Social Security is a Women's Issue

My mother worked from age 14 to age 86 as a professional musician. By the age of 86, she was simply unable to continue. She started taking social security as late as possible and still it was not enough for her to live on when she retired.
My mother did not receive a cost of living increase in her social security payments last year; and yet her rent went up $200 a month. Somehow we scraped up the additional money. She was fortunate enough to have three children who were able to help her make ends meet for the last seven years of her life. Not all women are so lucky.
According to the Social Security Administration, about 90 percent of all elderly women live solely on social security. In addition, women live longer than men and their social security payments are less; and few elderly women have private pensions. Another scary statistic: by 2030, one in four American women will be over the age of 65.
Terry O’Neill, president of the National Organization for Women, was recently interviewed on the NPR show “Here and Now.” O’Neill said that “the best marker of whether a woman will live in poverty in her old age” is motherhood. I was shocked. “Being a mother is the one factor that correlates strongly with living in poverty in old age,” she said, adding that we don’t have policies in this country that support caregivers. O’Neill noted that caregiving is largely unpaid and largely done by women.
Cutting social security benefits directly impacts large numbers of women -- not just the women who receive social security but their caregivers as well, which creates a vicious cycle. Women who take care of elderly parents will now have to do more with less.
According to a study by the Commonwealth Fund, 25 percent of women who care for a sick or disabled family member rate their own health as fair or poor, and more than half of women caregivers have one or more chronic health conditions. I can attest that while taking care of my mother, I often neglected my health for lack of time, energy and money. The study also states, “Nearly one-third of all caregivers (31%) report a decrease in their family's savings because of caregiving responsibilities. Overall, two of five women caregivers devote more than 20 hours per week to caring for a sick or disabled family member.”
The bottom line is that you don’t earn social security for your work as a caregiver. Cutting social security may sound like a good way to cut the deficit, but ultimately it will create more problems for the elderly and for their families.