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1992.03.03 :  Public Support for Social Security

Contact: Michelle Bryski or Frank Battistelli (410) 965-8904
March 3, 1992

     Commissioner of Social Security Gwendolyn S. King, in a National Press
Club speech today, called for an end to the use of bogus myths and falsehoods
in social and economic debate "that could do very real harm to the future of
Social Security and to those who depend on it."
     Public support for Social Security and confidence in the program,
Commissioner King said, is being undermined by popular misconceptions about
the program.  One of the most harmful myths, she said, is the notion that
needy children suffer because of the dollars spent on Social Security and
other programs that benefit the elderly.
     She said she abhors this "trendy idea that a dollar used to benefit the
elderly is a dollar unjustly taken away from America's children.  I want to
bring an end to this concept of intergenerational warfare before it gets very
far off the ground."
     She said media reports on intergenerational conflict paint an inaccurate
picture of America's elderly as financially well-off when, in fact, more than
half of the nation's senior citizens would be in poverty if not for Social
Security.  She also pointed out that Social Security is one of the country's
largest child benefit programs, paying over one billion dollars each month to
over three million children.
     Commissioner King sharply criticized those who are spreading an
"apocalyptic message about the coming demise of Social Security," and saying
that the system's reserves are filled with nothing but worthless IOUs.
     She said the Social Security Trust Funds are invested, as they have been
for over a half-century, in U.S. government securities and that the Treasury
will redeem those securities for dollars when they are needed to pay benefits
in the next century.
     King also challenged the idea held by many African-Americans that they
don't get a fair return on their Social Security investment.  She said, "Because
our average life spans are shorter, there is a belief held by no small number of
black Americans that Social Security is an inherently discriminatory
program."
     She pointed, however, to Social Security survivors insurance and disability
insurance and said, "It is precisely because of
the African-American mortality rates, it is because of the comparably high
rates of illness and disability that afflict our community, that Social Security
is such a critically important program for black Americans."

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