AARP Critical of Social Security Cuts

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AARP Critical of Social Security Cuts

By James Bernstein, Newsday

February 27, 2004

A day after Alan Greenspan called for trimming Social Security benefits for future retirees to reduce the mounting federal deficit, about 450 people - most of them members of AARP - packed a hotel meeting room in Queens yesterday to hear leaders of the nation's largest seniors' organization criticize the Federal Reserve chairman's proposal.

The AARP had planned well in advance of Greenspan's remarks to hold a forum on Social Security at the Radisson Hotel near Kennedy Airport. But the Fed chairman's surprising proposal Wednesday electrified what might otherwise been an ordinary discussion on Social Security.

"We are adamantly opposed to what he said," Barton Fields, a speaker at the forum, said in response to a question from the audience. Fields, a former member of the AARP's National Legislative Council, was cheered.

William Novelli, AARP's chief executive officer, said in a statement after Greenspan's speech Wednesday that the proposal was "irresponsible."

Fields, Marie Smith, president-elect of the AARP's national board of directors, and other organization officials, took turns defending Social Security as the best system to provide guaranteed benefits to retirees as well as to their survivors. The AARP officials also said they wanted to clear up misperceptions about Social Security, primarily that it is not a good system for African-American men because they tend to die sooner than white men and do not see the benefits. The vast majority of the audience was African-American, mostly from Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx and Manhattan.

And, AARP officials also laced into a Bush administration proposal to "privatize" Social Security, saying it would seriously weaken the system that accounts for half or more of the income of two-thirds of people now 65 or older.

Smith, who said in an interview before the forum began that the AARP plans to hold similar sessions on Social Security around the country this year, appeared to energize the crowd with a ringing endorsement of the system and a denunciation of the Bush privatization plans.

Smith said she once managed a Social Security office on the island of Maui, in Hawaii, where she and her husband still live.

"I know Social Security can make a difference," Smith said. "My mother worked at home, as did many women of her generation. When my father died, because of Social Security, my mother lived with dignity all her life."

Smith said she has read criticisms in certain places that Social Security is not an ideal system for African-American men, who tend to die at younger ages than white men and don't see the benefits. "But what's not stated," Smith said, "is that Social Security offers survivors benefits" to 3.9 million children as well as to five million widows and widowers and 5.7 million disabled workers.

She said that privatizing Social Security, as Bush has suggested, would have "devastating effects" on the system. "We are all for investments," Smith said. "But they should be outside Social Security." The system would lose money, Smith said, and that money might also be lost in the stock market.

Greenspan said his proposal is aimed at reducing this year's budget deficit, now estimated at $521 billion. To reduce the costs, Greenspan suggested calculating the monthly benefit, now averaging $922, with a new measure for inflation. Such a move would reduce recipients' monthly benefits by about $2.

Debbie Brown, a 44-year-old supermarket chef from the Bronx, called the proposal "scary."

"That's why I'm here," Brown said.