'Notch Babies' Seek Social Security Payment Increase
By Eileen O'Connor/CNN
WASHINGTON (July 6) -- They arrived by the box load, through the halls of Congress and into the offices of Wisconsin Rep. Mark Neumann. They are pleas from thousands on behalf of millions of "notch babies," Americans who are now in their late 70s who say they were cheated when the government changed the Social Security payment plan.
"There is no question that the group of people that were born between 1916 and 1926 are not being treated in the same manner as people that were born either before them or after them," says Neumann, a Republican.
When Congress phased out a cost-of-living allowance increase in the late 1970s, it created a "notch." A person born in 1916, making an average salary and retiring at age 65, would receive a Social Security payment of about $625 a month. Being born one year later means the monthly benefit was reduced to $510 dollars a month, a difference of $115 dollars each month.
For Alvera Dunn, a 78-year-old retired school teacher, that money would make a big difference. "I pay the big bills first," says Dunn.
Neumann has proposed a fix that would give people like Dunn a $5,000 one-time payment or an adjustment in monthly benefits. Although it is not a great deal of money, Dunn says for Americans who lived through a depression and served in a world war, it's the thought that counts.
"The last two years my money has been a little short," said Dunn. "I think it's a debt they owe us."
Others, including the American Association of Retired Persons, say Dunn is owed nothing and the pre-notch babies actually have been paid too much.
"It's not their money. It's not a savings program that they've built up over the course of working lives. So when a notch person says 'I just want the money that is owed to me,' it's not money owed to them," says Sen. Bob Kerrey (D-Neb.).
Critics argue that any fixes further penalize today's working people: Americans who are already paying far more into the system than their parents did.
|