Ted Deutch Quotes

Americans should be able to enjoy a secure retirement after a lifetime of hard work. But too many Americans reach retirement without enough savings to supplement their Social Security benefits.

Social Security not only helps Americans enjoy a secure retirement, it has also kept millions of Americans out of poverty.

Social Security is the very foundation of retirement security for millions of Americans.

Retirement security is often compared to a three-legged stool supported by Social Security, employer-provided pension funds, and private savings.

Privatizing Social Security will take dollars out of young folks' pockets.

Almost half of all Latinas currently on Social Security rely exclusively on their benefit check in retirement.

You cannot go to someone who is 65 or 70 years of age and tell 'em, 'This program that you retired relying on is now being pulled out from underneath you.'

Many seniors understand that Social Security is social insurance as opposed to a program where we put money aside for our own retirement. But most elderly individuals think they're getting their money back. So it isn't selfishness as much as a misunderstanding.

Part of the middle class promise is that, after a lifetime of hard work, you'll be able to retire and enjoy the fruits of that labor. Medicare was established to secure that promise.

The rate of return on Social Security for people nearing retirement is about 1.5 percent. By the time young children like mine are ready to retire, that rate of return will be a negative percentage.

Without Social Security benefits, more than 40 percent of Americans 65 years and older would live below the federal poverty line. Even more striking is that Social Security is the only source of retirement income for almost a quarter of elderly beneficiaries.

Right now, too many women who reach retirement age find themselves widowed or single, relying on their Social Security check for over half of their income.

We all retire one day. If we want to, if we don't want to.

We need to take steps to strengthen and mend Social Security so that its promise of a secure retirement is just as real for seniors in the future as it is today.

Since Social Security faces a large gap between what it promises younger workers and what it can afford to pay them, private savings will likely need to play a larger role in retirement planning for younger workers.

With or without a Social Security fix, Americans don't have enough assets to retire on. There has to be a much larger debate.

Well, we certainly need to raise the retirement age. I've told my 19-year-old and my 22-year-old that they're not going to be getting retirement benefits at age 62.

I think if we are actually going to accept our generation's responsibility, that's going to mean that we give our children no less retirement security than we inherited from our parents.

Social Security is an insurance policy. It's a terrible investment vehicle. Social Security has some great benefits. But it was never meant to be a savings plan. So we need to have a national debate. Should this 12.5 percent that we're contributing all go into a Social Security pool, or should half go into a mandatory savings plan?

On the other end of the spectrum, these women who do live long enough to collect Social Security face the challenge of being disproportionately dependent on the Social Security system for retirement income.

But with a rate of return of 1.6 percent or less, or a negative rate of return, our children and our grandchildren, if we do not make changes, will in fact not have a secure retirement. Indeed, they will not have the funds when they go to retire to even minimally get by.

Because Social Security is specifically designed to boost the retirement income of low earners with a progressive benefit formula, the program has played an enormous and necessary role in keeping Latinas out of poverty.

Today, I'm 60, I'm not married, I don't have any kids. I would give up some Social Security to save a system that Americans are going to depend on now and in the future.

If a woman did not work and have the opportunity to save and invest on her own throughout her lifetime, she is often totally reliant on her family and Social Security for her retirement years.

Our nation's Social Security Trust Fund is depleting at an alarming rate, and failure to implement immediate reforms endangers the ability of Americans to plan for their retirement with the options and certainty they deserve.