Changes to Social Security could negatively affect women

The report, “Social Security Provides Economic Security to Women,” includes a state-by-state look at the 20.3 million women age 65 and older who receive Social Security benefits.

Nationally, women age 65 and older represent 9.8 percent of the adult population, with the elderly women’s share of the adult population ranging from a low of 5.3 percent in Alaska to a high of 12.4 percent in Florida, according to the report.  

Social Security benefits are based on lifetime earnings, with the average monthly benefit for women ranging from $891 in Louisiana to $1,126 in New Jersey.  

“Republican proposals that sound too good to be true are, in fact, not true, and will be devastating to women who depend on Social Security in their later years,” Maloney said. “It is just plain wrong to bet seniors’ retirement income on the performance of the stock market, as recent GOP proposals do. Social Security delivers an inflation-protected annuity. The Republican privatization proposals deliver risk and uncertainty.”

A key finding of another recent JEC report on Social Security is that privatizing the benefits would subject retirees to fluctuations in the performance of the stock market, with overall returns varying based on individual investment decisions.

For example, an annuity purchased in 2008 by a worker who had invested solely in the stock market over a 40-year work history would replace only 40 percent of his final income, down from an 87 percent replacement just two years earlier.  Thus, a worker expecting an annuity of $867 per month in 2006 would have received $399 per month if he retired in 2008.