Women and Social Security:

This article explores some major assumptions underlying the Social Security system and alternative approaches to rendering the system more economically viable, meeting the income needs of the elderly and/or providing greater equity under its benefit and taxation provisions. It attempts to show that the current structure of Social Security not only reinforces but also exacerbates the underlying economic inequalities in our nation's political economy under the guise of a social insurance program. In addressing selected benefit and taxation issues, the article focuses on how working and older women are faring in the 1990s under the Social Security system. It argues that although the program theoretically is gender neutral, its impact is not. Women, particularly those who are single, are poorly served. The article concludes that a progressive restructuring of the Social Security system itself is imperative if we are to meet the needs of a large percentage of workers, older people, and the economic and social demands of the 1990s and beyond. It also offers some suggestions for such change.     

Women and social security: a progressive approach

This article explores some major assumptions underlying the Social Security system and alternative approaches to rendering the system more economically viable, meeting the income needs of the elderly and/or providing greater equity under its benefit and taxation provisions. It attempts to show that the current structure of Social Security not only reinforces but also exacerbates the underlying economic inequalities in our nation's political economy under the guise of a social insurance program. In addressing selected benefit and taxation issues, the article focuses on how working and older women are faring in the 1990s under the Social Security system. It argues that although the program theoretically is gender neutral, its impact is not. Women, particularly those who are single, are poorly served. The article concludes that a progressive restructuring of the Social Security system itself is imperative if we are to meet the needs of a large percentage of workers, older people, and the economic and social demands of the 1990s and beyond. It also offers some suggestions for such change.     

Social Security and SSI as safety nets for the elderly poor

Partial privatization of Social Security is being considered as an integral part of the future Social Security program for American retirees. Because privatization creates uncertainty about the amount of retirement income that future retirees may expect to receive, the issue of a safety net is critical. This article presents the findings from an empirical study that investigated the degree to which the current Social Security and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) programs provide a safety net, separately and in combination, to the elderly poor. The major findings were that the Social Security program not only increases the income statuses of both posttransfer and pretransfer poor elderly people considerably, but that the program also significantly equalizes the distribution of income among them. In addition, the SSI program supplements the Social Security program in establishing an even greater safety net, especially for posttransfer poor elderly people. On the other hand, Social Security benefits make the income disparity among races greater between both posttransfer and pretransfer poor elderly people. Implications for policy are discussed.     

Options to liberalize Social Security disabled widow(er)s benefits

Each month, 200,000 widows and 6,000 widowers receive Social Security disabled widow(er)s benefits, each benefit averaging about $550. Among the most economically at-risk Social Security beneficiaries, their benefits are permanently reduced. This paper reviews the legislative history of the disabled widow(er)s benefit, identifying key decisions that gave shape to this benefit. Social Security program data and six years of Current Population Survey data (March Annual Demographic Files, 1995-2000) are used to profile the economic status of current and potential disabled widows. The analysis, including comparison with other widows, provides strong evidence of economic need among disabled widows with, for example, 44% of disabled widow beneficiaries, ages 50-59, having below-poverty incomes compared with 15% of like-aged non-disabled widows. We conclude that serious consideration should be given to extending eligibility to all widow(er)s disabled before the normal retirement age; to providing a benefit equal to 100% of the deceased spouse's private insurance amount (PIA); to eliminating the unnecessarily restrictive seven-year rule; and to protecting beneficiaries from losing their eligibility to Medicaid. Even in the context of today's heated Social Security debate, we suggest that a rare opportunity may exist to garner bipartisan support for meaningful, low-cost improvements, in a benefit that primarily targets women.     

Patterns In Discourse About Elderly People In New Zealand

As the number of senior citizens continues to rise, their public profile will grow and political discussion about their future will become increasingly prominent. The present research was designed to approach such debate by providing an assay of naturally occurring data drawn from the New Zealand Royal Commission on Social Policy (1986–1988). Public submissions to the Royal Commission on the specific subject of senior citizens were extracted and examined from a discourse analytic perspective. The results obtained by two independent analyses showed three patterns of discourse, namely, society's obligations to senior citizens, anti-ageism, and old age as a positive resource. This troika of discourse patterns constitute a collective voice through which senior citizens and their supporters defend and advocate the social position of senior citizens.     

