If passed, the new federal bill would also have far-reaching consequences that aren’t widely touted — including helping address America’s growing retirement crisis.

Get Talk Poverty In Your Inbox

As of 2013, nearly one in five Americans age 55 to 64 had zero retirement savings or pension. The crisis is much more acute for lower-income Americans: While nearly nine in 10 families in the top fifth of the income distribution have retirement account savings, fewer than one in 10 families in the bottom fifth do.

It’s not surprising, then, that seniors increasingly rely on Social Security’s very modest benefits, which make up 90 percent or more of the income of nearly one in four seniors — a share that rises to more than six in 10 for those in the bottom fifth of the income scale.

The yawning gap between the high pay of the rich and the stagnant or declining pay of the working and middle class is a key driver of the crisis: According to the Urban Institute, rising wage inequality means that today’s 45-year-olds in the bottom fifth of the lifetime earnings distribution will have 3 percent less retirement income than today’s seniors, 25-year-olds will have 6 percent less, and 5-year-olds will have 13 percent less. Meanwhile, for the richest fifth, annual retirement income will rise over time.

The amount a worker can afford to save for retirement is tied to her earnings, and the Urban Institute researchers find that raising the federal minimum wage from $7.25 to just $12 — below the $15 Congressional Democrats have proposed — would offset nearly 60 percent of the retirement income lost by the bottom fifth of today’s 25-year-olds, and nearly 40 percent lost by today’s 5-year-olds.

The minimum-wage bill’s impact would be especially profound on workers of color — particularly black workers, a full 40 percent of whom would get a raise. Black workers are paid much lower wages than their white counterparts, with the typical full-time, year-round black male worker earning just 70 percent of what a white male worker earns, while black women make just 61 percent. They also face a much more severe retirement crisis, exacerbated by systematic inequalities that hamper saving, prevent wealth-building, and inhibit upward mobility. Black Americans who are nearing retirement age have only about 10 percent as much wealth as whites in the same age group. Social Security benefits made up at least 90 percent of income for 46 percent of black seniors, compared to 35 percent of whites.

The low-wage, low-quality jobs disproportionately held by workers of color don’t pay enough to make ends meet — much less save — nor do many offer the tax-preferenced retirement accounts such as 401(k) plans and individual retirement accounts (IRAs) that help build wealth. As a consequence of shorter life expectancy and lack of resources, many black men will die before they are able to retire.

This raise is a decade overdue: In 2019, a worker earning $7.25 per hour will lose nearly $2,600 compared to 2009 — when the federal minimum wage last went up — because inflation has eroded the wage’s purchasing power. A $15 minimum wage would also lift millions of Americans out of poverty, dramatically reduce spending on public assistance programs, and improve infant health. In just the last five years, 22 states and Washington, DC, have increased their minimum wages, at little or no cost to government and without the job losses conservative pundits claim will result.

Americans get it: In every single state, voters say want their state’s minimum wage to be higher than it currently is. By passing the Raise the Wage Act, Congress would rightly give voters what they’re demanding, and help address the retirement crisis at the same time.

Editor’s note: This piece was originally published on Jan. 17, 2019. It has since been updated.

The problem is, I’m a product of that “wasteful spending.” So is my dad. He was a character, and deeply embarrassing in the way that only dads can be. He was known around our small town as the chatty Starbucks regular who would talk to complete strangers for hours or as the old man riding a unicycle (on special occasions, he also juggled and wore a clown suit). At movie theaters, he would stand up and dance during the ending credits, while I quickly walked away so people wouldn’t see us together. He brought a camera with him everywhere, and took pictures constantly, while I attempted to hide my face behind napkins, or my hands, or anything else within arms’ reach. He still framed those pictures, whether or not I was visible—there was one in his bedroom where a volleyball eclipsed my entire head.

Get TalkPoverty In Your Inbox

My dad was complicated. He was terrible with money. He ran his law practice on a barter system, trading legal advice and representation for furniture or housecleaning services or—in one particularly memorable instance—three swords.

He was also an addict. This was a surprise to virtually every person he met—myself included. I knew he spent time in rehab when I was five, but I still couldn’t quite believe it when—after ten years of sobriety—he relapsed and disappeared for two days during my sophomore year of high school. He came back, filled with guilt and shame, promising that it would never happen again. But it did happen again, so his wife left him. And then it happened again, and he lost his law practice. And again, and we lost our house. And eventually, it led to a new job working for Mexican drug cartels.

My dad’s story ended the way these stories tend to—he died. But not right away. First he was arrested, under drug charges that would have imprisoned him for 15 years. But after six months, the prison doctors ran some tests on a lump on top of his head. It turned out to be stage 4 melanoma. He was only supposed to live another three to six months, so he was granted a compassionate release from prison.

My dad lived for another 22 months after that—about four times longer than the doctors predicted. He died in the comfort of our home on the evening of October 25, 2010.

Those two years brought my father back to me. He and I became closer than ever—reflecting on the days when his criminal nickname was “el abogado,” when the months he spent in solitary confinement briefly drew out aspirations of priesthood, when he convinced his high school principal to let him grow out a beastly-looking beard to take on the role of Jesus in the annual play, and when we both realized that forgiveness can be the most powerful experience in your life.

His epitaph reads, “Love wins.” Ultimately, it did.

I have always attributed the additional 16 months I had with him to a sense of hope and love brought about by my community. Distantly familiar faces came out of the woodwork to offer emotional support, to help cook his meals, to sit with him to make sure he didn’t fall, to help him shower, and even to pay for his funeral when my mom realized we couldn’t afford it. But I also owe those 16 months to Medicaid, which covered chemotherapy early in his illness and a home nurse when he was too weak to walk. I owe them to Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI), which helped pay for our biweekly trips to Kerrville, Texas, for clinical trials of Ipilimumab. I owe them to Supplemental Security Income (SSI), which helped my mother—who was working day in and day out to support her ex-husband and their three children—put food on the table. Even after he died, Social Security helped my family stay afloat with modest survivors benefits that my dad paid into over the course of his career.

Medicaid, SSDI, and SSI were as much a part of the community that gave my dad a chance to die with dignity as the Starbuck employees who closed down the shop to go to his funeral. You have all paid into them during your lives, so that when my family needed them, they were there. Thank you for that.

I can never explain how much this support meant to me. But I can say I hope that it’s there for you when you need it. Because it is not wasteful spending. I was not wasteful spending. My dad was not wasteful spending. And you are not wasteful spending.

For starters, The Post continues to over-count “working-age” beneficiaries by including more than half a million people over 65—even adding in some people who are more than 80 years old. Moreover, instead of using the Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS)—what the Census calls “the premier source for detailed information about the American people”—The Post uses a far less common data setThe CDC’s “Bridged-Race Population Estimates” data set was developed for the purpose of permitting “estimation and comparison of race-specific statistics.” It is used by researchers whose main goal is to calculate consistent birth and death rates for small-sized racial and ethnic groups—not at all what The Post’s analysis attempts to do. Researchers commonly adjust data for special purposes—but with the understanding that in doing so, they sacrifice the data’s accuracy in other ways. from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Compared to ACS data, these data undercount the number of working-age people in rural counties, which in turn jacks up The Post’s findings on the percentages of working-age people who are receiving disability benefits in these counties.

