THE SENATE

S.C.R. NO.

76

TWENTY-THIRD LEGISLATURE, 2005

S.D. 1

STATE OF HAWAII

 
   


SENATE CONCURRENT

RESOLUTION

 

EXPRESSING OPPOSITION TO THE PRIVATIZATION OF SOCIAL SECURITY AND URGING HAWAII'S CONGRESSIONAL DELEGATION TO REJECT PROPOSED CHANGES TO THE SOCIAL SECURITY SYSTEM.

 

WHEREAS, Social Security is our country's most important and successful income protection program and provides economic security to workers, retirees, persons with disabilities, and the surviving spouses and keiki of deceased workers; and

WHEREAS, Social Security provides essential benefits to over 195,000 people in Hawaii, including 139,300 retired workers, 16,090 widows and widowers, 16,790 disabled workers, and 13,630 children; and

WHEREAS, Social Security has reduced the poverty rate of our kupuna from over thirty per cent down to 10.2 per cent in the last forty years, and without Social Security, thirty-four per cent of elderly women in Hawaii would be poor; and

WHEREAS, six out of ten of today's beneficiaries derive more than half of their income from Social Security, and in most low-income households of retirement age, Social Security represents eighty per cent or more of their retirement income; and

WHEREAS, the Social Security Trust Fund is large enough to pay one hundred per cent of promised benefits until 2042, and after that, seventy-three per cent of benefits could still be paid; and

WHEREAS, proposals are being considered in Washington, D.C. that would privatize Social Security and threaten the retirement security of millions of Americans and their families; and

WHEREAS, diverting more than one-third of the 6.2 per cent of wages that workers currently contribute to Social Security into private accounts drains money from Social Security and will cut guaranteed benefits; and

WHEREAS, diverting money from Social Security will increase the national debt by almost $2 trillion over the next ten years - a debt that will be passed on to future generations; and

WHEREAS, privatization is particularly harmful to women and minorities who rely most on Social Security by replacing a portion of a secure benefit with investment risk - a risk that they cannot afford; and

WHEREAS, widows would experience enormous cuts under privatization - reducing their Social Security from $829 to $456 per month, which is only sixty-three per cent of the poverty level, even when proceeds from private accounts are included in the total; and

WHEREAS, private accounts do not provide the lifetime, inflation-adjusted benefit that Social Security does, and they can be depleted by long life and market fluctuation; and

WHEREAS, Social Security needs to be strengthened now for our children and grandchildren, but the solution should not be worse than the problem; and

WHEREAS, the Social Security System also needs to be changed sensibly in order to honor obligations to future generations; now, therefore,

BE IT RESOLVED by the Senate of the Twenty-third Legislature of the State of Hawaii, Regular Session of 2005, the House of Representatives concurring, that the Hawaii State Legislature opposes the privatization of Social Security and urges Hawaii's congressional delegation to reject such proposed changes to the Social Security System; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that certified copies of this Concurrent Resolution be transmitted to the President Pro Tempore of the United States Senate, the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives, and each member of Hawaii's congressional delegation.

Report Title:

Social Security Changes; Opposition