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The Social Security program is under attack and needs to be modernized and strengthened, according to a new report from Democrats on the Joint Economic Committee, which recommends policy to Congress. "Cuts to Social Security are not a credible solution to pay for the $1.9 trillion that Congressional Republicans have recently added to the deficit in passing their tax legislation," Sen. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico, the committee's ranking Democrat, said in a statement to CNBC. "We must ensure that our seniors are able to retire with dignity."
A 25 percent cut to Social Security would eliminate 2.3 million jobs and reduce economic output by $349 billion, according to a report released today by the Joint Economic Committee Democrats. The report says the elderly poverty rate would be four times higher without Social Security, plunging 15 million more Americans into poverty. Speaker Paul Ryan proposed cutting entitlement spending last December, but ran into resistance from Senate Republicans and House GOP moderates. Read the report here.
Women in the U.S. still experience a major gender wage gap, 55 years after the Equal Pay Act was passed, Business Insider reports. On average, American women earn 80 cents for every dollar their male counterparts earn, according to a report by the Senate Joint Economic Committee Democratic Staff. Their annual earnings are roughly $10,500 less than men. Women also make less than men regardless the educational difference between the two, per the report. “A woman with a graduate degree earns $5,000 less than a man with a bachelor’s degree,” the report says.
The report, “Real Action is Needed to Give American Workers the Raise They Deserve,” highlights that the real hourly wage for the median worker has only grown less than 0.2 percentage point per year on average since 1979. The Republican tax law does little to solve this problem, with 99.2 percent of the benefits going to the top 5 percent of households once it is fully implemented. Instead of leading to broadly shared wage gains, the tax bill is likely to exacerbate the trends we are already seeing.
Joint Economic Committee Democrats released today a report on the state of retirement in America. American workers are facing a crisis, the inability to retire with dignity after a life of hard work. Half of all American families near retirement have $12,000 or less in formal retirement savings. Congress should now focus on policies that broaden access to low cost, high-yield retirement savings options, strengthen Social Security, secure pension plans, and restore access to a stable and adequate retirement for an aging population.