Transcripts For CSPAN2 Stephen Goss Discusses Social Securitys Sustainability 20170814

Offeofficer of the academy. For those of you who were here who was here at the demystifying healthcare session this week . You will hear a little overlap. The academy itself is its 30th year of existence and 30 years ago wilbur cohen, bob myers, real legends in the area of a social insurance realized that we needed the academy for two purposes. One, to serve as a network of consisting social insurance scholars so they can support each other in advance the field. At that time 30 years ago we scoured the country and could come up with just about 100 people in this country who were legitimate social insurance scholars. Today, the academy has a thousand members so within 30 years weve had a nice growth. The second goal of the academy and this is the essence of what is today is a magnet to attract younger people and at that point the academy younger people were me. It was a fear that we boomers were not understand why we had programs like Social Security and medicare and workers comp. The founding members of the academy found about six of us and tempt us on the shoulder and said help us start this new organization and the magnet was to help attract people to this field and its a good example of the academys magnet at work. I cant thank you enough for being here. We could into a program without support in our major support is the ford foundation. Theyve done a phenomenal partner of the academy and everything the academy does is through a framework of the overriding issue of our time. Youll notice a lot of what we do is equality. Our policy work alexander brandy put this together. Lets put them together. Lets give them a round of applause. [applause] youll start hearing people give you insights into Social Security and a lot of that is the actuarial perspective and this is the lifeblood of Social Security and this is funding. Will be hearing a lot for the key to this day, in my view, is the last session where you will have a chance to put together a Social Security, longterm solvency program and youll hear a lot of the options discussed and have an opportunity to do it yourself. I recoded here last july from new york and what i love about the city is that everyone is connected. Im taking over this morning and my driver says where will i take you and i said take me to the Barbara Jordan center. Barbara jordan theres a center named after Barbara Jordan and i said yes, do you know who she was . He said i had a radio show in washington 50 years ago on a station that doesnt exist, w0 okay and i interviewed Barbara Jordan before anyone knew who she was. She hadnt been elected to congress yet. I said to myself this woman will make history in he was shocked that theres a building named after her. This is what i love about washington. Everyone is connected to someone else. A couple of things that are of a housekeeping nature, one, there is a white sheet that is the evaluation of the program and this means a lot to us. Please, before you leave, fill it out so we can assess the presentations themselves. And if you want to participate in the door price youve got to stay for the whole day, how is that for an incentive and at lunch you need to fill out a card that will make you eligible for the door price itself. Before we kick off our first panel i thought we should play a game and the game is called who said this. I will review some quotes and see if you can guess who said this. These are all a famous, political figures and if no one guesses it without a hint ill give you one hit. I was going to actually impersonate each of the people until i heard cspan was here and i said i cannot embarrass myself and my family who are glued to the tv set right now. Ready . Who said this. Should any Political Party attempt to abolish Social Security and Unemployment Insurance you would not hear of that party again in our political history. Who do you think that that . Hintz, a former president of the United States. Who said truman . Close. Former republican president. Not reagan. Dwight eisenhower. Very good. You have one. Number two. This one is not a political figure but someone i thank you know. One line i draw on how to keep Social Securitys future secure, one line i draw is on raising eligibility age for Social Security medicare. It sounds fair since people are living longer but it isnt. Lower income workers are the ones who find it hardest to keep working after 65 and they will get penalized with lower. Ill give you a hint. Its a columnist female columnist for the new york times. Numbering doubt. Gail collins. Ever heard of gail collins . Number three. Said this . I dont believe there is a red state america where people believe you should cut medicare and Social Security. Current member of the senate from a blue state and not a democrat. Bernie. Bernie sanders. Very good. Number four, listen carefully. There is a lot of room for improvement in Social Security and we owe our children the most financially sound system possible and they deserve to be protected by it. Senator, republican, a leader of the party. Mitch mcconnell. Amazing, right . Not amazing who said this . Here is what i would tell people of my generation, 40 and over, there isnt going to be Social Security. There isnt going to be it if we dont make some reforms to save the program now and take a wild guess. Got the party right. Other side of the house in congress. Senator. Iran for president. Its time to stop the raid on the Social Security trust fund. And start allowing americans to invest in Social Security taxes and personal savings accounts. Who do you think setback . You would thought it wouldve been george bush. Someone whos government today. Not paul ryan. Its all right. What was your drivers name this morning . Paul ryan . Its in the administration today. Its the Vice President of the United States, mike pence. Two more to go. I have a statement on Social Security, i consider it a breach of faith to renege on its promise, it would be a rotten thing to do. This goes back a long time. Congressman, the most powerful congressmen of his time in the early 80s. Tip oneill, who said to oneill, excellence. Heres the last one, this one and you all guess. Im going to keep Social Security without change. And instead im going to get rid of the waste, who do you think senate . Candidate donald trump, now president donald trump. The point of all this is a lot of things have been said about Social Security, a lot of it based on misconception andmyth. Thats why today weare demystifying the program so i hope you have a meaningful day , and he will start next time. [applause]. Thank you bill. Good morning everyone, thank you for coming today. I know many of the things i continue on your time and i hope you all find it satisfying. In particular like holly, i put tremendous thought into making a day that would be useful to you in fun and interactive. And