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Ralph Nader on Social Security

Social Security is a social insurance program officially called "Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance" (OASDI), in reference to its three components. It is primarily funded through a dedicated payroll tax. The debate over social security is largely in how and who will control these accounts. The candidates offer many prescriptions which run the spectrum between private and public control of social security.

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Ralph Nader strongly opposes privatizing social security through personal Social Security accounts

“What would elderly Americans be doing now in this collapsing retirement system, looted and drained by these Wall Street crooks, if they didn’t have that Social Security check. What would happen if they put that Social Security money, as Republicans and some crypto-Democrats wanted to do, into the stock market a few years ago? We have to develop a sense of community in this country….”

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"Working people need a reasonable measure of control over how their pension monies are invested, rather than it being controlled by banks and insurance companies."

#8, The Concord Principles, An Agenda for a New Democracy, Feb 21, 2000

"The government is not like other investors -- it has certain policies and principles which it seeks to promote as a matter of law, the Constitution and obligation to the people -- and it would be intolerable for the government to support corporate practices that contradict broad public interest concerns with statutory bases. One can readily see that federal government investment of the retirement fund in the stock market will breed many conflicts and consequences. The various Social Security privatization schemes, full and partial, would cost both the "social" -- that is the public, cooperative, societal -- element of the program and "security" -- the rock-solid income guarantee afforded by the system. It should be rejected.”

Speech at “Saving Social Security” Conference Jan 21, 1999

Ralph Nader strongly supports raising the earnings cap on Social Security, which is currently $102,000

"...the most obvious simple changes, such as increasing the wealthy's income subject to social security taxes, can pay benefits until the next century."

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