This has been an election season without a dominant theme. All of a sudden, though, Social Security, once considered an election-year snoozer, has turned red-hot in tight races in Iowa, South Dakota, Louisiana, Arkansas, Colorado, and Alaska. But the way Social Security is playing out is far from straightforward, and the debate is often muddy.
Good campaign coverage demands a smart look at what the candidates have actually said, and whether the various attacks on them are fair. But it also demands context and explanation of the program’s concepts, and scrutiny of the changes that may be in play after the election. Here’s a quick look at three Social Security hot potatoes now being tossed around in debates that need more discussion.
Raising the retirement age. The politics of this one are a little unconventional. Back in 2011, when the budget deficit and “entitlements” were the top issues on the political agenda, centrist Democrats expressed interest in raising the retirement age, or backed larger approaches, like the Simpson-Bowles plan, that called for a higher age.
Now those Democrats find themselves attacked by Crossroads GPS, the conservative outside-spending group led by Karl Rove. Crossroads has gone after Kay Hagan in North Carolina and Mark Pryor in Arkansas, citing comments from 2011 in both cases.
Some of the media discussion has focused on the irony of Crossroads attacking Democrats “from the left,” or noted how calls to raise the retirement age typically push the idea out into the future, so it’s misleading to pair this attack with pictures of people who are near retirement now. (Pryor talked about making the change for people who are “teenagers today.”)
That’s part of it. But coverage should also explain what the impact of a change might be, for future generations. Under current law, people born in 1960 and afterward will receive full Social Security benefits at age 67. Some proposals would raise it to 68, 69, 70, or even later. That amounts to an across-the-board benefit cut—one that proponents say we can absorb, due to increased longevity.
But longevity gains are unequally distributed among the population. White men have benefited the most, while the average longevity of low-income women has actually declined over the last few decades. For that reason, critics worry that raising the retirement age could actually worsen the impact of rising inequality and employment trends. It could be interesting to get candidates from both parties on record now about that.
Privatization. The common understanding of this term stems from the proposals of George W. Bush a decade ago: Younger workers would have the choice of investing a portion of their Social Security contributions in private, individual investment accounts.
But there’s more to the story than just letting 30-somethings have a crack at the stock market. Small steps now could pave the way to privatizing the whole system eventually. And even partial measures prompt questions about the potential impact on the rest of the system, or what to do when someone’s privatized investments fail. (For many current beneficiaries, Social Security accounts for 90 percent or more of their income.)
That’s why Factcheck.org’s hair-splitting treatment of the debate in the Iowa Senate race was disappointing. There, Republican Joni Ernst has been criticized by Democrats for wanting to “privatize” Social Security. At most, Factcheck.org argued, “Ernst has said that she would consider allowing ‘younger workers,’ or those ‘just entering the workforce,’ to put some portion of their Social Security payroll taxes into interest-bearing or stock market-based ‘personal savings accounts’ for their retirement.” The Des Moines Register wrote up a brief story, summarizing Factcheck’s position as: “Democrats misrepresent Joni Ernst’s position on Social Security.”
There may be some misrepresenting happening (again, images of old voters who wouldn’t be affected). But Ernst’s basic position—we should consider allowing workers to invest some of their payroll taxes in a personal account—sure sounds like a version of privatization. And as Factcheck noted, here are some questions Ernst has not addressed:
How much of their Social Security taxes would those “younger workers” be able to put into those private savings accounts? All of it, like in Chile, which has a truly privatized system? Just a minor percentage of tax contributions, perhaps one-third, like President George W. Bush and Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan proposed in years past? Would it be a mandatory or voluntary program? Would the accounts be managed by the government or by private companies? Would the accounts be invested in the stock market, U.S. Treasury bonds or something else?
Those sound like questions that should draw more attention from journalists.
Changing the cost-of-living formula. There’s been a lot of talk about using a different method of calculating the cost-of-living adjustments for Social Security recipients, which are designed to keep benefits from eroding over time as the result of inflation. Under the “chained CPI,” the most widely discussed alternative, benefit adjustments would be lower than under current law.
Past support for the chained CPI (and a higher retirement age) has become a problem for Larry Pressler, the former three-term senator from South Dakota who’s trying to win a new term as an independent. As that state’s Argus Leader reported, Pressler has said he was misquoted in the past—but he wasn’t.
That’s all good to know. To advance the story further, reporters might probe what made Pressler change his mind—and break down for voters what a change might mean. They also might ask where candidates stand on the CPI-E, an alternative adjustment that would increase benefits to reflect what seniors actually spend money on, including higher healthcare costs.
When it comes to Social Security, candidates haven’t been shy about using the “everything should be on the table” dodge, and its cousin, “we need to consider all options.” Journalists need to dig for more details—and when candidates won’t offer them, that’s part of the story.
While we’re talking about dodges, I’ll add another. As we’ve seen, candidates from both parties are quick to say their prescriptions for Social Security won’t affect current retirees and those nearing retirement. (Here’s another example, from Minnesota.) That line is supposed to score points among deficit hawks without riling up the current seniors who turn out to vote. But it neatly avoids the larger question: How will America face up to the coming retirement income crisis? That’s a good one for post-election reporting, too.
Related content:
The media discover the ‘chained CPI’
A Grand Bargain on Entitlements
What a Higher Retirement Age Really means
Trudy Lieberman is a longtime contributing editor to the Columbia Journalism Review. She is the lead writer for CJR's Covering the Health Care Fight. She also blogs for Health News Review and the Center for Health Journalism. Follow her on Twitter @Trudy_Lieberman.