AARP To Beltway Insiders: Americans Can't Afford Cuts to Social Security

WASHINGTON — The financial and political reality of older Americans is simple: they can’t afford cuts to Social Security, and they strongly oppose cuts to Social Security.

AARP Executive Vice President and Chief Advocacy and Engagement Officer Nancy LeaMond recently testified before Congress on legislation that would short-circuit debate and hide cuts behind closed-door commissions and echoed that sentiment with a Letter to the Editor, published by The Washington Post. Excerpts:

AARP is strongly opposed to cutting the Social Security Americans have earned over a lifetime of hard work. And more than 80 percent of people across the country agree Social Security should not be cut to “save” it, according to a survey AARP conducted.

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A fast-tracked commission would likely make irresponsible and devastating cuts to Social Security that the public would never approve. 

There are many ways Congress can shore up Social Security without cutting the payments Americans have earned. These are the options that the vast majority of people support. Congress should listen to the voters, the hardworking people who built this country, and vote out in the open on a proposal that they and future generations can be proud of.

This week, AARP also released supporting analysis showing how one proposal disguised as a change to Social Security’s cost-of-living adjustment, or COLA, would amount to a cut of thousands of dollars to the average retiree.

Under a flat-rate COLA proposal, all beneficiaries would receive the same dollar increase, calculated using the benefit received at the 20th percentile of the benefit distribution.

The analysis finds that:

• Eighty percent of beneficiaries would receive less inflation protection than under the current COLA.
• A person retiring at age 65 in 1998 could have accumulated a cut to their Social Security of $77,900 by age 93.
• That retiree’s annual benefit at age 93 could have been $18,000 instead of $22,600, an annual cut of $4,600.

Americans oppose cutting Social Security for the sake of shoring up the trust fund in survey after survey. 85% of people agree that Social Security should not be cut, even if it means finding alternative sources of revenue to fully fund Social Security.