Hillary Clinton called for boosting Social Security benefits for poor widows and single women in the Democratic presidential debate Tuesday night, moving away from her 2008 campaign stance and toward the positions espoused by her liberal challengers.
“I want to enhance the benefits for the poorest recipients of Social Security,” Clinton said. “We have a lot of women on Social Security, particularly widowed and single women who didn’t make a lot of money during their careers, and they are impoverished, and they need more help from the Social Security system.”
During the 2008 campaign, Clinton favored a commission on reforming Social Security, a proposal viewed warily by many liberal activists who fear that such a commission would be used to lessen benefits.
This year, however, Clinton has faced pressure from liberals who want a more robust defense of Social Security’s retirement and disability programs. Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, a congressional favorite of the party’s left wing, has pushed candidates to embrace expanding Social Security, rather than reducing its benefits as President Obama countenanced at times during his presidency as part of negotiations with Republicans.
Clinton’s top challenger, Vermont senator and socialist Bernie Sanders, has embraced expanding Social Security. Sanders has proposed to pay for the benefits by raising the cap on income subject to the Social Security tax.
Clinton had not previously sketched out a position on Social Security and did not suggest how she would aim to pay for increasing benefits for poor beneficiaries Tuesday night. She did say, however, that she would “look for ways to try to make sure it’s solvent into the future.”
She added that “the most important fight we’re going to have is defending it against continuing Republican efforts to privatize it.”