Low Confidence in Social Security Is Not Warranted

The public's low confidence in Social Security is unwarranted. Social Security as discussed here means the old-age, survivors, and disability insurance program (OASDI) but does not include Medicare. Its financial condition is excellent in the short range and sound in the long range, based on intermediate-cost estimates. Those who believe otherwise are too pessimistic about our demographic and economic future. The OASDI cost rates are expected to remain at today's level for the next three decades, and will rise starting about 2020. The cost rates are expressed as a percentage of taxable payroll. Because the taxable payroll as a proportion to total compensation is projected to decline, the cost rates in the future will rise even when benefit payments do not. This problem could be solved by a method that effectively taxes total compensation at a constant percentage rate. Another reason for cost rates to rise is population aging. It is possible to reduce the cost rates if educational and work environments are made more hospitable to long worklives. Although population aging is a basic reason for OASDI costs to increase, only about two thirds of such costs are for retirement benefits. The rest is for disabled workers and families of workers.     

Public Sector Management and the Democratic Ethos: A 5-Year Study of Key Relationships in Israel

This article deals with the nexus between bureaucracy and democracyin a management-oriented public sector. The article developsthe idea that public administration plays a major role in determiningcitizens’ political attitudes and behaviors. A theoreticalmodel is suggested to examine the relationship among citizens’perceptions of involvement and participation in administrativedecision making, perceived managerial quality, perceived publicsector performance, and democratic participatory behavior (i.e.,trust in administrative agencies, political participation, andcommunity involvement). A sample of 2,281 Israeli citizens providedinformation on the research variables over a 5-year period (2001–05).Findings reveal that citizens’ perceptions of involvementand participation in administrative decision making are positivelyrelated with perceived managerial quality but are not relatedwith perceived public sector performance. In addition, perceivedmanagerial quality is positively related with trust in administrativeagencies as well as with political participation and communityinvolvement. Finally, public sector performance is a mediatorin this relationship. These findings lead to a discussion aboutthe linkage between the bureaucratic and the democratic ethosin modern managerial governance, theoretical and practical implications,as well as suggestions for future studies.     

Military Triumph, Racial Transcendence, and Colin Powell

A "black kid of no early promise," Colin Powell became the youngestgeneral in the U.S. Army, and then in short order national securityadvisor, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the nation’ssecretary of state. What does this extraordinary story revealabout contemporary American political life? Analyzing surveyssupplied by the National Election Study and the National BlackElection Study, we first establish that Powell’s rapidrise to prominence is matched by his remarkable popularity amongthe American public. Next, we develop and test two possibleexplanations for Powell’s popularity. One supposes thatthe secret to Powell’s high standing with the public liesin his association with success on the battlefield: Powell asthe victorious general. The other explanation invokes racialprogress, the disappearance of racism among whites, and thedecline of identity politics among blacks: Powell as raciallytranscendent. In the final section of the article, informedby our results, we offer some speculations about American politicstoday—about the political implications of military accomplishmentand about the multiplicity of conditions that are required forAmericans to "see through" race.     

Voters and Values in the 2004 Election

A poorly devised exit poll question undermined meaningful analysisof voters’ concerns in the 2004 presidential election.Twenty-two percent of voters picked "moral values" from a listof "issues" describing what mattered most in their vote, morethan selected any other item. Various commentators have misinterpretedthis single data point to conclude that moral values are anascendant political issue and to credit conservative Christiangroups with turning George W. Bush’s popular vote defeatin 2000 into his three million–vote margin of victoryin 2004. We suggest, rather, that while morals and values arecritical in informing political judgments, they represent personalcharacteristics and ill-defined policy preferences far morethan any discrete political issue. First by conflating moralsand values and then by further conflating characteristics andissues, the exit poll’s "issues" list distorted our understandingof the 2004 election. In this article, we examine the flawsin the 2004 National Election Pool exit poll’s "most importantissue" question and explore the presumed rising electoral importanceof moral values and the conservative Christians who overwhelminglyselected this item. Using national exit poll data from 1980through 2004 and other national surveys, we find that the moralvalues item on the issues list cannot properly be viewed asa discrete issue or set of closely related issues; that itsimportance to voters has not grown over time; and that whencontrolled for other variables, it ranks low on the issues listin predicting 2004 vote choices. The aggregated exit poll dataalso show that the voting behavior of conservative Christiansis relatively stable over time, and these voters were not primarilyresponsible for Bush’s improvement in 2004 over 2000.     

