BACKGROUND

Social Security is a program that is vitally important to all Americans, but it is especially important to the financial security of women. Women live longer than men; on average, women today who reach age 65 outlive men by approximately 2.5 years. These additional years of longevity increase the risk that women may outlive their savings or that their pensions may lose their purchasing power.

Additionally, women are less likely than men to have an employer-provided pension. On average, 32 percent of women receive a pension compared to 34 percent of men.  Moreover, when women do have pensions, they tend to be smaller on average than those received by men. Stated simply, women depend substantially in retirement on the benefits they receive from Social Security. These benefits last a lifetime and unlike many pensions, are adjusted for increases in inflation. In 2017, 48 percent of elderly unmarried women receiving Social Security relied on it for 90 percent or more of their total income. In 2018, Social Security lifted 8.7 million women out of poverty.

Women deserve an adequate retirement income whether a work life is spent in the home, in the paid workforce, or a combination of the two. The National Committee supports changes that safeguard benefits for women, especially those with the greatest need, and improve benefit equity between one-earner and two-earner couples.

DESCRIPTION OF BENEFITS

A woman who works a sufficient length of time in Social Security-covered employment becomes eligible for her own Social Security benefit. If she is married, she also may be eligible for a spouse benefit or widow benefit based on her husband or wife’s earnings record.

A married woman who is not eligible for Social Security based on her own work record can receive a spouse or widow benefit. A married woman who is eligible for her own Social Security benefit can receive part of her spouse or widow benefit if it is higher than her own benefit. In other words, she can receive her benefit plus the difference between her benefit and the spouse or widow benefit. Under the “Government Pension Offset,” a woman who works in non-Social Security-covered public employment can receive a Social Security spouse or widow benefit only to the extent it exceeds two-thirds of her public annuity.

If a woman is divorced before 10 years of marriage, she is eligible only for her own Social Security benefit. If divorce occurs after 10 or more years of marriage, an unmarried divorced woman is eligible for the same spouse or surviving spouse benefit she would have received had there been no divorce. If a woman remarries after age 60 (50 if disabled), she may still receive a surviving spouse benefit.

A spouse’s early retirement severely reduces widow benefits. A young disabled widow or an older widow with no work experience may have no choice but to apply for a reduced benefit at the earliest age of eligibility. Social Security offers little incentive for widows to delay benefits, especially if the deceased spouse retired early, as benefits are capped based on the husband or wife’s early retirement.

Severely disabled widows who have not yet reached full retirement age are eligible for early widow’s benefits as early as age 50, although benefits are reduced.  The reduction at age 50 is 28.5 percent.  Disabled widow’s benefits are not payable before age 50 and disability must have begun within seven years after the death of the spouse or seven years after eligibility for mother’s benefits (caring for a dependent child under age 16 or disabled) has ended.

While there is no gender discrimination in how Social Security benefits are determined, nevertheless, an average female worker generally receives a substantially smaller Social Security check than a male worker. In December 2021, the average monthly Social Security benefit of a retired man was $1,813, while the average monthly benefit of a retired woman was $1,484. This is explained, in part, because women generally have lower earnings than men. For example, in 2021, the median earnings of full-time working age women were $48,776 annually, compared to $57,356 annually for men. Additionally, women are more likely to spend years outside the workforce devoted to unpaid caregiving.

In 2021, 55 percent of all Social Security beneficiaries were women. That means 36 million women receive monthly Social Security payments—- including 26.3 million as retired workers, 4 million as disabled workers, 3.8 million as widows and 2 million as spouses of retired or disabled workers. Significantly, once Social Security beneficiaries reach age 85, then women comprise 63.9 percent of the total, nearly two out of three. Regarding that longevity, a woman who reaches age 65 can expect to live an additional 21.5 years. For these women, Social Security represents a vitally important source of income, and is often their only available hedge against inflation. Without Social Security, 41 percent of these women would be living in poverty. Even with Social Security, 11 percent of older women still live in poverty.

Currently, when a woman’s husband or wife dies and she begins to collect widow benefits, total household Social Security benefits decrease by 33 to 50 percent. The reduction is larger for households in which both spouses had nearly equal earnings. As more women entered the workforce in the second half of the twentieth century, their contribution to total household income increased. However, Social Security rules have not been updated to reflect this societal change. Consequently, this increased share of household income contributed by wives will not result in higher widows’ benefits. On the contrary, more widows will experience a reduction approaching 50 percent of household income.

