Women’s Organizations Condemn Privatizers’ Attacks on Stay-At-Home Moms, Cite Gross Hypocrisy of Party Claiming Mantle of Family Values

March 30, 2005

The National Council of Women’s Organizations (NCWO), the oldest and largest coalition of the nation’s 200 major women’s groups, issued the following statement:

A divide and conquer strategy targeting women is being waged by Congressional supporters of President Bush’s proposal to privatize Social Security. In a briefing paper distributed to Republican lawmakers for use during the Easter Recess, Representatives were advised to draw attention to the Social Security benefits earned by married women who work in the paid labor force versus married women who stay at home, including those who raise children and care for elderly parents. The document was issued by the House Republican Conference on March 18th, and was drafted by a pro-privatization front group based in Boulder, Colorado.

“This attack on the spousal benefits under Social Security is a telling example of how little privatizers value the unpaid caregiving work that millions of women provide for this society,” said Kim Gandy, President of the National Organization for Women and Co-Chair of NCWO’s Women and Social Security Task Force.

As a gender-neutral program, Social Security benefits are based on an individual’s work record or the work record of his or her spouse, whichever is higher. Not surprisingly, most married women receive higher benefits based on their husband’s earnings history than on their own—because of time out of the workforce for family caregiving and because of lower lifetime earnings due to continued disparities between the wages of men and women.

“Even today, the typical woman, over her life-time, earns little more than one-third of the typical man’s life-time earnings,” explained Heidi Hartmann, head of the Institute for Women’s Policy Research and Co-Chair of NCWO’s Women and Social Security Task Force. “Spousal benefits are designed to compensate women for their time spent raising children and caring for other family members,” said Hartmann.

Social Security’s spousal benefit protects ALL women during retirement, including women who worked outside the home during their entire careers, stay-at-home moms, and most commonly, women who worked, took some time off for family caregiving, and then later reentered the workforce.

The Republican-issued document suggests that working women are short-changed by Social Security’s spousal benefits since full-time caregivers are also eligible to receive it. It argues that working women would do better under Bush’s privatization proposal because women would be able to divert a portion of their own Social Security taxes into individual private accounts. The argument is false. Privatizing Social Security will hurt all women—working women and stay-at-home moms alike—because the program’s benefits will be cut across the board.

Privatizers seem to be omitting an important fact: under the current system, spousal benefits combined with the program’s progressive benefit formula protect caregivers and those with low and moderate earnings. Private accounts on the other hand, would leave women at risk of poverty in old age, dependent on their own work and salary histories (all too often less than their male counterparts). In particular, private accounts will hurt caregiving parents who will not be making contributions early in their careers and will not have as many years for their investments to grow. This lack will later be made worse by severe cuts in the guaranteed portion of their benefits. It is also worth noting that working women receive an important benefit not available to full-time homemakers: disability insurance coverage for themselves and their families.

The document characterizes stay-at-home moms as freeloaders who are “granted 50% extra” in the form of spousal benefits. Since raising children is necessary for society to survive, and since it is women who do the major share of the work of raising children, women, not men, receive the major share of spousal benefits. “How dare these Republicans claim women are getting “extra” benefits when in reality they’ve sacrificed their own economic well-being by caring for their families? The hypocrisy of the party that supposedly stands for family values is stunning,” said Gandy.

The document also contradicts itself because at the same time it seems to be complaining that spousal benefits are too generous for those married women who stay home to take care of families, it also complains that spousal benefits are too hard for divorced women to qualify for, because they must have been married for 10 years. Are the privatizers saying that we should make it easier for divorced women to qualify for spousal benefits but harder for married women?

Many working women aren’t getting a fair deal. However, the problem is not Social Security. Addressing the issues of unequal pay, the lack of family-friendly workplace policies, and the shortage of high-quality, affordable child care would be a good start to ensuring working women get what they’ve earned. Improving—not replacing—Social Security benefits would also go a long way toward ensuring economic security for women.

National Council of Women’s Organizations, 1050 17th Street, NW, Suite 250, Washington, D.C. 20036, TEL: (202) 293-4505 | FAX: (202) 293-4507

The National Council of Women’s Organizations (NCWO) is a nonpartisan, nonprofit coalition of more than 200 women’s organizations across the nation collectively representing over ten million women. For years, NCWO has convened the leadership of major women’s organizations dedicated to focusing on national issues and public policy agendas affecting women.

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