Public support for social security

This article reports the results of a nationally representative survey of 1,209 Americans that examines their support for Social Security and six other major social welfare programs. It probes the extent to which members of the public are willing to demonstrate their support, the differences in support among population subgroups, and the extent to which perceptions of Social Security and Social Security recipients predict overall support for Social Security. The authors find high levels of support among members of the public, including a willingness both to write letters to congress members and to pay higher taxes. Some groups of citizens—especially blacks and those who classify themselves as liberals—are more supportive than others, but the differences are not great and contribute little toward explaining the variance in support. The perceptions that the program makes a worthwhile contribution to society and that recipients have no alternative sources of income other than Social Security contribute the most toward predicting overall support for Social Security.     

Campaign for education in democratic citizenship, Guadalajara, Mexico

Since the time of the Mexican Revolution that began in 1910(views on when it finished vary between 1917 and 1940) Mexicohad been ruled by the same, single political party, the PRI(the Partido Revolucionario Institucional, meaning the ‘InstitutionalRevolutionary Party’), until it finally lost a presidentialelection in 2000 to the right-wing Party of National Action,after seventy-one years in power. The PRI had stayed in powerthrough a mixture of ‘clientelism’, ‘populism’,‘corruption’ and the rigging of elections and helda tight control on the whole of Mexican society. In its effortsto bring about social change, from the 1990s onwards Mexicansociety began to concentrate its efforts on challenging thedominance held by the PRI at the national, federal level. Adebate on the ‘transition to democracy’ took offin both academic circles and social and civil organizationslooking for ways to create a new and different kind of relationshipbetween government and society. It was in that context that,as with many other civil organizations in Mexico, we in IMDEC¹considered how we might best open up more spaces for the cultureand practice of democracy and motivate citizens to activelycampaign on those issues impacting on their daily lives. Theissue, however, was how to engage this participation differently,in a more festive atmosphere, breaking with formal traditions,in such a way that people would feel better motivated to becomeinvolved in actively addressing the problems that surroundedthem. In this article, I want to share an experience, whichtook place between April and August 1994, before the local electionsof that year, based on a Campaign for Education in DemocraticCitizenship.     

The Compassion Strategy: Race and the Gender Gap in Campaign 2000

Recent studies have shown that social "compassion" issues, andnot those directly linked to women’s interests, seem todrive the gender gap in presidential vote choice. Some of thesecompassion issues are associated with the plight of racial minoritiesin the media and in the minds of average citizens. Drawing ontheories of gender role socialization, we predict that traditionalpartisan stands on racial issues may help to explain the gendergap. Specifically, we hypothesize that the gap emerges becausemen and women react differently to cues about how compassionatecandidates are toward vulnerable social groups. In one experiment,we manipulate news information regarding George W. Bush’scommitment to blacks versus women. The gender gap is maximizedwhen Bush takes the traditional Republican stance, while itis reduced significantly when Bush espouses a more moderateposition. The gender gap is unaffected by variation in the positionthat Bush takes on women’s issues. In another experiment,we also find that the gender gap emerges when traditional partisanappeals are racialized. Finally, exposure to the 2000 RepublicanNational Convention, with its message of racial inclusion, boostedevaluations of Bush among women but not men.     

Buying a Voice: Gendered Contribution Careers among Affluent Political Donors to Federal Elections, 1980–2008

Early work in feminist theory hypothesized that differences in women and men's social and institutional roles might be reflected in the ways they participate in the political sphere. However, past empirical research has found scant evidence of a gender gap in the participatory strategies or motivations of women and men who become active in politics. But significantly less is known about the gender gap among a more select and increasingly significant player in American politics—political donors. In this article, we utilize a novel big data set—called the Longitudinal Elite Contributor Database (LECD)—that contains the population of all itemized donations made in federal elections between 1980 and 2008. Using this novel big data set supplemented with Social Security Administration (SSA) data on the gender of first names, we provide original estimates of the long‐term evolution of gender representation in the donor pool, vis‐à‐vis when, how often, and to whom affluent men and women have made political contributions over nearly 30 years. We find that large and persistent gendered inequalities of political voice continue to characterize this significant form of political influence. We theorize the potential implications of these findings for the representation of women's interests in the political sphere.     

