Women face a retirement crisis that is decades in the making. Lower lifetime earnings, career interruptions for caregiving, and higher rates of part-time work all reduce women’s ability to save for retirement and limit their Social Security benefits. Because they live longer than men on average, these gaps compound over time, leaving women significantly more vulnerable to poverty in old age than their male counterparts.
Social Security is the most reliable source of retirement income for millions of women, particularly unmarried women and women of color, who have the least access to employer-sponsored retirement savings. Yet the program’s benefits structure does not fully account for the realities of women’s working lives, especially for caregivers and never-married women who may not benefit equally from spousal and survivor provisions. At the same time, the long-term solvency of Social Security itself is at risk, threatening the financial lifeline that so many women depend on. Ensuring retirement security for women requires both strengthening Social Security and addressing the lifetime economic inequities that leave them with so little to fall back on.
Featured Policy Solutions
Improve the solvency of the Social Security trust funds by raising the tax earnings cap.
Policymakers should raise the Social Security tax earnings cap, also known as the maximum taxable earnings—the highest amount of income subject to Social Security tax—which, according to the Social Security Administration, would eliminate 73% of the projected shortfall.
Expand Social Security benefits for all current and future beneficiaries and recognize unpaid care.
Policymakers should explore initiatives to provide an across-the-board increase, policies that improve the formula for calculating cost-of-living increases to ensure that seniors get increased COLAs that reflect the reality of their costs, and increase Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits. In addition, policymakers should implement caregiver credits to improve the adequacy of Social Security benefits, which would significantly benefit unmarried caregivers who rely solely on their own Social Security contributions and do not receive other auxiliary benefits such as spousal, divorced, or survivor benefits.
Address the pay gap and other workplace inequities that contribute to women’s lower savings and decreased financial security in retirement.
Policymakers should consider, among a range of solutions to narrow the pay gap, providing all workers with access to paid leave and investing in the care economy.
Women’s longer life expectancy, combined with their lower overall earnings and limited contributions to retirement savings, lead to a greater incidence of poverty for women at older ages.