NATIONAL COMMITTEE PROPOSALS

In order to update the Social Security program for changes in the workforce since the inception of the program, the National Committee urges Congress to improve benefit equity and safeguard benefits for women by enacting the following provisions as quickly as possible.

  • Improving Survivor Benefits. Women living alone often are forced into poverty because of benefit reductions stemming from the death of a spouse. Widows from low-earning or wealth-depleted households are particularly at risk of poverty.  Providing a widow or widower with 75 percent of the couple’s combined benefit treats one-earner and two-earner couples more fairly and reduces the likelihood of leaving the survivor in poverty.
  • Providing Social Security Credits for Caregivers. In computing the Social Security retirement or disability benefit, imputed earnings for up to five family service years should be granted to a worker who leaves or reduces his/her participation in the work force in order to provide care to children under the age of six or to elderly family members.
  • Enhancing the Special Minimum Primary Insurance Amount (PIA). The Special Minimum Benefit is intended to provide a slightly more generous benefit amount to individuals who work for many years in low-wage employment. We propose to update the method by which this benefit amount is calculated so that more individuals, many of them women, can qualify for this computation. In calculating the benefit, we would give individuals credit for up to 10 years spent outside the workforce providing care to family members.
  • Equalizing Rules for Disabled Widows. Widows can qualify for disabled widow’s benefits beginning at age 50. They are the only disabled persons whose benefits are subject to an actuarial reduction. Under our proposal, disabled widows would receive 100 percent of their benefit without any reduction, just like disabled workers, and they would be able to qualify for disabled widow’s benefits at any age.  Moreover, the seven-year application period would be eliminated.
  • Benefit Equality for Working Widows. Under current law, a widow’s benefit is capped at the amount the deceased husband or wife would receive if he or she were still alive. If a husband or wife retires before normal retirement age, his or her widow generally inherits his early retirement reduction.  Under our proposal, the widow’s benefit would no longer be tethered to the reduction her deceased spouse elected to receive when he applied for retirement benefits.  Instead, the benefit would be reduced only by the widow’s own decisions about when to retire.
  • Strengthening the COLA. We propose that future cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs) be based on a fully developed Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Consumer Price Index (CPI) for the Elderly (CPI-E). We believe this index would more accurately measure the effect of inflation on the price of goods and services that are purchased by seniors than does the current CPI-W, which reflects price increases based on the purchasing patterns of urban workers.
  • Restoring Student Benefits. Social Security pays benefits to children until age 18, or 19 if they are still attending high school, if a working parent has died, become disabled or retired. In the past, those benefits continued until age 22 if the child was a full-time student in college or a vocational school.  Congress ended post-secondary students’ benefits in 1981.  Restoration of this benefit would help women who must defer saving for their retirement because they are assisting their children with college expenses.
  • Improving the Basic Benefit of all Current and Future Beneficiaries. After years of operating under a COLA which does not reflect the higher inflation attributable to health expenditures and the fact that seniors devote a higher percentage of their monthly spending to health care costs, seniors need to have their increased costs offset by an across-the-board benefit increase. Women, especially, who have worked a lifetime with low pay (often the result of sex-based wage discrimination) are financially vulnerable in retirement because they are less likely to have private pensions or discretionary income that would allow for saving.
  • Improving Benefits for Disabled Adult Children. One of the categories of childhood benefits that is payable on a worker’s record is benefits to an adult child who becomes disabled before reaching age 22. We propose that disabled adult children be allowed to reestablish entitlement to benefits after divorce and that their benefit be computed without regard to the family maximum.

CONCLUSION

Despite the dramatic increase that has occurred in women’s participation in the labor force, and the economic benefits derived from that participation, women continue to have fewer assets and income in retirement, and depend more heavily than do men on Social Security as the primary source of their financial well-being in retirement. We owe it to our mothers, grandmothers and daughters to address this inequity and improve the Social Security program for future generations.

Government Relations and Policy

October 31, 2022 

Sources

Fast Facts and Figures about Social Security, 2022

Social Security Lifts more Americans Above Poverty than Any Other Program 

Annual Statistical Supplement, 2022