Melissa Bailey File Photo
Social security just turned 75. Maureen O’Sullivan told her Congresswoman that she’s worried it won’t be there when she turns 75.
O’Sullivan (pictured), an east side alderwoman in New Haven who’s in her 40s, showed up at a social security “birthday” party that U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro hosted Wednesday at the People’s Center on Howe Street.
The marked the diamond jubilee of America’s bedrock social safety net credited for keeping millions of seniors out of poverty.
DeLauro got an ovation as she took the podium and declared social security solvent. She said it should stay that way into the future, as long as adjustments are made to it. She noted that President George W. Bush tried unsuccessfully to privatize as he began his second term in early 2005.
“If we had moved in that direction [privatization], given what has happened on Wall Street today, what would have happened?” she asked.
“Wiped out,” a woman murmured.
“Wiped out!” DeLauro (pictureded) exclaimed.
She called social security a bond between generations, one that promises that no American will have to go it alone in their later years.
Some worry that with the aging of the baby boomers, social security won’t have enough money to pay future retirees’ benefits. Some lawmakers have called for raising the retirement age or means-testing in order to protect the fund.
“I am not as confident as the Congresswoman,” said Alderwoman O’Sullivan, who was born in 1965. “I’m glad she’s confident that it will continue, but a lot of people in their mid-to late-40s wonder if it’s still going to be around.”
Another attendee, 88-year-old retired city schoolteacher Mary Johnson, suggested that social security should revert to protected status as a trust fund.
Mary Elia (pictured), Connecticut staffer with the Alliance for Retired Americans, explained that when Congress passed social security passed in 1935, most Americans didn’t even live to be 65 and therefore claim the benefits. But she said several “myths” have developed about approaching insolvency: “We don’t need to cut it. We don’t need to raise the retirement age — that’s a cut in benefits” that would disproportionally negatively impact working class people who have more physically demanding jobs and often more health problems as they age. She also disagreed with the idea of a means test, which would disqualify those above a certain income. Everyone who gets Social Security has paid into it and deserves the money back, she argued.
She suggested other tweaks: “They may need to adjust by going back to getting the Social Security contribution on 90 percent of the income, instead of the current 83 percent. We can maybe pay a little bit more up front.”
DeLauro did the honors at Wednesday’s Party of blowing out the candles on a huge birthday cake — or trying. They were the kind that keep relighting. Supporters hope that, like those flames, social security can’t be extinguished.