we encourage you to prepare questions and the first two panels. We will start out with two panels to provide Background Information on Social Security, why its important, how its financed and we will try to leave a lot of time at the end of the session for questions so keep those in mind as we go and the rest of the day starting around 11 we will be very interactive with a discussion on your table. Presentations and debate. So it should be a fun day. My background is in social policy. I spent most of my career in europe and germany. So ive done a lot of work in international subjects but if any of you are interested, i have one colleague from japan so welcome. These setting the american system to help inform understanding of the japanese system. If any of you are interested i would be happy to give you background on that, talk with you or work with you in the future. I also want to echo those comments, to thank our staff, elliot and hes done tremendous work and ellen as well on our comps team. Thank you. We, i know that jill and janel, should be alerting you to our hashtag. The social section 17, its on the screen so its one of three, any of the questions, treat your thoughts. We want to create a lively twitter presence, to this event as well so we encourage you to participate. There are some good briefs in your packet. You might find helpful beyond today. Theres one on Social Security finances and theres another one which is highly recommended to you on called one system, two funds, preinsurance protection which gives you a holistic understanding of what social insurance is with regard to Social Security. Its not simply individual savings for retirement but its an Insurance Program where you pay in and have a variety of protections and brief, i think did a good job of explaining that so as to our panel today, idlike to welcome the panelists. First John Peterson length, im going to read their full backgrounds because i think its important for most of where you all are Young Professionals to understand how they got to where they are today and the past that they taken, the positions theyve assumed over the course of their careers. It might be interesting for you to see the different pathways available to you. So a giant s deputy of the executive director and generations united, an organization which works often. The National Membership organization focused on promoting Public Policy strategies and programs. And the policy work at generations of united which is a coordinated effort to evaluate the role of Social Security in the lives of children as well as at all. It provides direction for generations United Center on brand families, united for sport villages had by grandparents or other relatives also known as kinships and he will tell you a lot more about that during remarks. Under her leadership, legislation was passed ranging from housing to family caregiving to Child Welfare. Masters of social work, sureties university a license social worker who has worked in child protective services, refugee settlement and any other capacities for a variety of cultural backgrounds. He was a National Academy intern in 2000 so many of our interns have gone on to insurance jobs. Lisa ekman is director of Government Affairs for the National Organization of social service representatives, advocating to protect the rights and improve the Economic Security of people with disabilities focusing on the social civility Insurance Program and supplemental security programs. Healthcare and medicaid, deployment programs and Longterm Service organizations. Hes a vice chair of the board of directors of the consortium for citizens with disabilities as well as a cochair of the Disability Task force working with Social Security administration, on capitol hill for republican and democratic chairman of the Senate Health education committee. Federal contractors and nonorganizations to strengthen federal policy and programs. You can see theres a range of career path that you can take working in this field. Ive been jd, lowry from georgetown, masters of social work from university of denver and a ba in communications from northwestern, shes a member of the National Social insurance. Our third panelist is rocky, she had another event this morning and shes going to be coming in the middle of the panel because she had to finish up her previous engagement but let me introduce her, the founder, president and ceo of Global Policy solutions, a Strategy Firm and the center for Global Policy solutions, a nonprofit action organization. She started her own organization as a nonprofit and a forprofit firm on social policy field. She is dedicated to making policy work for people and their environment with more than 20 years of experience, the government and nonprofit business sectors, shes directed Successful Research for an array of nonprofit academic and corporate clients. The recipient of the honor she was named the Aspen Institute fellow. And has appeared on msnbc, npr, cnn, cspan among other media outlets. He is a member of the National Academy of black social scientists and Insight Center at experts. She holds a ba in Political Science from masking the patient from fairview and university and Political Science with an emphasis in Public Policy from bethel university. Hes a board member of the National Academy of social insurance so with that i will our panel. The morning. Its an honor to be here. As i mentioned i was a 2000 insurer and i have to say that my experience there was a big part of my operation 417 year career and in washington dc after being a social worker for a number of years and the connections that i made during my internship eally work e in terms ofbuilding connections in washington. So onto those connections. Theyre really important and its a privilege to be an alumni of this program. I am here this morning to talk about Social Security as a program for all generations and to give you a little bit of background, my organization i think will help with the context for that. Iterations united was founded in the mid1980s when there was a lot of talk about intergenerational against each other so we have here an image of an older person and a younger person back to back in 50s. The image that you have here is there is going to walk 10 spaces, turn around, shoot and the last person gets the resources. This was not an image we thought was helpful and its not reality. So at that time, generations united was founded then by the National Council on aging, a Child Welfare league of america aarp and we really say you know what . We are absolutely a Caring Society and we recognize that investments in one generation actually benefits the other and investments in the Younger Generation old or young. We all live as families and we need to advocate together and looking at ways that we can connect our communities and care for each other. With that in mind, we focus on issues that connect generations and certainly Social Security, it penalizes the program that shows our independence as a community and recognize that when we are so in together, the social fabric of our communities, we are knowing the social context that makes us healthy and strong as a country. Independence, interdependence is a good thing and we need to support and nurture that. Im going to focus on Social Security being more than a retirement program. You have a lawful more familiar with osha security as a retirement program. We had a focus on the disability component. Im going to focus on how Social Security benefits children and youth throughout its multiple components. On that note, i know that more than 6. 