Get TalkPoverty In Your Inbox

But let’s not lose the forest for the trees here. Even using The Post’s flawed methods, they were only able to find one county—out of more than 3,100 counties nationwide—where the story’s central claim that “as many as one-third of working-age adults are receiving monthly disability checks” holds up. Not a single other county even comes close. In fact, The Post’s own analysis—which it has now made available in a public data file next to the story, yields an average rate of about 9.1 percent of working-age adults receiving benefits across rural counties—just three percentage points higher than the national average.*

And yet the article is framed as follows: “Across large swaths of the country,” the article still reads, “disability has become a force that has reshaped scores of mostly white, almost exclusively rural communities, where as many as one-third of working-age adults are receiving monthly disability checks.”

If by “large swaths” and “scores of… rural communities” The Post means McDowell County, West Virginia, population less than 21,000 residents—and nowhere else in America—then sure.

But the fact is there’s a word for using data this way: cherry-picking.

Moreover, if you swap out the unusual data set The Post chose for the aforementioned Census Bureau’s ACS data, you actually won’t find a single county in the U.S. where The Post’s central claim is true—and the dramatic percentages The Post’s map and other graphics depict start to look a lot less, well, dramatic.

Media should take great care in its coverage of critical programs like Social Security Disability Insurance. Reporting based on outliers—not to mention flawed data analysis—risks misleading the public and policymakers in ways that could jeopardize the economic wellbeing and even survival of millions of Americans with serious disabilities and severe illnesses who are already living on the financial brink.

Here’s hoping the rest of The Post’s disability series meets the highest bar for accuracy, even if that means less click-bait.

*The figure is the population-weighted average based on the working age population per The Post’s public data file. Researchers customarily use population-weighted averages to account for variations in county size.

Get TalkPoverty In Your Inbox

The new legislation includes many of the stealth benefit cuts that conservatives have been pushing for years. It calls for increasing the retirement age from 66 to 69. Even a one-year increase in the retirement age is equivalent to a 7 percent cut in benefits for all retirees, so raising the full retirement age to 69 would cost millions of Americans thousands of dollars in benefits. It would also have a disproportionate impact on low-income workers, who get a larger share of their income from Social Security.

The bill also includes the now-infamous “chained CPI”—a measure of inflation that would chip away at Social Security benefits over time. In the long run, the new formula would cut earned benefits by an additional $1,000 a year.

But the new proposal does more than just cut Social Security—it includes something few Congressional Republicans were advocating just a few years ago.

Section 2 of the bill—titled “Increase Contribution and Benefit Base”—calls for raising the cap on the payroll tax that funds Social Security benefits from $118,500 to $308,750. In other words, the wealthiest Americans would be asked to contribute a little bit more to fund the program. The bill also increases benefits for the oldest beneficiaries, and creates a minimum benefit for beneficiaries who are at or near the poverty level.

These—albeit modest—concessions underscore just how far the Social Security debate has moved under President Obama. In 2010, with post-recession deficit concerns still running high, President Obama created a “National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform” (often referred to as “Simpson-Bowles,” after its co-chairs) that proposed an increase in the Social Security retirement age and a new, more meager measure of inflation. Future House Speaker Paul Ryan’s budget plan that year went a step further: He not only put forward massive cuts, but set up private accounts that would bankrupt the program over the long haul.  Then in 2011, the White House offered cuts to Social Security and Medicare in “grand bargain” negotiations with Republicans.

The shift that followed the failed attempt at a “grand bargain” is now well-known. Progressives, led by groups like Social Security Works, organized labor, and the Congressional Progressive Caucus, shifted from defense to offense. In 2013, New America released a comprehensive plan to expand Social Security. Last year, one of the program’s staunchest advocates, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, rallied all but two Senate Democrats to support a resolution to “expand and protect” Social Security. And in June, the President publicly endorsed expansion.

The “S.O.S Act” is nowhere close to the emerging progressive consensus around Social Security. In addition to benefit increases, it includes many of the same cuts proposed in Simpson-Bowles. And, since the Republican author of the bill is retiring at the end of this Congress (along with three of the bill’s original cosponsors), any progress should be viewed with a healthy dose of skepticism.

But for the first time, conservatives are cloaking benefit cuts with the rhetoric of “strengthening” Social Security. The center on Social Security policy has moved—and conservatives don’t know how to catch up.

Just ask Benjamin, whose father—a distinguished Connecticut lawyer—committed suicide shortly after being placed on anti-anxiety medication. Benjamin was 12. When their life insurance company refused to pay the family’s death claim, Benjamin’s mother used the family’s remaining savings to pay off their mortgage so that they could count on a place to live. Then, she turned to Social Security to help them make ends meet.

Get TalkPoverty In Your Inbox

In 2014, 3.2 million children under 18 received Social Security. Families like Benjamin’s receive benefits through the survivor insurance program, which provides income to the dependents of covered workers who have died.  Children under 18 also qualify for Social Security if they are the dependents of a parent or guardian who is disabled or retired.

But it turns out that’s only half the story.  A new study by my organization, the Center for Global Policy Solutions, found that official reports overlook children who live in extended families where someone receives a Social Security check. According to data from the U.S. Census and the Social Security Administration, an additional 3.2 million children receive indirect support in this manner from Social Security. That doubles previous estimates of the total number of children receiving benefits, bringing it to 6.4 million. It also means that 9 percent of all U.S. children benefit from Social Security, making it one of the nation’s largest antipoverty programs for children.

Since 2001, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of children benefitting indirectly from Social Security, as a result of larger socioeconomic forces. Economic inequality, income stagnation, immigration, and the recession have all contributed to the rise of extended, multi-generation families with shared living arrangements.

There has also been a significant increase in the number of grandparents who are caring for grandchildren without the direct involvement of their parents. This underscores the fact that Social Security is a multigenerational program that serves individuals at every stage of life. And while white children are still the vast majority of child recipients, children of color represent a rapidly growing share of child Social Security beneficiaries, reflecting the nation’s changing demographics.

Given its broad reach, Social Security is an underappreciated policy mechanism that—along with the more frequently discussed examples like the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Child Tax Credit—should be expanded to boost economic security for vulnerable families. As policymakers look for solutions to offset economic pressures on U.S. workers, they should integrate additional anti-poverty strategies into Social Security—such as child allowances, college assistance, and paid family leave.

If national debates over the past decade are to be heeded, there are those who will inevitably argue that the nation can’t afford to expand Social Security, even though we could by lifting the program’s cap on taxable wages (currently $118,500), and making other minor adjustments (like increasing the payroll tax by 1/20th of one percent over a 20-year period). They will claim we need to cut benefits in the name of deficit reduction, even though scholars have shown that Social Security doesn’t have a direct effect on the national deficit or debt. They will argue that Social Security trust funds aren’t sound or real, even though the bonds in its trust funds are backed by the United States government (the same guarantee that ensures the value of the dollar). And, they will completely ignore the 6.4 million child beneficiaries in their zeal to redirect the program’s funds into Wall Street-invested private retirement accounts for older adults.

The fact that each of these anti-expansion arguments can be rebutted misses the larger point: Workers and their children are caught in a broken economy.  There is an urgent, growing need for policy solutions that can strengthen the economic security of American families while ensuring children have a real chance at success in life. Social Security, and social insurance more broadly, are proven policy tools that can help meet this need.

