{"id":69433,"date":"2016-06-04T11:30:38","date_gmt":"2016-06-04T15:30:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=69433"},"modified":"2016-06-02T22:21:01","modified_gmt":"2016-06-03T02:21:01","slug":"kingson-statement-on-president-obamas-support-of-social-security-expansion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/?p=69433","title":{"rendered":"Kingson Statement on President Obama’s support of Social Security Expansion"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Kingson_TW\"<\/a>Yesterday, President Obama announced that it\u2019s time to make \u201cSocial Security more generous so today\u2019s retirees and future generations get the dignified retirement that they have earned.\u201d Eric Kingson, candidate for the Democratic nomination in New York\u2019s 24th congressional district, and co-founder of Social Security Works and the Strengthen Social Security Coalition, had this to say.<\/p>\n

\u201cI applaud President Obama for joining the growing movement in the Democratic Party to expand Social Security — for today\u2019s seniors, workers, persons with severe disabilities, and for generations to come. \u00a0With two-thirds of today\u2019s working persons, especially those in their late 40s and 50s, facing a personal retirement income crisis, yes, it\u2019s time to expand benefits. With the Social Security benefits for today\u2019s seniors averaging just $14,000, today\u2019s older Americans need benefit increases, and they need fairer cost-of-living adjustments. With the United States being one of only three nations that do not provide paid maternity benefits at birth or adoption, it\u2019s long past time to add up to 12 weeks paid family and sick leave to our Social Security.<\/p>\n

Hopefully, Representative John Katko and the Republican Party will also come to the realization that Americans \u00a0— Democrats, Independents and Republicans alike — \u00a0want to see benefits increased, not cut, not privatized as Speaker Paul Ryan has long advocated.<\/p>\n

I am proud to play a leadership role in this movement. Social Security Works and the Strengthen Social Security Coalition of 300 organizations that Nancy Altman and I co-founded in 2009 is widely recognized as playing a central role in stopping cuts, and putting the goal of expanding Social Security on the map. I am proud of my colleagues at Social Security Works and the many organizations who worked side by side to change our nation\u2019s discussion about the future of Social Security.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lauren Livingston, co-campaign manager, noted that \u00a0\u201cEric is the only candidate for Congress in New York\u2019s 24th District who, without being in Congress, has actually made a difference in the lives of everyone in the district. In Congress, Eric will keep fighting for everyone\u2019s Social Security, and he will apply his knowledge of how to make change to many other concerns of Central New Yorkers — job development, infrastructure investment, renewable energy, education, debt reduction for college graduates and free college education.\u201d<\/p>\n

Late in May, the three candidates addressed this very issue during a debate on WRVO radio<\/a>. When questioned about whether or not to remove the Social Security cap so that millionaires and billionaires make payroll contributions on all their earnings, just like everyone else who earns less than $118,500, \u00a0both candidates running against Kingson were unable to give a specific answer, committing only to the possibility of considering it. After Deacon stated we should, \u201cput all options on the table…we need to look at the cap,\u201d Williams promptly challenged Deacon saying, \u201cI don\u2019t know what \u2018we need to look at something\u2019 means.\u2019 \u201d \u00a0Williams does not favor removing the cap but felt there \u00a0\u201cneeds to be an economic study.\u201d \u00a0Grant Reeher, host of WRVO\u2019s Campbell conversations was quick to point out that also, \u201csounds like we\u2019re taking a look at it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday, President Obama announced that it\u2019s time to make \u201cSocial Security more generous so today\u2019s retirees and future generations get the dignified retirement that they have earned.\u201d Eric Kingson, candidate for the Democratic nomination in New York\u2019s 24th congressional district, and co-founder of Social Security Works and the Strengthen Social Security Coalition, had this to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":69235,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23811,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-69433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-national","category-top-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=69433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69433\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/69235"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=69433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=69433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/madisoncountycourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=69433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}