Comparing Social Security reform options

Social Security is widely recognized as the nation's most effective anti-poverty program for the elderly and widow(er)s. It is so popular that it has often been dubbed the "third rail" of American politics ("touch it and you die"). As a result, changes have come slowly. For instance, in spite of years of warning in advance of the cash flow crisis of 1983, Congress waited until the last minute to act--and when it did, the action it took included a combination of tax increases and benefit reductions. By the mid-1990s, then-President Clinton was talking about the long-term financing issues faced by Social Security, but Congress did not act. President Bush has raised the same issues since 2000, and has now taken to the road to convince the nation that action should be taken now to assure the program's long-term solvency. Because Social Security is a sensitive, complicated, and emotional political topic, many concepts have been discussed but few elected officials have been willing to put forth detailed plans for fear of political backlash. The public, quite naturally, wants to know how they will be affected by "reform." In this introductory section, Figure S-1 seeks to provide a simple response to that question by following the method used in the Trustees' report, where earners maintain a constant percentage of the average wage. Take the year closest to when you were born, the earnings closest to your expected earnings this year (2005), and follow across the columns to see how much your annual benefit would be in today's dollars if you start taking benefits at age 65. For an example of a specific individual: Your 30-year-old child (born in 1975) makes a 2005 salary around $16,500. Under current law, your child's initial annual Social Security retirement benefit would be dollar 11,200 in today's dollars. However, given the projected funding shortfall currently facing the program, this promised benefit is not likely to materialize unless some sort of change is made to the program. This analysis compares "Model 2" from the President's 2001 Commission to Strengthen Social Security (which appears to have the principles for an individual account plan favored by the Bush administration) with three basic options: Current-law benefits with taxes raised to cover the shortfall over the 75-year actuarial period, by removing the existing dollar 90,000 annual wage cap and including all workers. Maintain current benefits until the revenue shortfall occurs, when a "cliff" benefit cut is imposed. A gradual reduction in current-law benefits.     

Ecological modernization and the US Farm Bill: The case of the Conservation Security Program

This paper examines the debate surrounding the inception of the Conservation Security Program (CSP) under the 2002 US Farm Bill as a possible expression of ecological modernization by examining the discursive contributions made by official actors, social movement organizations, and producer organizations. Based on this analysis, the CSP embodies different expectations in terms of ecological modernization. Social movement actors view the program as a pragmatic solution to environmental problems created by productivist agriculture. Official actors and farm lobby representatives argue that the program should serve to create the pre-conditions for the eventual commodification of the natural resource benefits resulting from agricultural activity. These divergent discourses create multiple expectations of policies – reflecting both traditional productivist and post-productivist regimes. Using an ecological modernization framework allows us to see both the commonalities and differences in these approaches, and provides insight into the ways in which discourses surrounding global agri-environmental policies might play out in states' different political, social, economic, and ecological contexts.     

The Undeserving Rich: “Moral Values” and the White Working Class1

White working‐class citizens who vote for the Republican Party have been fodder for much political discussion and speculation recently, and a debate has arisen about the role that “moral values” played in the political decision making of this segment of voters. In this article, we defend a version of the moral values claim. We show that although the Republicans’ policies are unpopular, they are bundled with an overarching moral framework that is extremely resonant to this set of voters, and we use in‐depth interviews to uncover this framework. A key feature of this framework, on which in the 2004 presidential election George W. Bush scored high and John Kerry scored low, is the appropriate attitude to wealth, which serves as an indicator for a candidate’s general moral philosophy and as a heuristic about whether the candidate will govern with working‐class voters’ interests in mind. National Election Studies data support the argument that this was a key influence on the voting decision in 2004, even controlling for voters’ partisan identification.     

