A chorus of capitalist politicians, Democrats and Republicans alike, is warning that the Social Security system will become bankrupt in the coming years because of the growing numbers of older workers. Seventy-seven million “baby boomers” are approaching retirement by the end of the decade, and young workers will bear an undue burden caused by older generations, they argue.

The old myth of overpopulation, of too many babies, is being replaced by the new myth of “too many old people.”

In the name of “saving” Social Security, some in ruling-class circles, such as Federal Reserve chief Alan Greenspan, have proposed raising the retirement age. Others, such as President George Bush, play on workers’ insecurity about the future in proposing individual retirement accounts, which they claim would give people more control over their own retirement money. But such “savings” can evaporate during a sharp financial crisis.

Democratic presidential contender John Kerry, like Bush, disingenuously declares that he would not cut current Social Security benefits. But Kerry has not rejected the proposal—designed to pit younger against older workers—to cut benefits for those who will retire in the coming decades.

The renewed assault on Social Security builds on an earlier attack that the Clinton administration launched in 1996 with virtually no opposition: the elimination of “welfare as we know it.” Abolishing Aid to Families with Dependent Children was the biggest single success of the U.S. rulers in beginning to erode the federal social security system, a conquest won by working people through the struggles that built the industrial unions in the 1930s and substantially expanded through the mass civil rights movement of the 1960s. Shortly before the end of his term, Clinton bragged that 8 million people had been slashed from state welfare rolls. It was the first time an entire category of working people was eliminated from such a social entitlement.

Clinton’s Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act was passed during a period of economic recovery. With the expiration of the five-year welfare cutoff beginning in 2001, the first effects are now being felt, as millions exhaust their benefits. The majority of these workers have been pressed into near-minimum wage jobs with few if any health or pension benefits. With the next recession, the full impact of the lack of social protection will be felt among millions as unemployment rises and bosses push to cut wages and health insurance.

The capitalists view it as a “problem” that we are living longer. In the 1930s, life expectancy was below 65, so the government did not expect to have to pay more than a few years of Social Security benefits. Their hope is that after having squeezed as much labor out of us as possible for 50 or so years, we will die quickly and stop cutting into their profit margins.

The assault on the social wage is accompanied by a propaganda campaign to convince people that the conditions faced by the elderly are not a concern of younger or middle-aged workers. This is one of the various ways they try to tear up our class solidarity.

Social Security, Medicare, unemployment insurance, workers compensation, and other social benefits are simply a portion of the wealth that working people have created through their labor, and which workers have wrested from the bosses as a social right of all. These gains make it possible for workers to make it through a lifetime. They undercut the dog-eat-dog competition fostered by capitalism. The less such protection we have, the less confident we are and the more likely we will be to take a job for lower wages and worse conditions.

The labor movement must expose and campaign against the bipartisan attempt to end Social Security as we know it. It must also demand that, to protect working people against the ravages of the economic crisis, all social security, health care, unemployment, disability, welfare, and retirement payments be brought under a comprehensive, nationwide, government-guaranteed social security program for all.
 
 
Related articles:
Republicans prepare attack on Social Security  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home