The local AARP chapter is rallying its 148,000 Hawaii members and the public against a Social Security cut proposal for the next fiscal year.
To reduce the budget deficit, a chained consumer price index, or CPI, would reduce the annual cost-of-living adjustment, or COLA, for recipients of Medicare and Social Security.
Benefits would be cut by $127 billion over the next decade, an AARP news release says.
Seniors nationwide are protesting the cuts, which Hawaii AARP Advocacy Director Steve Tam calls “unfair to those who have paid in all their working lives to Social Security.”
Tam said that in Hawaii, Social Security beneficiaries receive less than $14,000 on average annually.
“That is the equivalent of $6.68 (an hour), which is less than the Hawaii minimum wage,” Tam said by email. “This is not a one-time cut, but would be compounded each year. The chained CPI would result in a benefit cut of about $8,300 over 20 years, for a 67-year-old receiving $13,900 annually.”
Hawaii’s AARP is holding informational meetings about the measure across the islands and provides AARP subscribers with newsletters about the issue. A meeting at the Ward Warehouse conference room Saturday drew about 100 interested citizens, Tam said.
A similar meeting was held June 22 on Maui.
Tam says informal polls show that 90 percent of beneficiaries oppose the cuts.
The chained CPI is part of President Barack Obama’s fiscal year 2014 budget. Obama accepted the Republican proposal for the measure but stipulated two clauses: The budget reduction package must raise additional money though taxation and include protections for the poor and seniors, according to the White House’s Office of Management and Budget’s website.
The federal fiscal year begins Oct. 1.
One problem the AARP has with the chained CPI proposal is that it expects beneficiaries to use “lower-end” products such as generic drugs, rather than brand names, to make up the shortfall.
But that often translates to lower quality, says AARP, formerly known as the American Association of Retired Persons.
“This theory falls short since many seniors spend much of their money on basic goods like prescription drugs, utilities and health care — items that don’t have lower-cost substitutes,” AARP said in a news release.
Tam said that all four Hawaii congressional delegates — U.S. Sens. Brian Schatz and Mazie Hirono and U.S. Reps. Colleen Hanabusa and Tulsi Gabbard — oppose the chained CPI.
“Undermining the vital lifeline that these programs represent for many of our kupuna and veterans is not the way we should go about getting our fiscal house in order,” Hirono said in an April 10 news release.
The AARP is not alone in making a stand against budget cuts to its constituents. Protesters with the Wisconsin Chapter of the Alliance for Retired Americans formed a human chain this week outside their U.S. representative’s office in Green Bay and produced a petition against the chained CPI.
While there have been no protests yet from Hawaii seniors, they are paying attention.
“My Social Security is 100 percent of my income,” said retired social worker Jim Crowe of Kula, Maui.
The 81-year-old contends that the chained CPI would be devastating to seniors and other Social Security beneficiaries should it come to pass.
“I don’t see how they can in conscience even consider (it),” Crowe said. “They are picking on older people.”
Crowe said he is alarmed that the government would consider dipping into the fund that he spent decades paying into.
“It’s my money,” he said. “(Senior beneficiaries) did it right. We played it fair and we prepared for the future. They don’t have any right to take it away.”
