Abstract

Old Women in the Cold

The article discusses the impact of Social Security on women in the United States. The Institute for Women's Policy Research in Washington, DC, estimates that half the women over 65 would fall into poverty without Social Security income because 70 percent of Social Security beneficiaries over 85 are women. Worried that his privatization plan is in peril, President George W. Bush has been touting its benefits to widows. Bush's plan for private accounts would deepen the crisis faced by vast numbers of elderly women. To educate women, the National Council of Women's Organizations held a national press conference in to express its strong opposition to private accounts. Real reform in Social Security should express our core conviction that we are not isolated, self-made men and women but a society of individuals who should care for the most vulnerable.