It certainly helped Benjamin, who is now a 35-year-old elementary school music teacher. His mother still counts on Social Security, and Benjamin says if his family didn’t have it when he was growing up, they would have been “over the edge for sure.”

After coming of age in the wake of the Great Recession, millennials have inherited decades of wage stagnation and growing inequality. While median annual wages have grown just $1,422 in real dollars from 1986 to 2013, the average cost of attending a four-year college has more than doubled. Unless these trends reverse, many millennials will have to defer saving for retirement in order to pay off their educational debts, leaving them with fewer resources in retirement beyond Social Security. Indeed, millennials have accumulated less wealth than their parents’ generation had at the same age 25 years ago. These factors, combined with the disappearance of employer-sponsored traditional pension plans, mean that 3 in 5 younger households are at risk of being unable to maintain their standard of living in retirement.

The problem is particularly acute among millennials of color. Black and Latino households typically have lower incomes and significantly fewer assets than white, non-Hispanic households. And although Social Security benefits replace a larger percentage of lower earners’ incomes, their benefits are still smaller than those received by higher earners—leaving households of color less able to contend with the high healthcare costs experienced by seniors and people with disabilities.

Social Security is also critical to millennials during their working years. Before reaching their full retirement age, an estimated 1 in 4 of today’s 20-year-olds will become disabled, and 1 in 8 will die. Such events can be devastating at any age, but they are especially harmful to young workers and their families, who will have had fewer years to pay off educational debts and accumulate wealth. Many of these young workers and their families—especially those with low incomes—are also unlikely to be covered by private insurance, particularly in the case of disability.

Fortunately, virtually all working Americans are covered by Social Security’s disability and survivors’ protections, and can expect to receive benefits for themselves and their families. These benefits are significant—a 30-year-old worker who earns $30,000 a year with a spouse and two children has earned the equivalent of roughly $1.1 million in disability and life insurance protections through Social Security. Although no one anticipates dying young or experiencing a permanent disability, Social Security’s modest but vital benefits are often the only way families can continue to afford basic necessities and avoid falling into poverty.

But instead of increasing benefits, opponents of Social Security suggest that spending on the old is stealing from the young, and that the nation must choose between supporting one generation or the other. They call for “generational equity”—the idea that unless we cut benefits soon, we will run out of resources to protect younger workers in retirement. But this is false. Even after 2034, when the program’s shortfall is projected to occur, Social Security will still be able to pay around 75 percent of promised benefits. And it’s worth noting that the same individuals who call for changes to protect the young also promise to protect current beneficiaries by forcing benefit reductions entirely on new beneficiaries—that is, by cutting the benefits of the same younger generations they claim to be protecting. These are unnecessary choices that other nations aren’t making—countries that spend more on seniors also spend more on children.

Social Security should be expanded now; not just for today’s seniors, but for millennials as well. The program was created in response to economic circumstances similar to those that have shaped the formative years of today’s young workers: the Great Depression. Social Security was a cornerstone of the New Deal, a range of policies which created jobs, invested in national infrastructure, regulated big banks, and protected workers’ rights. Similarly, expanding Social Security should be a cornerstone of an agenda for young workers, accompanying policies such as raising the minimum wage, closing the gender pay gap, and adopting paid family leave. Not only would these policies improve the economic security of today’s young workers; many of them would help to improve Social Security’s long-range solvency as well.

Most importantly, millennials recognize that Social Security is a symbol of intergenerational solidarity, in which workers make contributions to fund current benefits while earning vital insurance protections for themselves and their families. Nearly 7 in 10 millennials agree that “we should consider increasing Social Security benefits.” It’s time for policymakers to listen to them, and expand Social Security for all generations of Americans.

Fortunately, earlier this month at the Center for American Progress, the U.S. Department of Labor announced its final fiduciary rule that would require financial professionals who advise on how to invest retirement savings to act in their clients’ best interest. The fiduciary rule is much more than an obscure legal concept—it’s a commonsense action that closes 40-year-old loopholes in retirement security laws that were left open by Congress. It also returns at least $17 billion a year to American families.

Granted, struggling families are not likely to have access to retirement funds and financial advisers, so some may wonder how this helps low-income Americans. The fact is that faulty advice can leave individuals in poverty when they retire, even if they were able to save for retirement during their working years.

For example, Ruby H. of Philadelphia scrimped for 17 years to put aside $5,000 for retirement, and an adviser helped her grow that amount to $17,000. But when her adviser switched firms, he changed her investments into the ones most advantageous to him, and she lost everything. And Phil Ashburn lost the bulk of his savings after he spent 30 years working for utility companies: first Western Electric in 1972, and finally Pacific Bell. Offered a buyout in 2002, he was recommended to a financial adviser who put the value of his savings—about $355,000—in an expensive variable annuity. However, he ended up with only about 20 percent of those savings following the Great Recession. Meanwhile, the adviser received a commission of roughly 7 percent and ended up making $900,000 that year.

These stories are a painful reminder of why workers face such bleak prospects for retirement. Forty years ago, when the rules on retirement advice were first written, most workers didn’t have to worry about whether they were getting good advice because they weren’t expected to plan for their own retirement. The vast majority of workers with a retirement plan had traditional pensions, which rewarded a lifetime of work with monthly payments for life. There was no need to wade through different investment options and savings strategies. But today, with the erosion of pensions and advent of options that are far less secure, more than half of all working-age households are considered inadequately prepared for retirement, up from 31 percent in 1983.

The rule also reminds us why Social Security is so crucial, particularly in this era of financial uncertainty. Social Security brings the incomes of more than nearly 15 million elderly above the poverty line, cutting senior poverty by three-quarters. And for roughly two-thirds of the elderly, Social Security provides the majority of their retirement income. Future retirees need the assurance that Social Security will be there even if their savings, or their financial adviser, aren’t up to par. Thankfully, as Senator Brian Schatz (D-HI) noted during the Department of Labor’s announcement, cutting Social Security is no longer mainstream: “How much should we cut Social Security is such a preposterous proposition except on K Street, except among pundits.”

But while Social Security is safe for now, this fiduciary rule is under attack by some financial firms and their conservative allies. This disagreement isn’t unexpected. As Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) has pointed out, there are “17 billion reasons” why special interests oppose the rule—that is, the $17 billion returned to the American people. In fact, from the beginning of discussions around the rule, some industry players have called it unworkable, argued that their voices were not heard, or threatened to sue. House Speaker Paul Ryan has also derided the rule, calling it “Obamacare for financial planning” and seeking to undo it. Given that his stated concern for the poor has often been accompanied by policy proposals to make drastic cuts to the safety net, perhaps this is not surprising. But, as the Department of Labor has stepped in to close loopholes of Congress’ own making after decades of improper financial advice, rolling back the fiduciary rule now will only increase retirees’ vulnerability in the coming years.

Some opponents have even gone so far as to claim that the reform will diminish working families’ access to financial advice because some advisers may stop working with less profitable savers if they cannot charge as much. But the fact is that most working families with small amounts of savings are not served by advisers today to begin with, and may have less trust in the advice that’s given in the first place. This same argument about access is a common defense for other predatory products—whether payday loans or for-profit colleges—in which the real question about access is whether companies can keep their access to the vulnerable consumers whom they grift. Meanwhile, new firms are offering independent, nonconflicted advice at a fraction of the cost, proving that it can indeed be done without ripping off current or future retirees.

