Sorry, moms, but this year's Mother's Day gift from the GOP is a 'Roadmap to Poverty'

JEFFREY R. LEWIS of Heinz philanthropies explains how the Republican budget would hurt millions of older women

Sunday, May 08, 2011

Every woman, regardless of age, ethnicity, race or marital status, should ask herself one question this Mother's Day: Why is the Republican plan to solve the nation's debt and deficit crisis going to push me closer to poverty in my older years?

The "Roadmap to Prosperity" designed by Rep. Paul Ryan and endorsed by virtually all House Republicans would place an immense and disproportionate load on the already overburdened shoulders of millions of older women. It is a "Roadmap to Poverty."

Women, as the nation's primary caregivers, ought to turn the tables instead and seek to collect on the value of their unpaid contributions to the economy -- estimated at $375 billion in 2007.

The cornerstone of the Ryan plan is ending the Medicare program as we know it. Late last week, Republican leaders agreed to put aside the Medicare initiative for the moment because it has no chance in the Senate but said they remain committed to it.

Under the Ryan plan, starting in 2022 Americans now under the age of 55 would not be eligible for Medicare as currently designed but would receive a voucher equal in value to the average annual amount Medicare currently spends on a retiree's health care. This voucher would be used to purchase private health insurance.

The sales pitch is that competition among private insurers would keep costs down and result in more choice -- a concept that would be laughable if the consequences weren't so tragic.

Medicare administrative costs run about 5 percent. No private insurer comes close to that percentage, with most running well into the double digits, and they would need to recoup those costs from voucher recipients.

It gets worse: The value of the vouchers would increase at the overall inflation rate, but the cost of medical care increases much faster. As a result, seniors would face two bad options: paying more for the same level of coverage or accepting policies with less coverage. Every year, seniors would lose more ground and millions of older women would find themselves one step closer to impoverishment.

The Ryan plan is rationing by another name. It also abandons all pretense of cost control.

According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, the total cost of care for seniors under the Ryan plan would rise dramatically faster than under the current system -- and the costs borne by seniors would explode.

Under today's plan, in 2022 (when the voucher system is slated to begin), it would cost an average of $14,770 in insurance and other expenses to provide full coverage to a 65-year-old -- with $6,150 paid out of pocket by seniors. Under the Ryan plan, costs would rise 36 percent, to $20,510, and expenses paid by seniors would more than double, to $12,510 a year.

That $6,000-a-year difference would be a lot for anyone on a fixed income. But it would mean a devastating loss for those who earn little. Moderate- to lower-income retirees, who are disproportionately women -- in Pennsylvania, 57 percent of Medicare recipients are women -- do not have extravagant lifestyles. Many simply are surviving.

The Ryan Plan would further stack the deck against retired women because their retirement savings and Social Security payments are, on average, dramatically lower than those of retired men. This is largely because women typically accept greater responsibility for raising children and caring for aging parents, making them more than twice as likely as men to work part-time and much more likely to work in low-wage positions or spend years outside the workforce.

Even professional women in two-parent families are more likely to carry the greater domestic burden, working full-time but choosing the "mommy track." And women who work as full-time, nonpaid caregivers for children, aging parents or others lose an average of $650,000 in lifetime wages and retirement benefits.

Social Security retirement payments are based on 40 years of average earnings (with the lowest five years removed). This means that years spent working part-time or caring for family members full-time results in significantly smaller Social Security checks. In 2008, the average annual Social Security income received by women 65 years and older was $11,377, compared to $14,822 for men.

In addition, these lower Social Security payments for women nevertheless comprise 51 percent of their retirement income. Men not only receive more from Social Security, their payments represent only 37 percent of their retirement income.

In recent years, women have made tremendous gains in income and opportunity. But at retirement time, women -- especially those who have put their families ahead of careers -- still come up way short compared to men.

The added cost of the Ryan plan for Medicare vouchers would be a brutal, disproportionate rebuke to women for lifetimes of sacrifice and hard work. It would put the harshest burden of deficit reduction on those least able to bear it.

On this Mother's Day, for millions of women destined for low or moderate incomes in retirement, the Ryan roadmap would set them on a course toward despair.


Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11128/1144633-109-0.stm?cmpid=newspanel#ixzz1Lje91jX5

This is the rub:

Even professional women in two-parent families are more likely to carry the greater domestic burden, working full-time but choosing the "mommy track." And women who work as full-time, nonpaid caregivers for children, aging parents or others lose an average of $650,000 in lifetime wages and retirement benefits.

Social Security retirement payments are based on 40 years of average earnings (with the lowest five years removed). This means that years spent working part-time or caring for family members full-time results in significantly smaller Social Security checks. In 2008, the average annual Social Security income received by women 65 years and older was $11,377, compared to $14,822 for men.

Same link as the OP.

Women sacrifice career and sometimes even education for their families, for their husbands and children. When a man moves up in his company and moves from one place to another in order to take the promotion, the entire family moves. The woman leaves her job and sometimes cannot find another one. Rarely does a woman get a better job after leaving a good one to follow her husband.

There are exceptional families in which the tables are turned and the husband's career is the second priority. But most often, if someone has to look for a new job in a new city or even just take a child to the doctor, it's the mother, not the father. And, of course, it's the mother who stays home at least a few weeks or months with the new baby if at all possible. It's the mother who is nursing and takes breaks to pump her milk. And it's the mother in our culture who is most likely to outlive the father.

Cutting Medicare and Social Security will disproportionately hurt women. We can't let the Republicans do this. They refused to pass the ERA Amendment. They fought and ridiculed women's lib all the way. And now this. When will Republican women figure out what their Party is really about? It's a Stag Party at which women are not welcome.

don't seem to find that important.