we would also -- i can't see the slide from here, so i have to turn a page. we would also have a number of proposals for disabled people. this is the next one -- this is one of those. equalizing rules for disabled widows. this is actually about home makers who become disabled. again, a woman or a man who has no earnings record of their own currently is entitled to disability benefits if you did some care giving of a minor child for a deceased earner, or if you turn age 50 within seven years of when your deceased earner died. these are restrictions that keep certain home makers from qualifying even though they became disabled. so we would suggest removing all of the restrictions. no having to become disabled within seven years of some qualifying event, no having to reach age 50, and also no reduction in benefits for taking benefits earlier.

when you become disabled, you don't have a reduction based on the age at which you became disabled. so this would apply basically the rules to disabled workers to disabled home makers. we also have something similar for widows about benefit equality. right now if you take your widow benefit at whatever age, if your husband who predeceased you had retired early, you're going to suffer a penalty for his having retired early even if you worked until 70. if his benefit is still greater than yours, you'll suffer the penalty that is due to the fact he retired early. so we'd like to eliminate that penalty from widows. and all of these things for which dose are for divorced spouses who have that qualifying t ten-year marriage.

the next one is something for everybody, strengthening the cola. we have heard about how much the increases in health care costs are taking out of the pockets, especially of the elderly who have more health care costs. our normal cpi, our normal cola based on the cpi, does not adjust enough for the fact that medical care is an extra large portion of the basket of goods that older people buy and the cpie price inflater adjusts and their basket of goods is a little bit higher. so we would propose that the cola be tagged to the cpie rather than to the normal price inflater. our next benefit is restoring student benefits. these existed until the early '80s. they were cut in 1981. if you have a disabled or parent who died and you're a student up

through age 19 in high school, you'll receive the child benefit. it will be equal ordinarily to half of what your deceased parent was entitled to. that used to extend through 22. we'd like to restore that to those students who are in college or another post-secondary program. this would be for those students whose parents have died or become disabled. that benefit would be extended. that can be a very, very important benefit. obviously, it will be important to male and female students, but particularly to the surviving spouse who now will be able to save more for their own retirement and give a little less to their student in school because the student will be getting benefits from the deceased parent. so that's a very important one. it's usually, you know, more often the women who are the survivors in that case. we would also like to improve the basic benefit for all current and future

beneficiaries. we have had the worst recession since the 1930s. lots of people have lost a lot of assets. income from assets is virtually zero if you're interested in safe assets. it's virtually zero right now. so this recession is going to last a long time in terms of peoples' income. so now is a good time to increase the basic benefit. the amount we're suggesting here is about $55 a month for everyone starting today. of course, it could be any amount, but anything to increase the basic benefit because there's been a falling behind because of the cola not adjusting for medical expenses and because of this tremendous shock really to the well being of older people in the last recession. they lost home equity and asset income. many of them have also lost earnings. many retired people work part-time. many of those jobs have

disappeared or become lower in pay. another new benefit, equal benefits for same sex couples and partners. this couldn't be more timely, given the president's announcement in the last couple days, and i think that's pretty self-explanatory. there are couples who are not able to marry, but in states that recognize a marriage or civil union, those partners that are recognized by their states should be able to receive social security benefits. and of course, would be very valuable to their children as well should one of those parents become disabled or died. i think our last benefit proposal is increasing benefits for disabled young people. this is very important to parents of disabled children as well as to the disabled adults themselves. if they become disabled before age 22, they are able to get benefits based on the parent's work record.

right now, there are some penalties for them that they can't get it if they divorce and have no spouse supporting them, they can't get back on this benefit. we'd like to see that be restored. also their benefits are subject to a family maximum, but many of the disabled adult children live on their own and shouldn't be subject to that family maximum. that, i believe, is our last benefit. and i'm sure i'm over time, but i need to turn to the pay fors. everybody in washington these days says, how can you afford all that? there's no way to pay for it. there are many ways to pay for it. we're not endorsing any particular pay for, but we list three. you know, all of those are the types of things that have been discussed by many people. these and many other pay fors could be found to pay for these benefits and to make our system reach that magic 75-year solvency.

