Nation’s Largest Seniors Group Is Using Conservative Scare Tactics On Social Security

AARP is promoting alarmism about the program and giving awards to Republican lawmakers who want to cut it.

WASHINGTON ― Television viewers across the country have been treated to some scary advertisements about the future of Social Security. “Our next president needs to take action on Social Security, or future generations could lose up to $10,000 a year,” the narrator intones, as ominous music plays in the background.

Viewers might be surprised to learn that the ad is from the AARP, the country’s largest seniors group and a longtime defender of social programs for older Americans. It’s part of the nonpartisan group’s election-focused “Take A Stand” campaign, launched last November to pressure candidates to spell out their plans for shoring up Social Security’s finances. The “Take A Stand” initiative rankled progressive retirement security advocates virtually from the moment it started, because it focused on getting politicians to propose any detailed plan ― and didn’t distinguish between reform proposals that would cut benefits and those that would not.

The new television ad has only heightened liberal concerns. Critics of AARP’s approach say that the influential seniors group, which has 37 million members across the country and incredible influence in Washington, is making Social Security’s financial challenges seem much more dire than they really are. In doing so, the group is playing right into the crisis framing favored by conservatives, who want benefit cuts to seem inevitable.

“AARP is aggravating a political situation that allows the right, and even Democrats on the center-right in Washington, to portray Social Security as a problem rather than as a vital resource for working people,” said Eric Laursen, author of The People’s Pension: The Struggle To Defend Social Security Since Reagan.

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