When my mother graduated from West Catholic High School in 1936 and got her first job she remembered seeing the deductions for Social Security and saying to her friends at that time- yeah like we’ll ever see the benefits of Social Security. She laughed at that memory when my Dad reached retirement. My mother died at age 91 and received benefits for more than 20 years as a spouse of a working man, who also died at age 91. She did not work outside the home after she married. She did however raise 11 children and had many different unpaid jobs as housekeeper, neighbor and parent. She felt she earned those Social Security benefits and actually liked getting that paper check, although she knew direct deposit was an option. She felt it was her money and she earned it.
In 1979 when I was working at my first real tax paying job after college for
a church health and retirement pension program I got involved with the Women’s
Alliance for Job Equity. As a new
supervisor manager and a feminist I wanted to know about the discrimination and
employment laws and I wanted to be sure that everyone was treated fairly under
my watch. As a founding Board member of
this organization I learned that women got 59 cents for a man’s dollar. This was three years before my daughter was
born in 1982. It has taken 30 plus years
to move that number to 79 cents to a man's dollar. Still
not equal but it’s creeping forward. When my future granddaughter gets her first
job in 2030s lets be sure it's equal pay for
equal work and that Social Security will be there for all us grandma's .