5 million children receive Social Security as part of their Family Income and in 2016, the Social Security administration distributed 2. 6 billion each month directly to benefit children. And in fact, more benefits to children from Social Security than any other federal program. Lets talk a little bit about the types of Social Security that benefit children and families. It is a Family Support program. He will start with the survivors which is perhaps the more obvious benefit for children. Survivors goes unmarried children who are under 18. It is the only rice life Insurance Program for the vast majority of children in the United States and protects 98 percent of children in the case where they would lose a parent. I want to tell you a little story, we are playing guessing games this morning and i want to tell you a story of a couple of successful individuals that benefited from Social Security so were going to start with franny. When freddy was a baby she lost her father who was a decorated world war ii veteran in a car accident, leaving her mother widowed work with five kids. As soon as frannys younger sister started school, her mom got a job working hours in a supermarket. Her paycheck and a smart small little benefit as survivors benefits for Social Security werent always enough to keep the heat on during the main winters but they did put food on the table and you can guess who franny is. Franny is married to senator al franken. Next, when his father died unexpectedly from a heart attack, a 16yearold boy and his family were left to fend for themselves. However, they had Social Security survivors benefitsto help them. This individual said i did a lot of growing up pretty fast. We had a quick lesson which was that life was short so make the best of it. But Social Security was key in providing for his family. That young mans name is paul. Any guesses . [laughter] you finally got it. Thats right. Next, i just want to mention the disability benefits in terms of its benefit for children. So this disability in terms of the disability benefit of Social Security, not only do adult that have disabilities get a benefit themselves but they are caring for children, there is an additional child benefit that is critical for children so we have more than 400,000 in disability benefits that are provided and it serves approximately 17 million children. Next we will go to the Retirement Benefits. Again, folks are familiar with retirement as a program for retired adults but did we know that there is actually Retirement Benefits for children . That is available to dependent children for retired individuals. And we have more than 350,000 children receiving that benefit. That benefit is particularly important to families that we refer to as grand families and that families grandparents or other relatives who are raising children. This particular picture is a woman who is raising her grandson who has fetal alcohol syndrome and she needs to really provide fulltime care for him so its a Critical Program. And situations like that. We know that about 67. 6 million children across the country live in households that are headed by a grandparent or another relative and in 200 and half million of those families there is neither of the childs parents are present so wereally know that grandparent or other relatives is providing fulltime care for the child. And we know that the presence of a grandchild living in the household of an older adult is actually a predictor of hunger among older adults. So even with Social Security benefits, 21 percent of grandparent headed families are poor. Without then that group rate would rise 51 percent or more so its a critical benefit. For grand families. I know that my colleague is going to be talking about ssi but i wanted to mention that large numbers of children and if it from ssi as well which is a program that part of the formal Social Security program that is administered by the Social Security administration. And finally, i know were talking about Social Security solvency and i think in addition to making changes to keep the program solvent its an important time to talk about making other types of improvements to the program and i want to briefly mention the Social Security student benefits. In 1965, Congress Expanded eligibility for Social Security through the age of 22 for those that were enrolled in college and this really enabled many many young people to complete their Higher Education who wouldnt have been able to and two thirds of those that benefited had incomes below the poverty line so having that income continually available when there in college is critical. However, the benefit was eliminated in 1981 and its an important piece to consider, reinstating student benefits to help families like that. This is going to be your last quiz. At least for me. And heres our last individual who benefited from Social Security. I grew up in a family of modest means in South Carolina and was the first member of my family to attend college. Several years into my studies, i faced a double tragedy. When i was 21, my mom died. The following year, my father died of a heart attack. My 13yearold sister moved in with my aunt and uncle, we both suspect depended on survivors benefits from our parents. It was my long career got off the ground ibecame my own legal guardian. Social security made a world of difference for my family. Any guesses . Senator lindsey graham. Just a few examples of successful individuals who relied on this Critical Program as young people. A question i have for you is what was Social Security meaning for you and your family . Please be thinking about it as a Critical Program, not just want to be thinking about when you enter retirement but one that could be critical in terms of supporting your family at any moment in time. Heres a few resources from generations united that i want to share. We have resources that focus on childrens benefits of Social Security on our website at gu. Org. And my Contact Information and other Resources Available from generations united. Thank you. [applause] good morning. I dont have a powerpoint so im just going to talk to you. And i dont have a lot of examples but it will be somewhat interactive. Im going to talk about the