Conservatives Tell Liberals Why They Should Support Cuts to Social Security

By Dean Baker

Created 03/23/2011 - 11:21am

Showing the sort of balanced journalism that we have come to expect from the Washington Post, its oped page featured a column by Robert Pozen [1], a financial industry executive and proponent of Social Security privatization, telling liberals why they should support cuts to Social Security. The gist of Mr. Pozen's argument is that Social Security is becoming less progressive over time because the gap in life expectancies between higher paid workers and lower paid workers is growing.

Furthermore, because of growing wage inequality, a larger share of wage income is escaping the Social Security tax. In addition, Pozen tells us that the structure of retirement income subsidies is highly regressive since the bulk of the tax benefits go to high income earners.