Vision Circle

Disability and Survior Benefits

When social security reform is mentioned, I keep asking about survivor benefits and disability benefits.

I love the idea about having money in private accounts. But, that doesn't mean the plans shouldn't be investigated.

From Salon:

To begin with, there is no evidence that blacks, as a group, are cheated by Social Security. Yes, whites do live longer than blacks, which means that the average white woman will collect more benefit checks than the average black man. But, Baker points out, blacks also generally make less money than whites, which means that they get a higher rate of return on their contributions to the system. And because African-Americans suffer higher rates of disability than whites, they draw more from Social Security's disability benefits than whites. Meanwhile, spouses and minor children of African-Americans heavily depend on the system's survivor benefits. When economists have studied all that blacks put into the system compared with all they get out of it, Baker says, blacks, as a group, aren't being treated unfairly -- and they may even be doing better than whites.

I will have to look at the numbers to make a conclusion, although something tells me all of the numbers are cooked.

In a Social Security briefing paper, Shelton declares that "almost 80 percent of African Americans over age 65 depend on Social Security for more than half of their income, and more than half rely on it for 90 percent or more of their income." Basically, she writes, "without the guaranteed Social Security benefits they receive today, the poverty rate among older African Americans would more than double, pushing most African American seniors into squalor and poverty during their most vulnerable years."

OK, the Republicans pulled the race card and now the opposition is pulling out their own race cards.