we're not at that now. we're at 25 years now. we need a few more years to get up to 75. we need more revenues coming into the system. one way is scrap the cap. did you know there's a cap on earnings in terms of how much you pay social security on those earnings? it's capped at $110,000 right now. you pay 6.2% on that. your employer pays the same amount. that means if you earn more than that, you're not paying anything on that money above that amount. that's not true of medicare. you pay on the whole salary. we'd like to see social security be treated the same way and have everyone pay no matter what their earnings. this is really for bill gates. i want bill gates to pay his share. he can do this if we remove the cap. but there are many people above that level as our society has become more unequal. there are more people at the top earning those high salaries.

another possible pay for is slowly increasing social security contribution by a share of percentage point over 20 years. you could start at 20 years. most times when we revise social security revenues, we put it off into the future so people have a chance to adjust to it. this is just one way of doing that. there's a relatively small one, but it could grow over time. we have a lot of ways of escaping -- putting part of your salary away that you don't pay social security on. 401(k)s is not one of them. contributory systems, you do pay social security on that money that you put aside. but if you put aside money for child care or health care expenses, other things in flexible spending accounts that are allowed by the law, you're not putting social security away on that money. and so this would restore all of those earnings that you receive but that you put into special

categories, restore all of those to be covered by social security. so that's our last potential pay for. and i think our overall message, as max and carol said, it's time to increase benefits and we can afford it. thank you. [ applause ] >> thank you so much, dr. hartman. our final presenter is terry o'neill. terry o'neill is the president of the national organization for women foundation and the national organization for women, which is the largest feminist grass roots organization in the country with hundreds of thousands of members and supporters in every state and the district of columbia. terry is an attorney and law professor having taught at tulane university and the university of california at davis. and she is widely in demand as a speaker on a range of issues

important to women, including equal pay, women's economic well being and social security. and in fact, if i want to see terry and i can't get her on the phone, i turn on msnbc. and if i wait 30 or 40 minutes, i'll see her. for many decades now and the foundation have proposed modernizing social security to better meet the needs of today's women and families. we're hoping by joining forces with these two groups today we can move that forward. terry? [ applause ] >> good morning, everybody. thank you, max. i just want to say that i'm really thrilled to be here. i deeply appreciate my partner in crime, so to speak, we chair

the task force of the national council of women's organizations and we have worked on the social security issue for years as collaborators and fellow travelers. i also want to thank max for your leadership in bringing this together and producing this paper. it's really exciting. i'm going to talk in a moment about what we're doing at the grass roots level about this. because now and the now foundation, i view, as the grass roots arm, if you will, of the women's movement. carol, for your extraordinary leadership. on social security and medicare, i want to thank you so much. it's wonderful. i think that if there is one, i guess, one of the major challenges facing the united states today it's inequality. it's inequality. in the past few months, the nation has begun to have a conversation about the problem of inequality. and i think we need to focus our conversation on the

disproportionate impact that inequality has had on women and continues to have on women. we know that the wage gap persists. women on average are paid 77 cents to the dollar of men. for women of color, it's far worse. it's around 69 cents for african-american women and just 59 cents to the dollar for latinas. at 59 cents to the dollar, how are you going to save for your retirement? how is that going to happen? in fact, a report issued by the insight center in 2010 revealed if you look at the net worth of individuals, the statistics are absolutely shocking. unmarried women, if you break down the net worth along racial lines, unmarried african-american women's net

worth in 2009 was just $100. latinas $120. unmarried white women, $41,500. now that is a disparity that cannot continue to exist in our country. the main reason for that disparity is the value of housing and cars. but really the value of housing. i think the numbers show dramatically what other groups have done in studies, which is to show that mortgage bankers were specifically targeting single moms and particularly single moms of color to sell them inappropriate housing at abusive subprime mortgages and that was a real problem and has resulted in the drastic levels of unequal net worth for unmarried women. and by the way, by contrast, unmarried women with married couples, married couples net

worth is $35,000 in the african-american community. these are 2009 numbers. $35,000 versus $100. $167,500 in the white community for couples. these disparities are absolutely huge. women disproportionately are impacted by these disparities also because we tend to cluster in jobs like retail and home health care and child care and in the hotel industry. jobs that don't have -- very often don't have health benefits, very often don't have pensions, and don't even have 401(k)s. so again, at 58 cents to the dollar and no pension and you're

having to come out of pocket for your health care throughout your working life and you don't even have a 401(k), how are you going to save for your retirement years? and the answer is, you're not actually going to save the money. so social security is the solution. by the time a woman reaches the end of her working career, what she really has is social security. as heidi has said and we have said in this paper, social security benefits need to be improved for women. but what we need to understand is that it is the core part of the solution for the disproportionate impact of inequality for women. that is why it's so important. we have a good base now. we need to improve it to meet the needs of 21st century families, as both heidi and carol has laid out. one thing i would like to point out.

