toward risk-taking and money; 7) It likely will widen the gender gap in average monthly benefits between men and women; 8) It assumes beneficiaries are savvy enough to invest funds, when evidence shows most Americans, especially those who are low-income, lack the financial literacy to make good investment choices; and, 9) It is based on political ideology, not on sound financial and budgetary principles.
The burden rests with President Bush to offer a detailed plan for making Social Security financially sound. So far, he has not done that. If he persists in pushing private investment accounts, they should be considered only as additions to the current system, much like the third tier option originally proposed by Franklin Roosevelt, and not as replacement vehicles. The government should also commit to using general revenue funds for a comprehensive financial literacy campaign, so individuals can gain an appreciation of how much they need to save for retirement, how much of that will come from Social Security, and how to make wise investment choices whether they invest inside or outside of the system.
Any changes to Social Security should enhance the progressive elements of the benefit formula already in place. Real reform should also go further by acknowledging the social conventions that take women out of the workplace to raise children and care for elderly or sick family members. The current benefit formula averages lifetime benefits over 35 years, which undervalues the economic and societal contribution women make because there is not a paycheck attached to their toil once they leave the salaried workplace. The current system essentially taxes motherhood and other forms of care-giving.
There are several options to shore up the system that already have been studied by experts and should be incorporated before adding private investment accounts to the discussion. For example, the cap on taxable earnings could be raised, and should be before any benefit cuts are imposed. This will improve the current regressive nature of the system, which taxes only the first $90,000 of income. While that will also force employers to pay more, it is better to spread the burden throughout the economy than to place it squarely on the backs of those who can least afford to pay.
A discrimination adjustment should be included to account for the accumulation of disadvantages women accrue in the workplace because of gender differences. A discussion of that option would have the added benefit of educating the public about gender schemas. That, in turn, hopefully would lessen the burden of future generations of women, who could retire with sufficient personal savings and assets amassed by being paid honestly and advancing properly throughout their careers.
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