A Stitch in Haste

The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, a notoriously liberal gay advocacy group, has put out an atrocious report claiming that Social Security reform is a bad idea for gays:

LGBT Americans, on average, have lower incomes than their heterosexual counterparts, which translates into lower Social Security benefits when they retire. In addition, same-sex couples are not eligible for Social Security’s spousal and survivor benefits provisions, making the LGBT community disproportionately vulnerable to the benefit cuts and risks inherent to the president’s plan.
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Selling Us Short finds that LGBT people of color, in particular, face an income disadvantage that leads to lower Social Security benefits.
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Discriminatory government policies, meanwhile, place gay people in an even more economically disadvantaged position, increasing the critical need to maintain the economic safety net Social Security is intended to provide. … “Gay people can’t inherit their partner’s pension plan, while a heterosexual widow or widower can be a beneficiary.”
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Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people are more likely to age alone and less likely to have children than their heterosexual counterparts…

This is absolutely unforgivable.

Let’s take each of the study’s assertions in turn:

1. Gays tend to earn less, so they tend to have lower Social Security benefits. Assuming the income differential actually exists (compare with my previous post), wouldn’t the sensible approach go something like this: “Social Security is rigged against gays, so perhaps we should consider changing it.”? NGLTF is saying exactly the opposite — “it’s unfair to gays, so let’s not change it”! This is simply not possible unless NGLTF has some ulterior motive.

2. Blacks tend to earn less than whites (and therefore accrue lower Social Security benefits), so black gays must also be treated unfairly under Social Security reform. Again, assume the race-based differential, irrespective of sexual orientation, is true — isn’t that Point #1 all over again? If Social Security is a raw deal for black gays, then why for goodness sake would black gays not want to reform it? Of course, the real indignity of Social Security for blacks is not different incomes, but different life expectancies. Since Social Security benefits are a life annuity, a shorter life expectancy means a lower rate of return, perhaps even a negative return. The only way to eliminate that differential is by not having Social Security as a life annuity to begin with. Private accounts are a step in that direction.

3. Discriminatory government policies and the inheritability of pensions work against gays. This is without question the most insane part of the NGLTF report. Federal DOMA is precisely the reason why gays should be rioting in the streets demanding private accounts! Those “discriminatory government policies” are, for the most part, irrelevant when it comes to property rights. DOMA be damned, your property is yours and if you choose to share it with, or bequeath it to, your partner, then you can still do it despite DOMA. Same-sex marriages and civil unions notwithstanding, so long as federal DOMA is on the books, partnered gays will lose out under today’s Social Security.

Fighting DOMA and other “discriminatory government policies” is all well and good, but in the meantime shouldn’t we also fight their impact by insulating ourselves from their effects? Private Social Security accounts help to achieve that.

By the way, regarding private pensions:

Gay people can’t inherit their partner’s pension plan, while a heterosexual widow or widower can be a beneficiary.

That is a complete, and I suspect intentional, misrepresentation. It is true that married couples (including married gay couples) can often elect to structure defined-benefit pension annuities as “joint-life annuities” rather than “single-life annuities.” That is not, however, the same as saying, as NGLTF incorrectly does, that a widow or widower can “inherit” a spouse’s pension. The correct analogy, the one that NGLTF mysteriously chooses not to make, is between a defined-benefit pension plan (which Social Secuirty essentially is), and a defined-contribution pension account such as a 401(k) account or an IRA, which can be inherited by spouses or by unmarried gay couples (assuming a well-crafted will).

That is the only valid comparison: money that goes “poof!” at your death or money that passes to your estate. Which is better for unmarried gay couples? Defined-benefit private pension? Poof! Today’s Social Security? Poof! IRA account? To the estate/partner. Private Social Security account? To the estate/partner. This is not difficult. For the NGLTF not to see it means they are too busy seeing something else.

4. Elderly gays have no support network. The idea that the nation is about to be overrun with legions of Granpa Waltons who sit back and drink The Recipe while the adult children and grandchildren care for them doesn’t even exist in heterosexual America anymore, so the stereotype that gays don’t have kids — besides being a stereotype — is not useful anyway.

Put it this way: if elderly gays have no one to support them, then their own financial independence becomes all the more important. Private accounts, that are their own untouchable property, are the obvious way to help achieve that.

Finally, the NGLTF conveniently omits that the White House’s proposal exempts anyone over the age of 55 from any changes in Social Security anyway — Granpa Walton’s checks are safe.

(FUN FACT: William “Granpa Walton” Geer was a bisexual whose “male friend” was a gay rights activist.)

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As I’ve blogged previously, here is pretty much everything you need to know about Social Security reform:

1. No reform proposal from anyone, anywhere calls for cutting current benefits. The NGLTF report does not mention this anywhere.

2. Every reform proposal would make participation voluntary. The word “voluntary” does not appear once in the NGLTF report.

3. Every reform proposal would include a zero-risk money market option. The NGLTF report, by contrast, repeatedly uses the flat-out lie lexicon of “risky stock market gamble” and such.

There is no basis, none whatsoever, to oppose a voluntary opt-out reform program for Social Security for any segment of the population, least of all for gays. Advocacy groups that do cannot be motivated by concern for their members.

Of course, the real agenda of the NGLTF with respect to Social Security is the same as every other liberal group’s — petty partisan politics: Say whatever needs to be said, omit whatever needs to be omitted, twist whatever needs to be twisted, to block Social Security reform at all costs. For groups like the NGLTF, a defeat for the White House is far more important than a victory for their own constituents.

Shame on them.

Meanwhile, the full NGLTF report (PDF – 31 pages) can be found here. My Social Security archive is available here.

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I don’t usually get this uppity, but if you are giving money to NGLTF, PLEASE STOP! They are not working in your best interests. There are non-partisan groups that are far more deserving of your charitable donations — my two favorites are Lambda Legal (the heroes who brought us Lawrence v. Texas) and the Point Foundation, which gives scholarships to disowned and disadvantaged gay students. There are right ways to sponsor gay empowerment, and there are wrong ways. NGLTF is the wrong way.

Similar Posts:

• Social Security v. DOMA: Survivor Benefits
• Kerry and the Social Security “January Surprise”
• Who Faces the “Risk” of Social Security Reform?
• On Selling Social Security Reform
• Revisiting Social Security and Minorities

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