This rule is a stark reminder for members of Congress to decide which side they are on: that of savers or of special interests. If they stand with Secretary Tom Perez and those who came out in favor of the rule, they have the opportunity to prevent bad financial advice from cheating more families out of their retirement dollars.

Contrast that with Congress, where every Member and millions of federal employees are able to take advantage of what is known as the Thrift Savings Plan (TSP). The TSP helps ensure a secure retirement through automatic enrollment; simple, easy-to-understand, investment options; and low fees—all of which are proven to increase retirement savings.

If federal workers can have this plan, then why can’t American workers? Giving every worker who lacks an employer-provided retirement savings plan access to a plan like the TSP is a no-brainer.

That’s exactly why one of us, Senator Merkley, recently unveiled the American Savings Act, a major new piece of legislation that is based on the effective TSP model and mirrors many policy recommendations from the Center for American Progress Action Fund. It would ensure that if an employer doesn’t already offer a retirement plan, each of its workers automatically would be given his or her own American Savings Account (ASA). Initially, the employer would put 3 percent of a worker’s earnings into the account with each paycheck, but individuals could choose to adjust the contribution or to opt out entirely. Employers would simply send employees’ ASA savings to the federal government alongside employee tax withholdings. Americans who are self-employed would have the option to open an ASA at any time.

These accounts would also benefit workers by featuring the same sensible investment options that are offered to federal employees. Workers would control their own accounts directly through a website, and an independent board of directors would manage the investment of the funds.

This legislation would make a big difference in the lives of millions of Americans who are currently struggling to save for retirement, which is why it is endorsed by groups representing seniors, workers and small businesses—including AARP, UNITE HERE, and the Main Street Alliance. The Center for American Progress Action Fund found that a worker saving under a similar plan would be more than twice as likely to have a secure retirement than a worker contributing the same amount to a typical 401(k) plan—to say nothing of the difference between a worker with this kind of plan and one with no retirement savings at all.

That’s not to say that expanding access to retirement plans is a silver bullet solution to the retirement crisis. We also need to strengthen Social Security. But Social Security was never intended to be the sole source of income for retirees, which is why we need to also make it easier for Americans to set aside and build savings that can supplement their Social Security income.

When workers do not have access to a retirement plan at their workplace—either because their employer doesn’t offer one or because of the nature of their work—they are unlikely to save for retirement. Expanding access in the manner called for under the American Savings Act would help shore up our retirement system—which, ever since the decline of private-sector pensions, has increasingly failed to meet the needs of a significant part of our workforce.

It shouldn’t matter whether you’re a Member of Congress, or you work part-time or full-time for a huge corporation or a small business: every American worker deserves access to a financially secure retirement.

Social Security works. No one runs out of benefits, and payments don’t rise and fall with the stock market. Despite scare tactics from Republicans in Congress, the facts are clear. Social Security has a $2.8 trillion surplus. If we do nothing, Social Security will be safe for the next 18 years, and after that will continue to pay three-quarters of benefits through the end of the century.

Of course, we don’t have to sit by and to do nothing. Since its beginning, Social Security has been adjusted from time to time, and that’s what we need to do now. With some modest adjustments, it is possible to keep the system solvent for decades more, even while increasing benefits.

For the millions of Americans who rely on Social Security, the situation got worse this year. For just the third time since 1975, seniors who receive Social Security—along with many who receive veterans’ benefits, Social Security disability benefits, and other monthly payments—aren’t receiving any annual increase from their cost of living adjustment (COLA). CEOs at the top 350 American companies received, on average, a 3.9 percent pay increase last year. But seniors and veterans? Not a dime more.

That’s why a group of us in Congress have introduced the Seniors and Veterans Emergency Benefits Act (SAVE Benefits Act). This bill would give a one-time payment of $581 to those people who aren’t receiving a COLA this year—a raise equal to the 3.9 percent pay increase the top CEOs received.

Social Security payments average only about $1,340 a month—and millions of seniors who rely on those checks are barely scraping by. A $581 increase could cover almost three months of groceries for seniors or a year’s worth of out-of-pocket costs on critical prescription drugs for the average Medicare beneficiary. That $50 a month is worth a heck of a lot to the 70 million Americans who would have just a little more in their pockets as a result of this bill. In fact, according to an analysis from the Economic Policy Institute, that little boost could lift more than one million Americans out of poverty.

For too long in Washington, Social Security has been under assault. We’ve heard over and over that we supposedly need to gut the program in order to “save” it. But for the 21 million Americans whose Social Security benefits are the only thing keeping them out of poverty, Social Security isn’t a luxury—it’s a lifeline. The absolute last thing we should do—at the very moment that Social Security has become so essential to millions of our seniors—is to allow the program to be dismantled inch by inch.

This isn’t just an argument about math, though. This is about our values—about how we protect each other, our families, and ourselves. In an uncertain world, protection against long-term disability and a guaranteed income for the families of survivors are core parts of the anti-poverty safety net that our Social Security system provides. And, equally important, after a lifetime of hard work, people deserve to retire with dignity—and that means protecting and expanding Social Security.

In recent years, low and non-existent cost-of-living adjustments (“COLAs”) have been gradually eroding the value of Social Security benefits. These COLAs are calculated using an inflation measure that is intended to reflect costs faced by workers. The measure does not accurately account for costs faced by seniors and Americans with disabilities, who spend a far higher percentage of their income on health care.

To the wealthy few, the extra $40 or $50 a month from a COLA increase might not seem like a big deal. But to elderly Social Security beneficiaries, this increase is much-needed income that they can use to put food on the table and pay for lifesaving prescriptions.

That’s why Social Security’s 59 million beneficiaries were devastated to hear the news that, for only the third time in 40 years, there will be no COLA in 2016. They know that the cost of basic necessities, including medical care, prescription drugs, food, and housing, has continued to increase. But their benefits are not increasing accordingly and are losing their purchasing power. If this trend continues, younger generations will have effectively lower benefits, even though the decline of pensions and rising inequality means that they will be even more reliant on these benefits than their parents and grandparents are.

And this isn’t just hurting Social Security beneficiaries. The same formula is used to calculate the COLA for many other programs, including Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and various veterans’ benefits including Disability Compensation benefits, pension benefits, and Military Retirement Pay. For the millions of Americans—particularly veterans—who receive Social Security as well as one or more of these other benefits, a year without a COLA is a double or triple whammy.

Get Talk Poverty In Your Inbox

But there is hopeful news. Senator Elizabeth Warren, a longtime champion of Social Security, is on the case. She is sponsoring the SAVE Benefits act, a bill—already supported by twenty of her colleagues—which would send every Social Security beneficiary (as well as others impacted by the lack of a COLA) a one-time payment of about $581 to cover next year’s lack of a COLA increase.

That payment would make a serious difference in the lives of millions of beneficiaries. For many seniors, it could cover over three months of groceries. For others, it may cover the average Medicare out-of-pocket spending on prescription drugs. It’s no surprise that the SAVE Benefits Act would lift over one million Americans out of poverty.

Senator Warren’s bill is fully funded by closing the “performance pay” loophole, which allows big corporations to take a tax deduction for the lavish compensation packages they give their wealthy CEOs. This loophole costs taxpayers about $9.7 billion dollars every year. The SAVE Benefits Act uses some of these savings to provide the 70 million Americans who are not receiving a COLA with the much-needed $581 checks. The rest would go into the Social Security trust fund to bolster the program’s long-term actuarial balance.

