I agree with President Roosevelt, and generations since, that American seniors deserve better than poverty.
As a result of the current universal benefit, the poverty rate for seniors in America is about 10%. Without the universal benefit, it would be over 50%.
It is rather a shame for a rich country like ours ... that it should allow those who have toiled all their days to end in penury and possible starvation.
1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor
I do not believe that older Americans should be forced to live out their lives in poverty, their tiny savings destroyed by illness. Dependent upon their relatives. Feeling unwanted by their country.
I have a fear of poverty in old age. I have this vision of myself living in a skip and eating cat food. It's because I'm freelance, and I've never had a proper job. I don't have a pension, and my savings are dwindling. I always thought someone would just come along and look after me.
No greater tragedy exists in modern civilization than the aged, worn-out worker who after a life of ceaseless effort and useful productivity must look forward for his declining years to a poorhouse. A modern social consciousness demands a more humane and efficient arrangement.
Ms. Merkel is avoiding retirement issues. She simply doesn't want to do anything, although she knows that doing nothing means that real pensions will fall. That is preprogrammed old-age poverty. When it comes to wage fairness: It was Ms. Merkel herself who blocked the establishment of a right to return to a fulltime job after going part time for a period. Yet everyone keeps saying that our platform is identical to that of the conservatives. It's crazy.
If Republicans eliminate Medicare, America will become a country in which you can never retire - and once you physically can no longer work, you are desperately poor until you die.
Imagine a country where the vast majority of seniors live in poverty, a country where for many there are no golden years, but a time of struggle and dependence. That was the United States before the creation of Social Security, which has proven to be one of the most effective and important government programs in our history.
The price of indulging yourself in your youth in the things you cannot afford is poverty and dependence in your old age.
