How Do We Save Social Security?

When I talk to people on the campaign trail, I hear the same fear: their social security benefits could be cut. These are people who worked their whole lives, and held up their end of the deal. That money should be there for them. It needs to be there for them.

Social security at it’s core is an amazing antipoverty program. It is one of the hallmark achievements of the FDR administration and its principal architect, Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins.

We can and must ensure this program remains a reliable source of economic security for everyone who has worked their entire lives and has a right to enjoy a retirement where they can read, travel, spend quality time with family, and participate in community service and democracy.

The solution to keeping this system alive isn’t raising the retirement age or cutting benefits, it’s changing who is contributing. Let’s raise the Social Security Tax Cap.

The current system means people making over $186,000 don’t contribute. Plain and simple; that’s not fair.

People making millions should still be participating in this system, a system we all benefit from.

Raising the cap is keeping a promise. A promise to every worker that contributed to this country. That’s worth fighting for.

Frances Perkins, incidentally, was a graduate of my alma mater, Mount Holyoke College. It is this revolutionary policy-making and relentless commitment to making life better for working people that animates me in my work, as well.