Press release headline: National
Gay and Lesbian Task Force study finds that Social Security
privatization will disproportionately harm lesbian, gay, bisexual
and transgender Americans . Yes, allowing gay people to
bequeath their life-long retirement savings to a partner (or anyone
else they choose) sure would be a bad thing, and allowing
all people of modest means to access the wealth-generating power of
the equity markets, if they so choose, is a sure threat to gay
equality.
Oh, and the study also finds that "LGBT people of color, in
particular, face an income disadvantage that leads to lower Social
Security benefits." Well, yes, which is why capital accumulation
via low-expense asset-class index funds would give them a fighting
chance at a comfortable retirement.
Update: Reader "David" comments:
This is a dishonest study, done by leftists to advance the
left's agenda rather than by actual gay activists with an interest
in the actual lives of gay people.
Social Security choice is inherently pro-gay. If people put
their retirement in private accounts, those accounts belong to
them. They can leave their assets to their partner or to anyone
else. If gays could get married, then this provision would not
matter to us more than to anyone else - but we can't.
The study says: "If we earn less, we receive a lower Social
Security payment in retirement." Well, duh. But that's a fact - or
a complaint - about the current system. A large-accounts
privatization plan would allow lower-income people to accumulate
assets the way upper-middle-class people now do. If indeed gays are
more likely to have lower incomes, then they would be
disproportionately benefited by privatization.
I think the study notes, for instance, that money you leave to
your partner is taxable, while assets left to your spouse are not.
That's discrimination, and we should support ending it - but it's a
comment on current law, not Social Security reform. In fact, we
might even be able to quietly get a provision into the reform law
that says that private Social Security benefits could be inherited
tax-free. (And besides, left-liberals are always telling us that
only the very rich pay the estate tax, so the taxability of
retirement assets is hardly an issue for "low-income LGBTs.")
If you'd like to leave the money you've saved all your life to
your partner - or to HRC - you should support Social Security
choice.