Social Security disability Insurance Program, primarily about ssi as well. The Supplemental Security Income Program and tell you a little bit about what the differences. They are both administered by the Social Security administration and use the same definition of disability but you become eligible in different ways. They have different eligibility requirements so i want you to take a second and imagine you are out cleaning your gutters and you fall off the ladder. And you break your spine, you have an injury to your spinal cord and you cant work. How would you pay for your rent . How would you get your groceries covered . How would you pay for medications and rehabilitation that you might need . You might not know it but you are already insured through the Social Security disability Insurance Program most likely. I will talk a little bit about how you get insured but most likely you are already insured and that Social Security disability Insurance Program covers more than nine in 10 workers in the us. And its part of the insurance package we all pay for when we get our federal insurance contribution act adoptions made from our paycheck and part of that goes to medicare which if you were here or the other academy you learned about that and then part of it goes to Social Security. You pay 6. 2 percent of your wages to go to Social Security, part of that gets deposited into the old Survivors Insurance trust fund and part of that gets deposited into the Disability Insurance trust fund to pay for disability benefits should you need them. The fact is that for a 20yearold you have a one in four chance, actually a little bit more than one in four chance of becoming disabled before you retire. So Social Security Disability Insurance is there to help you if that happens and replace wages. All at 6. 2 percent that you pay into taxes currently 1. 185 percent goes into the Disability Trust fund and the rest goes into the old age and Survivors Insurance for fun. Thats a little bit higher than it usually is because two years ago in 2015 we have to reallocate those taxes because the Social Security Disability Program was making a shortfall and in ssdi beneficiaries would have the benefit cuts had congress not stepped in and reallocated so the normal percentage that was set about over 30 years ago in the 80s is. 9 percent of that 6. 2 percent you pay and your employer pays goes into the Disability Trust fund. Of the 61 and a half Million People who receive Social Security benefits, 10. 5 million of them or 17. 1 percent receive those benefits through the g. I. Program. 8. 7 million of those are workers with disabilities and as i told you the rest of those are Family Members, and we spent about 10. 5 billion in benefits per month and that is about 130 billion a year that we pay to people of disabilities and their families through the disability Insurance Program. So you may have heard or some news stories saying the Disability Program is growing out of control, theres too many beneficiaries and that, i want to take a second and talk about that for just a second and the growth of the program is not out of control, it was very much predicted. We have a baby boom. After moving through the our Social Security system and people in the baby boom generation reach their high disability years so we had more people getting disability benefits. And also, women became insured at the same rate that men are. Because in the 1970s, women started working and earning insured status which i will talk about in the second how you do that and are now collecting benefits at almost an equal percentage. Our insured at an equal percentage and collecting benefits almost an percentage demand. And so the last factor that did contribute to such high levels of disability benefits is one that would be important for you to think about when you have your conversations later and that in the 1980s they raised the retirement age. There are currently one in 18 people getting Social Security Disability Insurance benefits, 65 years old. Half 1 billion people so we not raise the retirement age above 65, what happens is when you get your disability benefits, its basically the same insurance formula that your retirement benefit would be so its based on your primary insurance and you get the same benefit you get if you retired your full retirement age and what happens is you automatically move from one trust fund paying your benefit to the other when you reach retirement and that point, people would have converted 65 to the old age and survivors benefits, instead theyre staying in until they reach their full entire retirement age. So as you think about raising retirement age, think about the impact on the Disability Trust fund. We were expecting that growth. Is leveling off but its really important for the people who receive it. Oh how does someone with Social Security Disability Insurance. You have to be insured which means you have to have worked and paid into the system. You have to have 40 corners of coverage or credit generally to be insured for Social Security benefits in any of the programs but because people have work as long, if theyre younger when they get a disability they dont need as many credits so for example, if youre under 24 you have to have six credits earned in the three years ending when your disability starts and it goes up from there but its made so that is if you have worked six credits, so a year and a half and paid into the system at age 24 you would be insured. Thats why i said probably most of you are insured even if you didnt know it. If you had a disabling condition or impairment then you would be insured. But what is the definition of disability . We think about disability as a bunch of people, 57 million in the us have a disability. Not all of them are going to be eligible for ssdi. There are probably 30 definitions of disability in federal programs they thought what the purposeof the program is. The purpose of the ssdi program is to replace wages for people who can no longer remember as part of their Social Security insurance package. So it has a very narrow, strict definition for disability to become eligible. I will read the definition. Its the inability to engage in any substantial gainful activity or sga by reason of any medically determinable physical or mental impairment which can be expected to result in that which has lasted or can be expected to last for a continued period of not less than 12 months so cant perform substantial work, medically determinable impairment that you prove with evidence and must have expected to last at least 12 months. That is a really strict definition. Substantial gainful activity is defined by a monetary amount. You can earn more than 170 per month. Thats considered substantial work and substantial gainful activity by Social Security. And you have to have an impairment that not only prevents you from doing the job that you did before but prevents