Darcy Ann Olsen

In the following viewpoint, Darcy Ann Olsen argues that Social Security is unfair to women and should be replaced by a private system in which payroll taxes are placed in personal accounts. Olsen asserts that because women tend to work fewer years and earn lower wages than men, they receive less in Social Security benefits. She also argues that the rules are further biased against working wives because married women are permitted to collect either their own benefits or their spousal benefits, but not both. Olsen concludes that virtually all women, regardless of marital status or income, will be better off under privatization. Olsen is the director of education and child policy at the Cato Institute, a libertarian public policy organization.

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