politicians and other public figures who claim that social security is the problem, that it's going broke, that it's in crisis and therefore, we need to cut it, are not being straight with the american people. it is just flat wrong to suggest that social security is in crisis or going broke. it is not. and politicians who take action to cut social security benefits instead of improving them will, in fact, pay a price at the polls in november and in novembers after that. there's no question about it. the public is not fooled about these claims. and their attitude is even if it is in trouble, the responsible thing for elected officials to do is to fix the problem in a way that allows us to use social security and strengthen social security and make it better. not cut it back and begin the process of dismantling it. now having said that about politicians, i would like to give a shout out to some of our

best friends on capitol hill who are leading the way for social security. minority leader nancy pelosi has been a true champion for us. all last year she fought efforts to cut social security benefits by raising the retirement age, and we are grateful for that. representative jan schakowsky has been a true friend of the women's movement as well as the civil rights movement. and congresswoman eleanor holmes norton who spoke earlier has been a real champion for these issues. and there are many more. but i just want to say that those who stand up for social security will see the benefit at the polls as well as those who try to cut it will pay a price at the polls. now going forward, my organization, the national organization for women foundation is partnering with the national committee foundation at the grass roots level to get the word out about the importance of improving

social security benefits for women. over the next weeks and months, we'll be reaching out to our activists in community after community after community. the national organization for women has some 350 to 380 active chapters in this country and will be working with the foundation to get the word out. so we're very excited about moving forward with our campaign to raise awareness, to raise advocacy for improvements to social security and not cuts. and let me end by saying some of the cuts we're worried about are an increase in the retirement age. that's a benefit cut. make no mistake. we are adamantly opposed to that. we're also opposed to means testing. there are some proponents of social security who have tried to implement their opposition by suggesting that we should means test social security.

bill gates shouldn't be getting social security. the problem with that is masking social security into more of a poverty programs and we know what happens to poverty programs in this country. a stingier cpi, which is the formula, the consumer price index, chase cpi is not only stingy, it is extremely -- nonrepresentative of the actual living costs in the actual increases of living costs, particularly of older women. finally, privatization. i don't think privatization is going anywhere. even george w. bush couldn't push it through when republicans occupied the white house.

and both house us of the congress. but it's still out there. there are many advocates who would love to privatize social security so we're going to be fighting that as well. any way, thank you all very much for being here and appreciate it. >> we're going to take a few questions, and c-span has asked me to repeat the questions for their audience, but i wanted to just make a quick comment. terry talked about politicians not being straight. with the american people when they talk about the social security being broke, bankrupt, busted. there's no money there. it's not just the politicians. it's the media. the media parrots this over and over again, and a recent incident was the trustees' report just a few weeks ago. despite the fact that even the

commissioner tried desperately to make the point in the press conference that the program is not broke, is not bankrupt. but i was listening to the radio that afternoon, and a commentator said to an audience here in washington, if you are 45 years old, social security won't be there. that's a lie. so, we need to deal not just with the the politicians who are misleading the american public, but with the media, and the way we plan to do it is by joining forces and working with our activists around the country, with all of the chapters that now has -- and with our influence that we have in here in washington through dr. hartman and terry and the national committee. we are going to try our level best to take these recommendations and turn them

into some legislative proposals. and we have begun talking to members of the house and the senate that are committed, some of the ones that you mentioned, terry, that are committed to preserving, protecting and improving these programs. and we are determined to succeed. and as you know, there's always -- there's been so much talk about cutting social security and some may say well, how can you be talking about improving benefits at a time when everybody's talking practically everybody's talking about the need to cut social security. we've got to start somewhere. and we've got a group of organizations that i think can move the ball forward on this. so i'll take nel questions. please address them to -- yes, joel. >> my mother is 81 for her whole