Passing the SAVE Benefits Act is an essential step, but it is only the first step. To permanently address the gradual erosion of Social Security benefits, Congress must pass legislation adopting an updated measurement tailored to reflect the real living costs (such as high health care expenses) that seniors and Americans with disabilities face, for calculating future COLAs. And to permanently tackle our country’s looming retirement income crisis, and address the millions of seniors and people with disabilities already living in poverty, Congress must expand Social Security’s modest benefits.

This is a powerful movement that is gaining momentum every day. The American people overwhelmingly support expanding Social Security’s benefits by requiring the wealthiest Americans to pay their fair share. Forty-three Senators and over 100 U.S. Representatives have pledged to support expanding benefits, not cutting them.

Social Security has been a resounding success for over 80 years. Now is the time to build upon that legacy.

Et tu, Orange is the New Black?

The Netflix drama is back with a third season, and if you’re like me, it monopolized the better part of the last two weekends. The show deserves credit for sparking dialogue and increasing awareness about mass incarceration in the U.S., particularly among people who hadn’t previously considered criminal justice reform to be their thing.

The show’s typically smart writing and masterful treatment of a serious and complex topic made the first episode all the more disappointing.

One of the very first scenes of the third season is a flashback to the character Pennsatucky’s childhood. We watch as her mother forces her to chug an entire two-liter bottle of Mountain Dew. Pan right to the sign showing us that they’re at the Social Security Administration office. Then we hear Mom say, with a young Pennsatucky now bouncing off the walls behind her, “So I understand, Supplemental Security Income benefits for kids like mine are $314 a month, is that right?”

The implication is clear: Mom is attempting to simulate the symptoms of ADHD in her child in order to fraudulently obtain SSI benefits.

Get Talk Poverty In Your Inbox

This scene caused me to have several flashbacks of my own. First, to the mid-1990s, when a flurry of media reports accused parents of “coaching” their children to “act disabled” in order to feign eligibility for SSI benefits. The “crazy checks” media frenzy, as it came to be known, spurred Congress to narrow the program’s eligibility rules, causing more than 100,000 children with disabilities to lose critically needed benefits. The media claims were later shown to be baseless, but the damage had already been done, and Congress had already legislated by anecdote.

I also flashed back to 2010, when media allegations accused parents of seeking psychotropic medications for their children in hopes of SSI eligibility. These claims were similarly debunked after multiple investigations. But again, the media allegations rang loudly in the halls of Congress, leading to hearings and yet more proposals to cut SSI.

My head swirling, I was next transported to 2012, when New York Times columnist Nick Kristof sparked yet another kids’ SSI media hubbub by accusing parents of pulling their kids out of literacy programs in order to obtain SSI benefits. Mr. Kristof’s claims that the program incents parents to keep their kids from learning to read were similarly unsupported by the facts—but that didn’t stop NPR from doubling down on his claims with their own (widely discredited) “reporting” just a few months later. Legislation that would kick young people with disabilities off of SSI if they miss school is now pending in Congress.

Each set of media allegations—as well as the disappointing OITNB scene—reflects a continued lack of understanding of mental impairments. They perpetuate the stereotype that if you have a visible physical impairment, you’re ‘truly disabled,’ but if you have an invisible mental disorder, your impairment is somehow less real, or less legitimate.

What’s more, each set of media attacks—as well as the OITNB scene—reflects vast ignorance about the SSI program, perpetuating the myth that it’s easy to get benefits. Getting hyped up on a caffeinated drink before you walk into the Social Security office may make for entertaining TV, but it won’t get you anything in real life.

SSI serves as a vital lifeline for families caring for children with disabilities. It makes it possible for families to care for their children with disabilities at home and in their communities, instead of in costly and isolating institutions. Only children with the most severe impairments and illnesses qualify for SSI. The majority of children who apply are denied, and fewer than 1 in 4 U.S. children with disabilities receive benefits.

Raising a child with a disability is extraordinarily expensive. Families caring for children with disabilities are more than twice as likely as other families with children to face material hardships such as homelessness, food insecurity, and utility shutoff. The financial support that SSI provides helps to offset some of the commonly incurred costs, including special therapies, diapers for older children, adaptive equipment, and transportation to doctors and specialists, many of which are not covered by insurance or have high copays. SSI benefits also replace a portion of lost income when a parent must stay home or reduce her hours to care for a child.ADHD is a neurobiological disorder that affects 5 to 8 percent of school-age children.

But only the most severely impaired children are eligible for SSI. More than 75 percent of children with ADHD who apply for benefits are denied, and just 4 percent of U.S. children with ADHD receive SSI.

Moreover, qualifying for SSI on the basis of ADHD—or any other mental or physical impairment—requires extensive medical evidence from approved medical sources (including physicians and specialists) documenting the severe impairment as well as its resulting symptoms. A child’s impairment must result in marked and severe functional limitations and must be expected to last at least 12 months or to result in death.

In fairness to Orange is the New Black, the show is fiction. Unlike the media frenzies over the years, it didn’t claim to be reporting the facts. But, as with the latest season of House of Cards, which was infused with “real-world lies” about Social Security—it’s “sucking us dry”… “entitlements are bankrupting us”—the silver screen’s treatment of important public policy issues has a very real, and potentially destructive, impact. (Coincidentally or not, House of Cards is also produced by Netflix.)

Media portrayals that reinforce myths about mental disorders do us a significant disservice and contribute to the harmful denial of mental illness that persists even in the 21st century. Media portrayals that reinforce negative stereotypes about vital programs and the individuals helped by them are similarly dangerous, sowing the seeds for cuts that will make vulnerable people’s lives all the more difficult.

However, when it comes to an increasing population of low-to-no-income seniors, many preventative measures come too late.  Education and retraining initiatives, savings plans, and job creation programs won’t help someone in her 70s or 80s who is struggling just to cover room and board after a lifetime of low-wage labor.

But it’s not too late to protect the rights of seniors to a basic living.

For this growing demographic of aging poor, we cannot hold up our hands and say we should have helped them 50 years ago, or helped their parents a century ago. We must, and we can, take action.  By updating the federal safety-net programs we already have in place, we can move towards an economically stable future for people as they age.

Here is a 5-step plan to fight senior poverty:

Strengthen the existing safety net. Senior poverty would be much worse without Social Security, the Supplemental Security Income program, and Medicare and Medicaid. These programs are almost single-handedly responsible for reducing the official measure of senior poverty from 35 percent in 1960 to 9 percent today. But seniors today are rapidly losing ground. Proposals to cut Social Security benefits, increase Medicare cost-sharing for beneficiaries, or limit Medicaid coverage should all be rejected. Instead lawmakers must advance proposals to ensure that these benefits meet the growing need.

Improve the Supplemental Security Income program. The poorest two million people over age 65 receive SSI payments, but the rate of seniors in extreme poverty is increasing in part because this program — originally intended to lift all seniors out of poverty — has not been significantly updated since it was first passed in 1972. As a result, SSI essentially still leaves millions of the country’s most needy seniors in poverty. The maximum federal benefit for an individual is $721 per month (though some states kick-in a small supplement), but to be eligible a senior must have less than $2,000 in savings. In addition to the limit on savings, the SSI income disregard limits the amount of income someone can have from another source, such as from a pension or Social Security benefit, and still receive SSI. But the current SSI income disregard allows for only $20 of additional general income or $65 of earned income before there is a reduction in benefits. Updating the SSI income disregard would mean just a little more money for people for whom every dollar counts. The Supplemental Security Restoration Income Act, poised for reintroduction in Congress this spring, offers an opportunity to modernize the program.

