Bush Social Security Plan Proves Tough Sell Among Working Poor

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Time to worry about investments is a major obstacal for many--


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A61356-2005Apr17.html?referrer=email

Bush Social Security Plan Proves Tough Sell Among Working Poor
Investment Choice Has Limited Appeal, Studies Find

By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, April 18, 2005; Page A01

Brenda Ellis's day begins at 6:30 a.m., when she rousts her 11-year-old son, Imani, from bed, hustles him into the kitchen for breakfast and to the school bus by 7. Tianna, 13, and Dikia, 17, quickly follow. Then she's off, some days to a substitute-teaching job in Prince George's County, others to tax clinics for the working poor, where she is earning credit for a hoped-for career in accounting.







.....In his push to add individual investment accounts to Social Security, President Bush maintains that people like Ellis have the most to gain -- the working poor, living from paycheck to paycheck. With such accounts, they would have a nest egg they could invest in stocks and bonds and watch grow with the benefit of compounding interest. For the first time, they would have a sense of ownership and a stake in their nation's economy and financial markets.

"I'm 1,000-percent convinced of this: The president cares the most about this $10-an-hour person," said Allan B. Hubbard, director of the White House National Economic Council. "And what he gets most irritated by is when it is suggested, 'Oh the $10-an-hour person isn't sophisticated enough to deal with a personal retirement account.' "

But between work, day care and the endless battle to lift themselves up, some members of the president's would-be ownership society say they would just as soon not have another thing to worry about. At least that was the case for several who in recent weeks visited a Southeast D.C. tax clinic run by ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now........

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1. duplicate

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