After working all our lives, raising families, and contributing to society, when we are no longer able to work, we all deserve the ability to meet our basic needs: to pay rent, buy food and medicine, keep the lights on, pay medical co-pays, and afford transportation to visit our doctors.
Unfortunately, more of us are being pushed into poverty as we grow older. Programs like Social Security are not keeping up with structural economic and demographic changes and they are constantly under attack to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy. Our economic security work focuses on the following areas to ensure that economic security programs are there when they’re needed, are sufficient to meet our basic needs, and are accessible without discrimination.
In early 2019, the Trump Administration proposed lowering the poverty threshold to make it harder for people to qualify for various public benefits. We opposed this rule. The comment period closed in June 2019. The final rule has not been published as of August 2019. Learn more.