For Mother’s Day, don’t just bring that special someone a box of chocolates, a woven hot pad or a cheesy Christmas ornament with your picture affixed.
Bring her a pension. She probably needs one.
Earl Pomeroy is fortunate his mom doesn’t. She’s 77, quite independent and relies on and benefits from Social Security and Medicare. But his grandmother didn’t have either and spent the last years of her life living with Pomeroy and his mom.
It helps explain why Democrat Pomeroy, 45 and the one and only congressman from North Dakota, is in the forefront of a pension reform movement along with Sen. Carol Moseley-Braun (D-Ill.). It’s most relevant when one celebrates the women in one’s life.
“Retirement income security is the most important issue facing the families of this country,” said Pomeroy, one of North Dakota’s three-man Stepford Delegation (seriously, he and the two senators are look-alikes) and whose own family includes his two adopted Korean children.
“And women are at a significant disadvantage due to our existing policies,” Pomeroy said. “It is far more difficult for women to achieve an adequate retirement income than men.”
The retirement income problems of women are not new or undocumented. Last week, they were again highlighted at a hearing of a subcommittee of the House Ways and Means Committee.
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Testimony underscored the underlying dynamics of the problem. Women tend to earn less than men (three of four working women earn less than $25,000 a year); are more likely to work in part-time and minimum-wage jobs in the service sector where pensions are rare; live longer; are likely to not remarry and thus are more likely to be poor; and are more likely to need long-term institutional care.
In addition, their savings priorities tend to focus on their children’s education while their tendency to move in and out of the work force highlights the difficulty that results from lack of portability of retirement plans. And when they have 401(k) plans, they tend to cash out, rather than keep the money for retirement, when they split from a job.
When it comes to the latest statistics, here are a few things the Department of Labor has to say about women and pensions:
– 46 percent of male and 39 percent of female private wage and salary workers have pension plans. Thus, about 24 million working women in the private sector do not have such plans.
– 55 percent of male and 32 percent of female retirees who are 55 or older get pension benefits.
– The median annual pension benefit of new female retirees is less than half that of male retirees. It’s about $7,800 for men, compared with $3,000 for women.
– Just 31 percent of male and 24 percent of female pension benefit recipients have received a cost-of-living adjustment.
Pomeroy is pushing the Secure Assets for Employee Plan Act, which would expand small-business pension coverage, seemingly would not be onerous for employers and would guarantee a minimum defined benefit to workers. He also has introduced legislation to make pensions portable and reduce the vesting period for 401(k) plans to three years from five.
He’s a political liberal with a good handle on financial matters, having served as the state’s insurance commissioner (a post now held by his brother). And while he does find the role of government central, as in shoring up Social Security, expanding pension plans and improving portability, he reflects the era’s pragmatism in conceding the importance of personal responsibility. “Everybody has an obligation to make an effort to prepare for their retirement and save something for it,” he said. “As you look at the Baby Boomers, this is not an issue we can publicly fund our way out of.”
Pomeroy’s advice to working women includes making sure an employer is offering a 100 percent match in its contribution to a 401(k). If there is no plan, start some sort of retirement fund. The whole issue is one embraced by Democratic and GOP politicians, who tend to face off together against an employer class wary of new financial obligations.
It’s why President Clinton and Labor Secretary Alexis Herman will host the first National Summit on Retirement Savings Education on June 4 and 5.
Meanwhile, the Labor Department’s Pension and Welfare Benefits Administration and the Social Security Administration churn out handy publications, including “Social Security: What Every Woman Should Know.”
The Social Security Administration’s publications can be obtained by calling 1-800-772-1213 or through its Web site at http://www.ssa.gov, while the Labor Department’s expertise can be had by calling 1-800-998-7542 or at http://www.dol.gov/dol/pwba.
Going to the mat
Rep. J. Dennis Hastert, the only member of Congress who is installed in the Illinois Wrestling Coaches Hall of Fame, went to the legislative mat last week for a proposal to help smaller, non-revenue-producing college sports such as wrestling.
Frustrated by the decline of such sports, especially given court mandates to assure gender equity in athletics, he sought to force colleges to give four years notice of any plans to change funding for, or to kill outright, smaller sports.
The plan of Hastert, who has a big GOP position as the chief deputy whip in the House, was opposed by a group led by Rep. Tim Roemer, an Indiana Democrat, and the National Collegiate Athletic Association. They felt it constituted untoward government intrusion into higher education decision-making.
Hastert was whipped 292-129. A somewhat similar measure remains alive in the Senate and is the handiwork of Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-Minn.), a former college wrestling champ.
Food and booze
The seduction of the Washington press corps takes many forms, often high-caloric, with free food and booze a tried-and-true White House gambit. And this incredibly subtle act of kissing up to alleged opinion-makers is all the better when imbued with an international aroma. Comprendez vous?
Last week the White House was host to a dinner for Italian Prime Minister Romano Prodi at which the very famous (e.g. Sophia Loren) were joined by members of the political establishment and Americans of Italian extraction, including annual Emmy Award loser Susan Lucci, Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Salt Lake City Mayor Deedee Corradini.
Despite their recent concern with oral sex and suborning of perjury, journalists also were invited and quick to accept the chance to be beguiled by the majesty of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Those who put on their formal finery and surfaced included:
Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne, CNN Washington bureau chief Frank Sesno, New York Times Washington bureau chief Michael Oreskes, New York Times reporter Elaine Sciolino, Los Angeles Times reporter Geraldine Baum, CNN legal pundit Greta Van Susteren, CBS White House correspondent Scott Pelley, and National Public Radio White House correspondent Mara Liasson Cuneo.
The three-course meal included grilled fillet of Alaska halibut and beverage in the form of Virginia’s Horton vineyard Nebbiolo 1995, said to be a varietal of Italian descent that was served in the Thomas Jefferson White House.
The pastry chef, in a culinary bow to the prime minister’s hometown of Bologna created an 18-inch-high duplicate in chestnut ice cream of Bologna’s famous, 350-foot-high Asinelli towers. It sure beats the offerings at Baskin-Robbins.
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