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A MOTION supporting the expansion of the Social Security and Medicare programs and benefits and the elimination of the cap on earnings that are subject to the Social Security payroll tax, and directing the council clerk to distribute this motion to Washington's congressional delegation.
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WHEREAS, the gap between the pensions and retirement savings that American households actually have and what they need in order to maintain their standard of living was $7.7 trillion as of 2013, and
WHEREAS, forty-seven percent of working-age families had nothing saved in retirement accounts, and the median working-age family had only $5,000 saved, as of 2013, and
WHEREAS, one in three American families had no savings at all, and 56.3 percent of Americans had less than $1,000 in their checking and savings accounts, as of 2015, and
WHEREAS, as of 2011, only about half of United States workers participated in a workplace retirement plan, and only ten percent of all private sector establishments provided defined benefit plans, covering just eighteen percent of private industry employees, and
WHEREAS, as of June 2015, Social Security retiree benefits averaged only about $1,300 per month, and among elderly Social Security beneficiaries, fifty-three percent of married couples and seventy-four percent of unmarried persons received most of their income from Social Security, and
WHEREAS, as of July 1, 2015, 12.4 percent of the King County population was sixty-five years old and older, and 26.3 percent was between forty-five and sixty-four years old, and
WHEREAS, people of color made up 32.3 percent of King County's population in 2014, and among seniors sixty-five years old and older in 2012 Social Security was the sole source of income for forty-three percent of Hispanics, thirty-seven percent of African Americans and thirty-two percent of Asian and Pacific Islanders, compared to twenty-two percent of whites, and
WHEREAS, as of April 1, 2015, women constituted 55.7 perc...
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