Home > News > 2005 News

Kids Benefit From Social Security
by Marian Wright Edelman - March 30, 2005
Reprinted by permission

I’ve written about why privatizing Social Security isn’t a good idea and is dangerous for Black Americans and so many Americans. There is another key point I want to stress about Social Security: it is a vital children’s safety net. Seniors are not the only group to benefit from it. President Bush has been targeting much of the marketing of his privatization idea to older Americans, promising them that his plans will not change their benefits at all. Perhaps he assumes that as long as they know their own protection will stay the same, many older Americans won’t care what happens to their children or grandchildren. In reality, of course, most of us care deeply about the future plans for Social Security, but many people may not realize just what crucial protection Social Security benefits provide today to millions of our children and grandchildren.

A few weeks ago, U.S. Reps. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.) and Sander Levin (D-Mich.) released a new report prepared by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service about how important current Social Security benefits are to children. This report pointed out that Social Security survivor and disability benefits help 6.4 million children—almost twice as many as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), the nation’s major social welfare program—and found that Social Security is currently the largest source of federal funding that prevents children from falling into poverty. Its benefits have kept 920,000 children out of poverty, and more than one-third of children in families with Social Security income would be poor without them. As Rep. McDermott put it, "This report proves that Social Security is a safety net under every American, not just seniors; when you put Social Security at risk, you put children, as well as seniors, at risk. That’s not a risk worth taking, and we know now there are almost a million reasons not to take it."

Who are the children benefiting from Social Security right now? Actually, almost every American child may benefit. Social Security is composed of three social insurance programs, covering workers and their families against destitution in old age, from disability, and following the untimely death of a worker. Family members can obtain assistance whenever a parent obtains benefits. Almost every child is in a family covered by Social Security throughout his or her childhood, and all covered children benefit from the protection, just as people benefit from having health insurance coverage and disability coverage even if they do not draw on the resources in a given year. The protection exists even when payments don’t need to be made. But tragedies and accidents can happen in all kinds of families, and millions of children do need to receive payments every year.

Social Security gives a monthly benefit to the dependents of deceased, disabled, or retired workers. Last year, 3 million children under 18 received these benefits—one of every 24 children in America. This coverage continues until age 20 if the child is in college and without limit if the child is disabled. Last year, 111,000 college students and nearly 760,000 disabled people over 18 were eligible, so if we add them, there were 4 million children of workers who were direct beneficiaries. Another 1 million children under 18 are direct recipients of Supplemental Security Income (SSI), a means-tested entitlement for disabled and aged people without adequate income. All told, about 5 million children of workers—mostly under 18, but some in college or disabled—depend on Social Security and SSI checks directly.

More than 1 million additional children benefit indirectly because someone else in the household is a direct beneficiary (for example, a grandparent who lives with the family), freeing up other family income to be used for the child’s needs. Including this population, one in 10 children lives in a household where someone receives either Social Security or Supplemental Security Income. For some groups, the numbers are even higher: for example, one in six poor children and one in six Black children live in a household where someone receives benefits.

I know about these benefits firsthand. My father passed away when I was 14 years old, and his Social Security survivors’ benefits helped my mother provide for me until I graduated from high school and helped me to go to college. Graduating from Spelman College might have been impossible for me without them. I am a grandparent myself now, but I am certainly not willing to agree to change the safety net guarantee for everyone else just as long as it stays in place for me. I’ve seen just how important that guarantee can be. And I believe anyone who thinks the last of the ''Greatest Generation'' and their immediate children could ever be tricked by a simple appeal to self-interest into abandoning those they spent their lives loving and protecting—their own children, their children's children, and the children of their fellow Americans—is misjudging us all. For many Americans, the call to take care of "the least of these" will always make sense not just as a private value but as a public one too.

Marian Wright Edelman is CEO and founder of the Children's Defense Fund and its Action Council whose missions are to Leave No Child Behind® and to ensure every child a Healthy Start, a Head Start, a Fair Start, a Safe Start, and a Moral Start in life and successful passage to adulthood with the help of caring families and communities.

Reprinted by permission. Copyright 2005, Children's Defense Fund.