The Republican chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, which handles finances, floated the prospect of tying Social Security benefits to sex and race on Sunday during Tim Russert’s “Meet the Press.” From the transcript.
MR. RUSSERT: Let me show you something else you said at the National Journal Forum that raised some eyebrows: “Women are living longer relative to men today than they were in 1940. Yet, we never ever have debated gender-adjusting Social Security. …But, at some point if the age difference continues to separate and more women are in the workforce and you have more of an equality of pay structure in the workforce, at some point somebody might want to suggest that we need to take a look at the question of whether or not actuarially we ought to adjust who gets what, when, and how.”
A gender adjustment–what does that mean?
REP. THOMAS: Well, it was one of my ways of getting people to focus on the issue of age. To move from 65 to 68, which we did in 1983, was a benefit cut. But it also creates hardships based upon the occupation that you have, and it creates inequities on who you are and how long you live. You could just as easily have a discussion about occupations as to when would be a fair or an unfair time to require. We also need to examine, frankly, Tim, the question of race in terms of how many years of retirement do you get based upon your race? And you ought not to just leave gender off the table because that would be a factor.
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