Increase the availability of programs that provide assistance with healthcare and long-term care costs. One of the drivers of seniors’ economic vulnerability is the rising cost of health care. Proposals that would shift more of those costs to seniors will only drive more seniors into poverty. Instead, the health care programs that are designed to help the poorest seniors afford their health care – Medicaid, Medicare Savings Programs, and the Medicare Part D Low-Income Subsidy – should be expanded, and out-of-pocket costs should be reduced or eliminated.

Get Talk Poverty In Your Inbox

Push for federal support for the long-term care safety net. With 10,000 Americans turning 65 every day, the number of people needing long-term care coverage is projected to rise from 12 million today to 27 million in 2050. Few seniors are prepared to pay for the costs of long-term care. For poor and economically vulnerable seniors, proposals that rely on them to save more of their already inadequate incomes in order to cover these costs are simply unrealistic. Public programs must be strengthened and modified to meet long-term care needs and to encourage the provision of more home- and community- based services.

Reauthorize the Older Americans Act (OAA). The OAA provides funding for critical services that seniors rely on to remain independent and healthy. Services include meals, benefit counseling, caregiver support, transportation, health promotion, legal services, and more. While these services are not always limited to poor older adults, seniors in poverty rely on them heavily to make ends meet and to ensure that their basic needs are met. It is time for Congress to renew its commitment to providing seniors with essential social services by reauthorizing the Older Americans Act.

We have done a great job reducing senior poverty in our nation. The next steps we must take are clear, and millions of seniors are relying on us to do the right thing and take action now.

Still, one in ten is far too high. Moreover, despite the passage of landmark civil rights and equal pay legislation in the 1960s, substantial gender, racial and ethnic gaps remain among older Americans living below the poverty line. As the accompanying graphic shows, older adult women are generally at a considerably greater risk of living in poverty than elderly men. Elder white, non-Latino women are nearly twice as likely to live in poverty as white men.

Click on the chart to see an expanded version

Click on the chart to see an expanded version

Similarly, older adult blacks, Latinos, Asians, and Native Americans all have much higher poverty rates than white, non-Hispanic elders. The gap is greatest for older Latinos, who are nearly three times as likely to live in poverty as older white, non-Latinos.

There are also significant gaps by race and ethnicity in retirement savings and wealth. Gaps in wealthy by race and ethnicity are much larger than the income gaps. Researchers at the Urban Institute have documented that among today’s seniors, the average family wealthy wealth for white, non-Hispanics is roughly ten times that of blacks and Latinos.

Why do these gaps exist? To a large extent, they reflect policy-driven disparities in the labor market experiences and living standards of elders during their working lives. Compared to white workers, Hispanic and black workers are much more likely to earn poverty-level wages and lack health insurance, retirement and other employer benefits. Even today, women working full-time make only 78 cents for every dollar men earn working full-time earn. While this gender wage narrowed considerably in the 1980s and 1990s, it has improved little over the past decade. By and large, gender and racial gaps in wages are not explained by differences in education, for both African Americans and women, the gaps exist among those with similar levels of education

The case of Evelyn Coke, who sued to reverse a loophole in federal labor regulations that exempted home-care agencies from having to pay overtime, provides a stark example of policy-driven disparities can have a disproportionate effect on women and people of color. Coke, a mother of five who died recently at age 74, worked as a home health care aide for decades after immigrating to the United States from Jamaica. Despite regularly working more than 40 hours per week, Coke’s wages remained very low, about $7 an hour, and she received neither overtime pay nor health benefits.

Like Coke, home care workers—and many other workers in care-related jobs that pay low wages and provided limited or no benefits—are disproportionately women and people of color. Last year the Department of Labor extended minimum wage and overtime protections to home care workers who had previously been excluded, but the home care industry has mounted a federal court challenge to the fair pay requirement.

Beyond modest steps like this, broader disparities in pay and benefits mostly remain unaddressed. These disparities mean women and people of color have less money, if any, socked away at retirement. And, because retirees’ initial Social Security benefit levels are set based on their average earnings, there are disparities in the benefits they receive. For example, both women and people of color are overrepresented among the 1 in 5 Social Security beneficiaries—who receive sub-poverty benefits when they retire.

In addition to wage gaps, time spent caring for children or other family members contribute to these gaps. Caregivers don’t receive any credit from Social Security for the unpaid caregiving they provide, making them more likely to not be eligible at all or have lower benefits. As Sara Moore, an 80-year Chicagoan provided years of care to a disabled father and other family members put it, “I put my family first, but all my years of caregiving amounted to zero wages and zero contributions toward Social Security. [Now] I receive less than $1,000 a month in Social Security benefits which is barely enough for me to survive.”

Get Talk Poverty In Your Inbox

Greater longevity also increases women’s poverty risk because health-related expenses increase over time, and the likelihood of losing one’s partner increases. As a consequence, in 2013, there were more women age 75 and up living in poverty (nearly 1.5 million) than there were elderly men of any age below the poverty line.

So what can we do to close these gaps? First, we need to boost wages and benefits for poorly compensated workers, including by increasing the minimum wage and equal pay for women. Higher, fairer wages would mean a better retirement for today’s poorly compensated workers. Second, Social Security should be strengthened in ways that improve coverage and benefit adequacy for workers who are poorly compensated, including by increasing the minimum benefit and providing at least some credit for unpaid care work

Finally, we need to modernize and improve means-tested programs that supplement Social Security (or provide the only income) for elderly people living in poverty, including Supplemental Security Income, the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program and housing assistance.

In particular, federal policymakers need to reform Supplemental Security’s woefully outdated rules that strictly limit the amount of income and assets that seniors receiving benefits can have. For example, in SSI, a very low-income senior living alone is ineligible for help if they have more than $2,000 in assets, an amount that has barely budged since the SSI was created in the early 1970s.

In short, addressing the gender and racial gaps in elderly poverty requires concerted action on multiple fronts. This may seem like a lot, but when you consider the consequences—millions of elderly Americans who have little to show for years of hard work—it’s the least we can do.

Originally published in Aging Today, January –February 2015. Copyright © 2015 American Society on Aging; all rights reserved. This article may not be duplicated, reprinted or distributed in any form without written permission from the publisher: American Society on Aging, 575 Market St., Suite 2100, San Francisco, CA 94105-2869; e-mail: info@asaging.org. For information about ASA’s publications visit www.asaging.org/publications. For information about ASA membership visit www.asaging.org/join.

This commonsense step is called reallocation, a simple budgetary fix that temporarily changes the share of the payroll tax dedicated to each of the Social Security trust funds—the retirement fund and the disability fund. It’s a common procedure that has helped the Social Security programs deal with temporary shortfalls in both funds 11 times in the past. The current shortfall to Disability Insurance was long-anticipated—a result of changing demographics which include aging baby boomers and women entering the workforce in greater numbers in the 70s and 80s.