you from doing any job that exists in sufficient number in the national economy. So if you cant do your own job, but you could do other work, you would not be eligible for benefits under this program. This is a strict definition. In fact in the oecd countries the only stricter definition is in korea where the most direct compared to all our own ucd partners. But the benefits are modest. As i mentioned it uses the same formula as the old survivors Insurance Program but the average monthly benefit is 1171 a month which equates to only 14,000 a year. Which is less than you would earn working fulltime at minimum wage. And it only replaces the percentage like all Social Security benefits due of your previous income. The average is much lower also for younger workers because its based on your previous work history so the average for a 25yearold is only 655. So receive Social Security benefits . Going back to what john talk about i would say that its really important that you think of this as a system that protects you through your lifetime but one in seven in 10 workers who are ssdi beneficiaries are over the age. And as i said, 118 is 65. And shes the person whos receiving benefits, they dont know which trust fund benefits are coming out of. What they know is they can depend on those benefits being extinguished for them. Through their work history for any reason, the waiter cannot work whether it disability, death or retirement, they will get a benefit that will help support them and their families. In addition when you ssdi you also are seeking eligible for medicare after a 24 month waiting period so it also helps to provide healthcare for you in the event that you cannot work. So how important are the benefits to ssdi . Its important to the people who get them. Okay. So. Okay, one in five people rely on these benefits for more than 90 percent of their income. And it is especially important for beneficiaries who are not married. Because they dont have a spouse to depend on so 71 percent of unmarried beneficiaries get more than half their income from ssdi. I want to say one more thing about what was mentioned about 15 generations against each other because they really tried to do that when we were trying to shore up the Disability Trust fund. They said you are going to steal from the Retirement Trust fund to pay for disability benefits and the communities, the Disability Community we all came together to say no, thats not right. This is an insurance system we built together to protect all of us against any event that happens where we can no longer earn wages and the Disability Insurance is an entry called part of that system and as i mentioned most of the workers are older or even now above 65 and so we need to think of the system as once a sample when you change the retirement age, that affects Disability Insurance trust fund and when you make changes to the benefit formula, that has an impact on disability beneficiaries. If you were to add the, the can apply to every program or sometimes people just say lets improve the for older people or give the people im sorry cost of living adjustment that is inflation protection that spilled into the Social Security system, so if you say Older Workers should get eight different costofliving based on the expense of older people and you dont apply to the Disability Program as well then it has an impact as well as everything you changes one system, so you have to think about disability when you think about making changes to Social Security. Thank you. [applause]. We are still waiting thank you. Lets turn to q a for our first two speakers until mike gets here. I have a couple questions. Starting with you, lisa, there are a variety of proposals this past year and in recent years to reform Disability Insurance. First lets start with how those proposals could affect people with disabilities. I mean, there have been proposals to encourage to return to work which everyone thinks is a good idea when possible. What percentage of the insured disability beneficiaries are capable of returning to fulltime work and how with the various proposal to encourage or in some cases do more than encourage them to return, how would that affect with people with disabilitys on the ground . Thats a good question. As i mentioned the standard for disability eligibility is extremely strict, so people have to really not be able to work at a substantial level to be approved at. In a some cases people can do some work and but they can do work in many cases at a selfsupporting level, so we should have every support in place for people, but we should not expect any large percentage of the people returning to work at a selfsupporting level and not needing continued support. I think the other thing that is important to keep in mind is that when people with disabilities go to work its really good for them. Its good for their health and good for them to be able to contribute, but they often require a variety of services and support to assist them in that work, so they may need a job coach or personal care attendant. They may need many things that will help them go to work, accessible for all transportation. Although be in place for people with disabilities to work and many times these proposals are company by cuts to the other programs. You cant ask someone to go to work and then cut the very support services that allow them to do that. In addition, medicaid is one of the only providers of many of those types of services that i just mentioned and often medicaid has very low income and asset to limit for people to retain those services and support, so we have to take a look at people with disabilities who can work at whatever what will they can and we should support them in their ability to do that and make sure they have those services and support, but if earning money or saving money will jeopardize those of services and support people with disabilities its literally a life or death situation for them or the ability to get out of bed in the morning they wont respect to go to work, so we have to think about it holistically and there are a lot of people who have disabilities as i mentioned that dont qualify for the Social Security Disability Program and i think we also need to stop and think about how do we support people who have disabilities, but cant work at a selfsupporting level, but can do some work, provide them with some form of income supplementation may be through tax code or different way and i think we need to think about that outside the Social Security system because its purpose does well. We should not try to adapt this program to meet all the needs of people with disabilities took the rest of our support system has not kept up with the changes in attitudes, the changes in the ability of people with disabilities over the past few years. You make a great points and i think its interesting you are calling attention to welcome, maia calling attention