A new report came out yesterday outlining the importance of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid to residents in South Carolina’s 6th District and for the state’s economy.
Turns out, these three programs provide benefits to 1 out of every 5 residents and contribute $4.2 billion per year to South Carolina's 6th district economy alone.
This report comes out just as South Carolina Representative James Clyburn of the 6th District finishes his work on the congressional Super Committee tasked with reducing the federal deficit. The Committee needs to recommend at least $1.2 trillion in spending cuts by November 23. The full Congress must approve these recommendations by the end of the year, or it will trigger automatic deficit reduction.
Linda Pressley, a Nesmith resident, was on a press conference call Tuesday morning with the SC Alliance for Retired Americans and the Strengthen Social Security campaign. Pressley is just one South Carolinian who relies on Social Security. She worked hard for 17 years on assembly lines, spending the whole day on her feet in addition to serving as the primary caregiver for her father, mother, and nephew, who has mental health issues. Despite her need to stay in the workforce, Linda had surgery on both knees and can no longer do the work she’s trained to do. Without her job, her only income is Social Security long-term disability. This morning she said, “I’m one of the people who relies on Social Security to take care of myself. … Without Social Security, I would probably be homeless.”
Although programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid are widely scapegoated in federal deficit discussions, today’s report points out that they are not the true cause of the deficit. The report notes the large recent run-up in federal deficits resulted largely from 2001 and 2003 tax cuts; unpaid costs of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars; the Great Recession which dramatically reduced tax collections, and the Wall Street bank bailout. Correspondingly, in seeking solutions to the federal deficit, the Super Committee should be looking at its causes and should not be cutting Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, which are absolutely vital to the economic security of this nation.
Highlights from the new report:
- Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid spend a total of about $4.2 billion a year in South Carolina’s 6th district, providing benefits to an average of 1 out of every 5 residents for each program.
- Social Security provided benefits to 1 out of 8 (11.8 percent) residents in 2010, with a typical benefit received by a retired worker in South Carolina’s 6th district of $13,801.
- Without Social Security, the elderly poverty rate in South Carolina would increase from 1 out of 9 (11 percent) to half of all (50.7 percent) residents.
- Social Security never has and will never contribute to federal budget deficits because, by law, it does not have borrowing authority.
- Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are a lifeline for residents of South Carolina’s 6th district, and the lifeblood of many small businesses, hospitals, nursing homes and home caregivers. Most of the jobs they create stay in America. Cutting these programs would threaten our families’ economic security and health and deepen our jobs crisis.
- Medicare spending generally rises less than private health insurance. From 1997 - 2009, Medicare’s annual costs per beneficiary rose far less than those of private health insurance. Cutting Medicare’s benefits simply shifts costs to the sickest and oldest among us, forcing some seniors and people with disabilities to forego treatment, living shorter, less healthy – and more medically costly – lives as a result.
- Two-thirds of all Medicaid spending is for seniors and people with disabilities. One out of every four (16 million) seniors and people with disabilities depended on Medicaid in 2010.
