Poverty and Income Assistance

This Thanksgiving, Americans across the country can be thankful for four critical programs that helped keep nearly 26 million people out of poverty in 2011, including three social insurance programs: Social Security, unemployment insurance (UI), and workers' compensation, and a related program, Supplemental Security Income (SSI).

Today marks the release of new data from the Census Bureau on Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States: 2011. Some key points from the report are:

Three years into a very modest recovery, unemployed workers continue to experience hardship and are facing cuts to emergency unemployment insurance benefits.

June 2009 marked both the official end of the Great Recession and the beginning of the current recovery, which has been plagued by high unemployment rates, historic long-term unemployment, and sluggish job growth. The national unemployment rate in June 2012 was 8.2%, 3.2 percentage points higher than at the start of the recession in December 2007, and the employment situation in most states is still bleak. If we consider a broader unemployment measure that includes workers who have given up searching for work and those who are underemployed (employed but not working as many hours as they would like), the unemployment rate is much higher -- 14.6%.

I’m a young American; I value Social Security; and this week in particular, I’m feeling reassured that Social Security is on solid footing and will be there for me when I need it. In fact, I see it as a great investment. 

To some, these statements might seem unrealistic, especially given all the negative media coverage that followed the release of the 2012 Social Security Trustees Report last week. But despite the doomsday responses, the reality is actually reassuring – especially for today’s young people, who are used to hearing misleading accounts to the contrary.

That headline – atop a recent Wall Street Journal column by Jack Hough, associate editor of SmartMoney.com – pretty much says it all.

Hough writes: “For an investment return that tops those offered by hedge funds, insurance firms or Wall Street banks, baby boomers should look to Social Security… All you need is a way to make ends meet while delaying the start of Social Security benefits from age 62 to as old as 70.”