to the difference in the paradigm versus a paradigm of looking at people with disabilities trying to work and make ends meet and trying to support their families and survive and we have had little discourse in this country about how can we as a nation make it easier for people with disabilities to survive and thrive in work to whatever extent they are able to, i mean, that discussion has not been one we have had. Discussion has been how does this program affect the federal budget and how does medicaid affect the federal budget. How can these budget lines be reduced over the next 10 years or longer term and those are two completely different paradigms, so i think its interesting that you called attention to that. In light of that what would you say if someone is concerned with the budget paradigm as many people are. What are ways to extend solvency of the disability Insurance Program in a way that would not her people with disabilities in the way some others might. I wish i had an easy answer for that question, but i think that the only way to do that is to increase revenue and i think its important to keep in mind that no matter what we do there are going to be the larger percentage of people that get disability benefits are still going to need them. There is a huge unmet need in the other area i was talking about and we need to address how do we support people with disabilities to work. How do we help them when they are working maintain attachment to the labor force and make sure they dont have to apply for income support to get the others things that they need that help them work and aside from addressing the revenue shortfall, the modest one mean think about insurance, Social Security and i know you will talk about this later. Of they havent had a premium increase for this Insurance Program since the 1980s, so we need to think about this and think about how your other insurance premiums go up every year and we need to address that there is no magic bullet from the budget side other than addressing revenue. I think that any cut to benefits for people with disabilities to rely on Social Security disabilities would be devastating. With that i would like to welcome maia. We have your slides lined up here if you want to present from the podium. I mean, we have your slides here thats fine as well. You can click through. Thats okay. Terrific. Good morning. Its my pleasure to be here before you. The national cat a country of social Insurance Academy in turns, i went to acknowledge my intern, william k who is sitting there. We have always been pleased to welcome every summer on intern and they have always been stellar and william k is no different. I want to congratulate each of you on this as an opportunity. If you are selected, that means that you were the best of the best and i also want to congratulate you on your commitment to understanding the social insurance structure in this country. Also, to pursue possibly a career that leverages social insurance as a vehicle for change and certainly for human economic opportunity. I want to also acknowledge william are known in his entire team at that time he. They are doing a fantastic job educating the public about the importance of social insurance. So, with that today i would like to talk to you about Social Security as an economic stabilizer, not just for communities across the country, but for families, households and more specifically children. When we are talking about Social Security you all know the popular perception is that Social Security is an old age program. In fact, you ask anyone on the street and asked them about Social Security and they automatically Start Talking about seniors, older adults and retirement, but did you know that Social Security is one of the most important and one of the nations largest anti poverty programs for children . Did you know that . Im here today to tell you that that is absolutely the case. The only Bigger Program there is is the National School Lunch Program administered through the school, but Social Security is bigger than ssri, bigger than tennis, very important and Significant Program for the Economic Security of low income children in this country. And so because its so important we felt like that the nation was doing the population of the service by not necessarily unveiling for the country how important Social Security is for children and so we did a report in 2014 2015 called overlook, but not forgotten. Social security with millions of more children out of poverty and although the nation if you are looking at the Social Security rolls in 2014, it showed approximately 3. 2 million children were receiving direct to Social Security from the Social Security program. Go to their Social Security website, look up the report and you will see 3. 2 million children. Our study revealed its actually an undercount. We are actually looking at in 2014 approximately 6. 4 million children benefiting from Social Security either directly meaning they were directly in a household that was receiving Social Security because of their eligibility or indirectly and this is important, meaning they lived in a household where someone in that household was receiving Social Security and as a result of someone in the household receiving Social Security they benefited also. Is important to understand and with that its also important to understand that there is a racial and ethnic breakdown for this. White children actually still represent the majority, the largest number of direct and indirect child beneficiaries on Social Security. However, the number of direct and indirect beneficiaries on Social Security who are of color is on the rise. The number of latino children, the number of child beneficiaries in latino households have gone growing on average by 4. 2 annually between the years 2001 and 2014. That indicates Social Security is increasing source of revenue for latino families. So, at the same time we know families that identify their ethnicity or race other than black, white word latino have seen exponential growth, so Asian American and families have seen growth of approximately 12. 