life, four kids. i think she's a pretty good mother but she cannot live off her social security benefit. in fact, without help from the family my mother would be homeless. i have a brother who is disabled. he cannot live off his social security disability benefits without the help of my family. the question i have is just as the minimum wage was raised over years, shouldn't we be raising the actual benefits so that maybe anyone getting social security should at least have the dignity of $2,000 a month so the millions of seniors aren't forced into poverty or disabled only because they became seniors or disabled? if the bankers got bailout, shouldn't my mother and my brother? >> the question is shouldn't we be raising benefits rather than talking about cutting them. who would like to address that. >> well, we do have a proposal to raise benefits for everyone about $55 a month. so that's a fairly decent amount. also, that increase in the

special minimum almost doubles it. so for very low wage earners, that would help them. i think many of us do think of you know $2000 a month, that's only $24,000 a year, smurly every person needs that, but the federal poverty level is a lot lower especially for a single adult. so right now, unfortunately, minimum benefits don't keep people above poverty, but in our proposal, that special minimum would be above poverty and the $55 a month would go a long way, might not bring everyone up to $2,000, but would certainly help a lot. >> joel, dr. hartman talked about the cola, the cost of living adjustment. one way to raise the benefit is to have an adjustment, a cola adjustment that is as she said, accurately reflexes what inflation is doing, not to a wage earner but to someone who depends on social security and

has those kinds of higher medical expenses. so it's something that the cpie, the consumer price index elderly, we've worked on it for quite a few years, and we hope we can get that put into law. >> and let me just add that the chain cpi, which has been promoted as the cpi that should be used in calculating the social security cola, here's how it would work, according to the national women's law center, by the time a woman reaches the age of 90, as her -- if we use the chain cpi, her cost of living adjustment, there would be such a gap between her actual increases in her living expenses and her cost of living an jutment under social security that the gap would amount to three weeks of groceries per month. and so that is one of the main reasons why the chain cpi is a

nonstarter and must be rejected out of hand. >> thank you very much. yes. >> i noted that the caregiver credits would do a lot in reducing the gender disparities between qualification for retirement benefits and the disparity in the actual benefits themselves. would thankful also affect determination for disability eligibility and if not, is there a usefulness in pursuing policy that would reduce the disparity in qualifying for disability? >> the question is, how would a caregiver credits work with disability. >> i think we do envision it would be part of your earnings record and therefore, it would help you qualify for disability benefits, as well. there might have to be some special rules one might want to

say you know, some earnings history, but we also have that one that would help homemakers who become disabled with no earnings record at all. so i think both proposals would improve women's ability to get disability. or nel adult who has done care giving. male or female. >> yes? >> this question is for dr. hartman. you mentioned increasing the child benefit. improving the child benefits to go up to age 22 and you mentioned for disabled workers and survivors. what about retired workers who have young children? would that apply to them also? >> we did exclude workers who have college age children. i think it was more where the cost of the benefit package. but obviously, in the former era, the adult children of retired workers were included, as well. so that's just really a spending

decision whether we want to spend our money that supposed to other things like the special minimum. we'll have to set some priorities. >> any other questions? yes. >> they asked how will the three organizations be working together to get these proposals enacted? >> the question is from facebook is how the organizations will work together to get these proposals enacted. i think we discussed that. our grassroots efforts, i think now has what, 250 some chapters? >> 350. >> 350 some chapters around the country. we've got 3 million members, over 3 million around the country and supporters, and we're going to mobilize. we may not be able to get it started in washington, but we can get it started outside of the beltway and at the same

time, develop legislation legislative proposals turning these recommendations into bills that can then be moved through the congress. it's not going to happen, obviously, before the election i don't think a whole lot's going to happen before the election but we need to create momentum and that's what we're committed to doing. dr.? >> i would just add that we will be working with the national women's law center and the older women's league, wonderful organizations who are -- have been advocates for decades on these kinds of issues, and will be partners with us in going forward. it's going to take all of us and particularly those in states and communities who are members of these national and local affiliate organizations. >> i might also mention