Reallocation offers a sure fix that has worked time and again. That’s why leading aging and disability organizations all strongly oppose the new rule – including AARP, the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, Social Security Works, NOSSCR (of which I am the Executive Director) and more. A group of Senators immediately responded by sending a letter to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, urging him to “forcibly reject” the House Republican rule.

 “Holding hostage the Social Security benefits of any American, particularly those of the 9 million Americans with disabilities who are at risk in the coming years, is an untenable proposition.”

The truth is that this Congressional politicking comes at the expense of the millions of Americans who rely on the Social Security Disability program, established over half a century ago to serve as a vital lifeline for those with serious illnesses and disabilities.

One recent story from a beneficiary illustrates clearly how people will be affected if automatic benefit cuts kick in as a result of the House rule. Abby (name changed) was diagnosed with Type I diabetes and started requiring insulin when she was 15 years-old. Even with her health challenges, she graduated from high school and had a successful, decades-long secretarial career.

Although Abby stayed very fit, paid close attention to her diet and managed the disease for 40 years, diabetes began to interfere with her ability to work due to the onset of new complications, including episodes of extreme confusion and passing out due to hypoglycemia. As a result, Abby was no longer able to work and consequently lost her medical insurance. Despite repeated attempts to return to work, she was unable to keep her blood sugar under control.

Abby initially filed for Social Security coverage and was denied. While her case was pending, she had many more blackout episodes and made the hard decision to stop driving for safety reasons. She did not have enough money to pay for a specialist who could get her symptoms under control. She feared passing out in public and having to pay for an ambulance, so she rarely left her home. She passed out on a regular basis, waking up with no recollection of what happened or how long she’d been out.

After two years of waiting, Abby had her Social Security hearing, and, with the help of an experienced Social Security Disability attorney, she was approved for coverage. This life changing decision means that she can now get health coverage, allowing her to see a diabetic specialist. And, she can afford an insulin pump and other supplies she needs on a daily basis.

Get TalkPoverty In Your Inbox

Abby worked and paid into the Social Security system for decades, and tried to keep working for as long as she could. Her story is one of millions, and shows why we need to protect the program from harmful cuts and politically motivated changes.

Congress needs to enhance and strengthen this vital program for the 11 million individuals who rely on it to help keep them out of poverty. In addition to reallocating money from the retirement and survivors’ trust fund, Congress also needs to fully fund the Social Security Administration. This will alleviate backlogs in processing claims and ensure sufficient funding for program integrity work. People like Abby shouldn’t have to wait two years for basic healthcare.

Social Security has been a hallmark of our nation’s social infrastructure for decades, and its values go well beyond dollars and cents. The program strengthens economic security and dignity for all Americans. It also provides a boost to local economies across the country. We’re calling on the new Congress to take action to preserve and fortify the program – for current and future generations – not by partisan politicking, but through sensible, commonsense reforms to support the American people. Consideration of any changes to this vital system must include the voices and views of people with disabilities as well as all Americans who may need Disability Insurance in the future.

Congress hasn’t been back even two weeks, and the conservative attacks on Social Security are already in full swing. As ThinkProgress reported last week, House conservatives kicked off the 114^th Congress—literally on Day One—with a midnight rule change that prohibits a routine rebalancing of the Social Security trust funds, effectively manufacturing a crisis and putting millions of Social Security beneficiaries at risk of needless benefit cuts.

The plot thickened further yesterday when Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) took aim at beneficiaries of Social Security Disability Insurance with a series of incredibly offensive remarks at a private meeting with legislative leaders in Manchester, NH. In a situation resembling Mitt Romney’s famous remarks about the “47 percent,” Senator Paul’s comments were caught on tape by American Bridge, a left-leaning PAC that conducts opposition research to aid progressive candidates:

If you look like me and you hop out of your truck, you shouldn’t be getting a disability check. Over half the people on disability are either anxious or their back hurts. Join the club. Who doesn’t get up a little anxious for work every day and their back hurts? Everyone over 40 has a back pain.

Senator Paul is just the latest conservative member of Congress to mock disabled workers for whom Social Security is a vital lifeline. But particularly coming on the heels of the dangerous rule change, the Senator’s remarks serve as a worrisome harbinger of what we can expect from conservatives in Congress in the coming weeks and months. So let’s get a few things straight. As Shawn Fremstad and I have written for the Center for American Progress, and in numerous outlets such as ThinkProgress, National Journal, and others:

The Social Security disability standard is among the strictest in the developed world—and most applications are denied. According to the OECD, the U.S. disability benefit system is the most restrictive and least generous of all member countries, except for Korea. Fewer than four in ten applicants are approved, even after all stages of appeal. Beneficiaries have severe impairments and illnesses like cancers, congestive heart failure, kidney failure, multiple sclerosis, emphysema, and severe mental illness. Many have multiple impairments. Medical evidence is the cornerstone of the disability determination process, and in most cases, medical evidence from multiple medical professionals is required to establish eligibility.

Social Security Disability Insurance is coverage that workers earn. To be insured for benefits, an individual must have worked and paid into the system. Both workers and employers pay for Social Security through payroll tax contributions. Workers currently pay 6.2 percent of the first $118,500 of their earnings each year, and employers pay the same amount up to the same cap. Of that 6.2 percent, 5.3 percent currently goes to the Old Age and Survivors Insurance, or OASI, trust fund, and 0.9 percent to the Disability Insurance trust fund.

Few beneficiaries are able to work. According to data from just before the onset of the recent economic downturn, some 16.9 percent of disability beneficiaries worked at some point during the year. Of those who worked, fewer than 3 percent earned more than $10,000 during the year – hardly enough to live on. This comes as no surprise given that many beneficiaries are very sick, or even terminally ill – one in five male and one in six female Disability Insurance beneficiaries die within five years of receiving benefits, and beneficiaries are three to five times more likely to die than other people their age. Further underscoring the strictness of the Social Security disability standard, even workers who have been denied Disability Insurance fare extremely poorly in the labor market. A recent study found that among people whose Disability Insurance applications were denied, the vast majority—70 percent to 80 percent—went on to earn less than $1,000 per month. But for those who are able or want to try to return to work, Social Security’s disability programs are designed to encourage work.

Disability benefits are incredibly modest, but vital. Disability Insurance benefits average $1,140 a month, just over the austere federal poverty level for a single person, or about $35 per day. Disability Insurance typically replaces less than half of an individual’s previous earnings. While the program’s benefits are modest, it keeps more than four million people with disabilities out of poverty each year. For 80 percent of beneficiaries, Disability Insurance is their main source of income. For one-third it is their only source of income.

Social Security Disability Insurance provides protection most of us could never afford on the private market. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, just one in three private sector workers have access to employer-provided long-term disability insurance, and plans are often less adequate than Social Security. Access is especially limited for low-wage workers—only 7 percent of workers making under $12 an hour have employer-provided plans. In contrast, Social Security Disability Insurance protects more than 9 out of 10 American workers and their families in the event of a life-changing disability or illness that prevents substantial work. A young worker starting a career today has a one-in-three chance of either dying or needing to turn to Disability Insurance before reaching his or her full Social Security retirement age of 67.

As progressives, we don’t let people get away with denying the facts about climate change. It’s long past time to send a message to conservatives that this kind of offensive, fact-free rhetoric about Social Security disability won’t fly either.