7 annual growth both indirect and direct. So its important to understand that there is a growth in this indirect category and multigenerational households and multi family households are actually driving this increase. In terms of the among children and families that receive Social Security benefits the average percentage of Family Income from Social Security is important to understand. As Household Income overall has stagnated in this country or declined in the past few decades, Social Security income has become an even more important source of Financial Security for children and families that receive it direct and indirect benefits. Contributing 39 to Family Income in 2014, but if you look at the distribution over the racial and ethnic composition of the household, use the africanamerican households really rely on that Social Security income. Africanamerican children living in households where 46 approximately of their Family Income relies on a Social Security benefit. Of course, as you can see 39 of white households where children live and 37 of latino households where children live rely on it as a significant source of income for their families. Its also important to understand that Social Security without it many of these children would be living in desperate poverty. Social security substantially reduces poverty rates among all children in families that receive benefits, but by almost 20 and for africanamerican children the poverty rate was increased to nearly 50 without Social Security benefits, increase of 17 percentage points. Latino children 45 and for white children 39 and four quote unquote other children its 29 , Social Security is a very important source in terms of making sure children that live in these households are not living in poverty. So, its also the drive, drivers for the increase in indirect children receiving social scared of indirectly is actually being driven by these Multigenerational Families and so about two thirds of indirect child beneficiaries live in Multigenerational Families consisting of three or more generations where they live in these skipped generation households including families of grandparents and grandchildren only, so its a porno understand that even grandparents can be caring for their grandchildren and those grandchildren are benefiting from Social Security benefits compare to the number of children living in multi generational families has been rising over time. Inch rows from a percent to make 11 between 2001 and 2014 so this is across all racial and ethnic groups in the Fastest Growing groups that have been relying on these households are asianamerican and Latino American families, so with that i just wanted to point out that Social Security is not just an old age program. Social Security Service people at all stages of life and its especially important to children , so the next time someone tries to tell you that Social Security is just for seniors you can now tell them differently and you can also tell them that its one of the nations largest anti poverty programs for kids. Thanks. [applause]. Thank you, maia. There are many proposals in congress over the years. Your for your they return to reduce Social Security benefits and increase incentives to save through 4o1 kays or iras. How would that affect children seems like an efficient idea that you save individually and you get better return on your investment and you can monitor your account balance. Everyone likes to do that and maybe you could be better off, but how would that affect children . When you go first and then the other panelists can join in. Certainly pick the families we work with particular i will highlight families and other grandparents raising children. This is not something they planned on. Often these families actually were saving for retirement and suddenly those Retirement Savings are turning into College Savings or they are being spent down to pay for healthcare needs with the diapers on babies, formula and all of these things, so these are not families that have the luxury of time to be investing dollars and for them Social Security has been critical to provide for theirs needs so these are different circumstances. These are families where Tragedy Strikes and its unexpected, so the arrangement for saving for retirement is a whole different set of circumstances and consideration. Anyone else . If i understood your question correctly, it was heady policies that actually focus on building for 1k savings and other things affect children. If for example you were to cut Social Security. Let me just say that our retirement system in this country is broken. The fact of the matter is that because of structural factors in the labor market proximally half of American Workers dont get access to a tax preferred retirement vehicle and places of employment and disproportionately lower income families and households of color are amongst those that do not have a retirement benefit that is connected to their work. That is a structural flaw which means in and of itself by design we actually have households that are already answering the retirement system with nothing except Social Security. Its important to understand that when we are talking about policies that boost retirement plans and boost 4o1 kays and this and that that they are not talking about approximately half of American Workers in their families. Of those families that actually do have access to those Retirement Benefits what Social Security does is allow their dollars to extend. Its important to know that in many ways Social Security is a wealth protector. Because you dont actually have to spend down your other assets. Its a benefit that you get regardless of your wealth the status. That means you have the more resources in order to meet your familys needs if you do have private to wealth, private retirement accounts etc. , so any policies that go towards supporting Retirement Savings or strengthening 401k would perhaps put families who are receiving Social Security and Retirement Savings in perhaps a better position, but recognize that the 4o1k system is broken also and thats another story we can go into. Lisa . Number one, gets it its important to be reminded that there are several features in the Social Security system that benefit low income workers. One, costofliving adjustment we talked about so it helps benefits keep up with inflation. You dont get any costofliving adjustment in eight 401k and the other is a benefit formula thats progressive meaning lower wage workers receive higher percentages of their income and income replacement van do lower income workers and those are not protected in 401k either and what happens when some investments go wrong and they dont have income . What would we build in to protect them . It seems a very risky step to take. Finally come i would save her people with disabilities and disability that can happen at any age and you can hire one in your teens, you have a shorter worklife we have a disability. You would have less time to pants and remember i told you all of these parts of the Social Security system are integrated and if you cut benefits in retirement you are cutting disability benefits, so we had think about how we would protect people with disabilities who are not going to have incoming retirement account and will be relying on savings and other benefits from an much longer period of time when we think about if we are making changes to the way people pay in and how they save for retirement. Thank you. Questions from all of you . Michelle. Hello. Unconcerned about increasing number of people who are carrying for both children and older adults in this country and im wondering if someone takes time out of eight paid workforce or three parttime