Invoking Public Opinion: Policy Elites and Social Security

Do policy elites invoke public opinion? When they do, are theirclaims based on evidence from public opinion surveys? To learnabout the claims that policy elites make, we examined statementsthe president and members of Congress, experts, and interestgroup leaders in congressional hearings made about Social Security.To learn about opinion data on Social Security, we conducteda Lexis-Nexis search of the archives of the Roper Center forPublic Opinion Research. Our analyses show that policy elitesdiscussing Social Security did invoke public opinion. Contraryto our expectations, however, few of the elite invocations ofpublic opinion cited specific surveys or concrete facts aboutthe distribution of opinion. Although claims directly contradictingsurvey evidence were relatively rare, only with the rather fewspecific claims by congressional elites did we find much clear-cutsupport in the available polling data. Relatively seldom couldwe find clear-cut support for the elites' general claims. Moreover,some of the most frequent claims about public opinion—couldhave been contested but seldom were. The highly visible andwell-polled case of Social Security suggests that specific,data-based elite invocations of public opinion may be even lesscommon on other, lower-visibility and less-polled issues. Italso suggests that survey research professionals might do wellto intensify their scrutiny of public discourse about publicopinion and to increase their efforts to bring scientific expertiseto bear upon such discourse.     

The breakdown of class politics

This paper reviews debate in the 1990s over whether, why, and how much class is declining in its impact on politics. One position is the “null hypothesis” of many at Berkeley and Oxford: the impact of class has not changed. The other position is that “post-industrial society” is transforming politics and redefining class. To focus, the paper does not seek to inventory themes in abstract, but stresses core points made by actual proponents in the exchange. Over the decade many issues were resolved; others were not. Social inequality persists, and inequality of income has risen; but the motor of politics is less clearly jobs. Consumption and other post-industrial concerns have entered and transformed politics in many countries worldwide. How political parties have changed their appeals away from “class” is a key issue, as is the drop by about half in the size of the traditional working class in most Western countries since 1945. From this exchange lessons emerge for conceptualizing and measuring these dynamics in the future. He has taught at Columbia, Harvard, Yale, the Sorbonne, UCLA, and the University of Florence.     

Social security reform in the twenty-first century: the United States

The paper reviews the history of the Social Security system in the United States in the twentieth century and discusses options for the twenty-first. Because of the steady aging of the U.S. population and the impending retirement of the large baby boom cohort, the Social Security program now is in long-term actuarial deficit. The standard twentieth century approach to this actuarial deficit would be to raise payroll taxes enough to pay for anticipated future benefit increases, but for several reasons that approach may not be so popular this time around. The author's preferred approach is a gradual trimming of long-term benefit growth, plus "add on" individual accounts to provide new saving, for the economy and for the retirement system. The paper also criticizes proposals for Social Security reform made by President Clinton and a committee appointed by President Bush, generally because these proposals do not provide enough new saving.     

Elite Revisionists and Popular Beliefs: Christopher Columbus, Hero or Villain?

According to revisionist historians and American Indian activists,Christopher Columbus deserves condemnation for having broughtslavery, disease, and death to America’s indigenous peoples.We ask whether the general public’s beliefs about Columbusshow signs of reflecting these critical accounts, which increasedmarkedly as the 1992 Quincentenary approached. Our nationalsurveys, using several different question wordings, indicatethat most Americans continue to admire Columbus because, astradition puts it, "he discovered America," though only a smallnumber of mainly older respondents speak of him in the heroicterms common in earlier years. At the same time, the percentageof Americans who reject traditional beliefs about Columbus isalso small and is divided between those who simply acknowledgethe priority of Indians as the "First Americans" and those whogo further to view Columbus as a villain. The latter group ofrespondents, we find, show a critical stance toward modal Americanbeliefs much more broadly. We also analyze American history school textbooks for evidenceof influence from revisionist writings, and we consider representationsof Columbus in the mass media as well. Revisionist history canbe seen as one consequence of the "minority rights revolution"that began after World War II and has achieved considerablesuccess, but the endurance of Columbus’s reputation—toa considerable extent even among the minorities who have theleast reason to respect him—raises important questionsabout the inertia of tradition, the politics of collective memory,and the difference between elite and popular beliefs.