It should therefore come as no surprise that 1 in 5 women over age 65 who lives alone in America is living in poverty.  Yet it isn’t even on the political or media radar. I’m talking about women who must make daily choices between heat and medicine—who consider suicide on a regular basis, like the women in this video.

Sandy, Myrtle, Lidia, and Dolly agreed to share the struggles they face in their daily lives in the hope that if enough people learned the truth and spoke out about it, politicians would be forced to listen and to act on behalf of low-income seniors by preserving and expanding the programs that help these women survive – Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, and the Supplemental Security Income program.

The life events that led these women to their current situations could happen to many women we know. They are not unusual, just everyday misfortunes and disappointments—magnified by age and economic vulnerability.

Like many poor Native American women of her generation, Dollie received only limited formal education. She came to California from Oklahoma with her family as a child and had to quit school and go to work when her father became ill. Her lack of formal education led to a lifetime of low-wage, physically demanding jobs that made saving impossible. Because many of those jobs were “off-the-books” she didn’t build the work history necessary to qualify for Social Security. She now relies on her monthly Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefit of $877 to survive.

Sandy had a good job as a registered nurse, and a middle class standard of living. She lost her husband and her ability to work her physically demanding job around the same time, leaving her with no income. Because she had a good job, she receives just enough Social Security to be disqualified from means based assistance like Medicaid and subsidized housing.  As a result she spends a large percentage of her monthly income on rent, leaving little money to cover food or her Medicare copayments and premiums.

Lidia came to the U.S. from Cuba as a child. For 20 years she ran her own barbershop business, while she raised a family, bought a home, worked hard, and thrived. She became too ill to cut hair about the same time as the housing market collapsed. She lost her home and unknowingly signed away her rights to her ex-husband’s police pension, depriving herself of around $1,800 per month in benefits. Today she lives in subsidized senior housing, struggles to afford food, and tries to avoid relying too much on her children for help.

Myrtle had a good job and a big plan for travel when she retired. Then she got injured at the workplace and had to go on disability.  Her husband then divorced her. She managed to keep her home, but she struggles daily with medical and other expenses on her limited Social Security Income benefit.

Get TalkPoverty In Your Inbox

These women and growing numbers of others like them have nothing to rely on but the limited and increasingly threatened social safety net programs—like Medicaid and SSI. We all need to fight hard to preserve and expand these programs—especially with a new Congress that appears committed to reducing the assistance these programs provide.

The solutions to senior poverty are well within our grasp. As a country we have the ability to ensure that every senior has access to a safe place to live, healthy food to eat, and affordable, accessible medical care—in essence the right to age in dignity. The first step is to highlight the problem by sharing the stories of those who are suffering, then we can fight hard to preserve and expand the services they rely on to survive. Please start by sharing this blog and video.

A total of 6.4 million people age 65 and over (15 percent of all people 65 and over) are living in poverty, according to the U.S. Census Supplemental Poverty Measure. That’s 6.4 million of our mothers, fathers, uncles, aunts, grandmothers, and grandfathers who struggle daily to afford food and rent, to access needed health care and long-term services and supports, to remain connected to their families and their communities.

Older women of color are especially impacted by poverty. Twice as many women as men live in poverty and the numbers of women living in extreme poverty has increased by 20 percent since 2011.  Under the official poverty rate (which actually undercounts poverty’s impact on the nation’s seniors), over 20 percent of black and Hispanic older women live in poverty.

As has been widely reported, the demographics of our country are changing.  Every day 10,000 people in America turn 65.  By 2030 there will be 72 million seniors living in America.  If the current poverty rate of 15 percent among this group holds, there will be more than 11 million seniors living in poverty just 16 years from now.

Unfortunately, in the future, poverty rates among seniors may actually be higher for a number of reasons.

A Changed Economy

In the last 30 years, wages have stagnated.  Saving has become more difficult for working Americans.  Company-paid pensions are being phased out for most workers and there is nothing to replace them. The impact of these changes on families and working-age individuals is serious and it will only increase as they reach retirement.  Also, having a lower-income during working years means a decreased ability to save and, ultimately, less support and fewer resources later in life.

An Economic Recovery That Didn’t Reach Many

The recent recession created an additional set of problems for seniors and near seniors. For example, because of the housing crisis, many people aged 50 to 65 lost equity in their homes. People in this age group also are among the most likely to have lost a job and had trouble finding a new one. They may have had to live off of whatever savings or retirement funds they had while they were unemployed. Facing economic struggles, they were more likely to take Social Security benefits early, which decreases the value of their benefits over time.

The rising costs of health care present a serious financial challenge to retirees who have little retirement income or savings. Add to that the fact that at least 70 percent of seniors will require some type of long-term services and supports in their lifetime and few have the ability to afford it, and it’s clear that a senior poverty crisis is imminent.

What Kind of Society Do De Want to Live in?

Before Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid were adopted, the poverty rate among seniors in our country neared 40 percent.  Returning to those levels of poverty among the oldest members of our communities would be catastrophic for seniors, families, and the economy.

But that’s exactly where we might be headed if we adopt the narrative of cable news shows, budget-cutting lawmakers, and television commercials that suggest American seniors are doing just fine. Instead we must educate our friends, families, colleagues, and policymakers.  We need them to know that a growing number of seniors are facing an economically insecure future—and that cutting programs like Social Security, SSI, Medicare, and Medicaid will only exacerbate the problem.

So now you know: senior poverty is a real and growing problem in America. If you want to live in a society in which people can age in dignity and no senior has to decide between food and the medicine they need, let’s start talking about senior poverty. Help build the momentum necessary to preserve and expand access to health care, long-term services and support, social services, and economic security programs for the millions of low-income seniors who struggle among us.

Caregivers like Sara should not have to sacrifice dignity in their own retirement to take care of family – be it an aging parent, a child, or a relative with disabilities.

Today, New York Congresswoman Nita Lowey is introducing a bill in Congress that would address this injustice.  Groups across the country like the Center for Community Change Action, the National Council of Women’s Organizations, and others, are rallying around the bill which would provide an earnings credit in the Social Security benefit calculation while an individual is caring for a child under a certain age, a disabled family member, or a senior in need of care.

Tonight you can hear from Rep. Lowey and others about this important issue by joining a teletown hall that starts at 7:30pm ET.

Family comes first – whether it’s your aging Mom who gets more opinionated every day or the newborn you swear already smiles, providing for your family is not negotiable.  When it becomes necessary to stay home and care for someone then our Social Security system should honor family by taking into account some of that lost time from the paid work force.

We are long overdue to recognize the largely female workforce of caregivers for the time, energy and effort required to care for loved ones outside of the paid workforce.  The hidden cost of caregiving is in the impact it has on working families who have to struggle to survive without a wage.  Millions of Americans like Sara Moore are doing the essential work of caregiving, and that number is growing. A caregiver credit is about honoring the time, effort and love that people put towards caregiving as work.  As more and more people in our country step up to do right by family as caregivers, it’s only right that their work be recognized in our Social Security system through a caregiver credit.

Even in a fractured Congress, Rep. Lowey’s bill should be something that garners supporters from both sides of the aisle.  Every one of us knows someone who has sacrificed to care for a loved one.  It’s time to truly honor those caregivers by lifting up women’s issues, expanding Social Security… and sponsoring Rep. Lowey’s bill.

UPDATE: Click to listen to Representative Lowey’s tele-town hall on this topic.