Issue Position: Seniors

Issue Position

A plan to rebuild the middle class includes protecting and strengthening Social Security and Medicare for our seniors.

It is critically important that we protect and strengthen Social Security and Medicare for people with disabilities and our seniors. These are programs that seniors have paid into their entire lives, and it is unconscionable to slash these benefits to pay for more tax breaks to the wealthiest among us. I am staunchly opposed to any plan that cuts these critical programs that ensure our seniors and people with disabilities do not have to live in poverty. We must protect and strengthen Social Security and Medicare because our seniors deserve to retire with dignity.

Protecting and Strengthening Social Security

Social Security is among the most important programs ever created by our government. Older Americans have worked hard and made sacrifices to ensure a better, stronger country for future generations. They deserve a secure, healthy retirement.

I am invested in increasing benefits for current beneficiaries while making Social Security stronger for future generations. It will improve the short-term and long-term health of Social Security in three ways.

Increase benefits for all Social Security beneficiaries by about $70 per month;

Change the way the Social Security Administration calculates the Cost of Living Adjustments (COLA), ensuring that benefits better reflect the increasing costs facing seniors today; and

Phase out the current taxable cap of $113,700 to ensure that wealthy Americans contribute the same percentage of their wage earnings to Social Security as everyone else.

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