schedule to care for children or older adults how does this impact their eligibility for Social Security benefits and what are the policy options surrounding Social Security adequacy for caregivers and parttime workers whether they are caregivers or not . So, they are currently arent any, but there are proposals to that effect. Many people are talking about establishing a caregiver credit within the Social Security program. Currently, if you take time out of the workforce to care for a Family Member, children, older adults whatever that is youre not working. You are basically getting no credit towards your Social Security while taking time out. Depending on the length of time you worked before or after you had to actually have those caregiving duties, you could or could not have the number that you need in order to earn your retirement benefit. Back to being said, what it tends to do is reduce your the formula, your aim in a way that means that you have a lower level of earnings over your lifetime and thats a dean in terms of the ultimate benefit that you do get, so youre basically penalized if you take time out of the workforce. Actually, you are penalized if you take them out of the workforce for any reason whether is carried for a Family Member or unemployment. So, caregiver credit would seek to offset that by changing the formula to add a benefit for those years of zero earnings that would offset and im forgetting that exact formula, but it would offset that negative aspect of caregiving. Yes . [inaudible] thanks for my question is if people have invisible disabilities, you cant see a disability all the time. How are you qualified for Social Security . Lisa . You would go through the same process as someone who might have a visible disability and you would provide evidence from your doctors or other people who assist you, so if you go see a social worker, psychiatrist or any other professional they provide medical evidence, so there are Social Security uses in the regulation something they call medical listings and those things include visible and not visible disabilities and is the same standard you have to show with evidence that you have a disability and that that impairment is severe and prevents you at the time you apply it prevents you from doing substantial work at a gainful activity level. I would like to highlight the definition set in order to qualify you could you give the person precise definition . You have to be unable to engage in substantial gainful activities based on a physical or mental medically determinable physical or mental impairment or a combination of both that is expected to last or has lasted at least 12 months. Essentially the definition as you are able to run work to make more than about 1100 a month and in discussions about returning to work in people with disabilities receiving Social Security, its important to keep in mind that they were already determined in a thorough process with medical expertise and judges being involved they were determined to be unable to work and thats why they got the benefit in the first place so that population is a population extremely challenge to work with significant extent, so while we want to support their ability to work its not realistic to expect a large percentage of the population to be able to return to work do we have other questions from the audience . Hello and thank you. Related to sda that we were talking about earlier my understanding is that why or how are whats the difference between the blind population for sga for blind people and sga for the non blind, so for example a blind person earning almost 2000 or 1800 while the non blind population is 1400. Whats the difference . Im trying to understand that. Its an issue, but i think for disability people there are various reasons, but just trying to understand that and what are some barriers . I guess i will take that. I think its a very good question. Restate what sga is. When you first become eligible you cannot be earning more than substantial gainful activity and its also the level at which if you are getting benefits your benefits can be terminated if you earn above that amount for a certain amount of time after they apply a lot of work incentives and it is important to note as batts said that there are work incentives built into the Social Security Disability Program. I dont have time to go into them, but its important to keep that in mind and the blind sga level is significantly higher than the sga level poor people who have a disability other than blindness. I think that the level for people who have disabilities other than blindness have always been too low and it has been raised significantly in recent years and it now goesup by a costofliving adjustment. I would say there is no great policy reason behind the difference. About difference was created years ago and i would say that the Blind Community has been great lobbyists who helped in a different level. I think we need to work to increase the level of sga for everyone and again, i think we have to think about supporting people with disabilities to work in a different way than we currently do and we need to think about how we can support everyone to work at the levels to which they are able and provide them with the services and supports that they need without risking those services and support by earning and saving and we should be thinking about how we do that in all of our programs for people with disabilities as well as think about how we come up with a different way to provide income supplementation for people who have work capacity, but may not be able to be selfsupporting because of their disability. I would echo that and say that we really dean do need to have a discussion about how we make it easier for people with disabilities to work and thats a completely thats a very different discussion took. Those are two different perspectives. One is from the human side and the other is purely budgetary. Its a important perspective and we will discuss it in our next panel, the finances of the program and how we can improve the finances, but the purpose of this panel is to talk about the human purpose of each program and as you move forward you will always have to balance both paradigms, the human perspective, and then the budgetary perspective which is also very important. With that i sorry we are out of time and have to move on to our next panel, so i went to think our panelists. [applause]. Next, the conversation continues on cspan2 on Social Security. This Upcoming Panel addresses the social Insurance Programs longterm financial sustainability. Chief actuary of the Social Security administration stephen goss and deputy actuary karen glenn gave an overview of the programs finances pick their remarks were part of an event hosted by the National Academy of social insurance. This program is a little more than 45 minutes. Good morning and welcome to session number two,