At the National Public Pension Coalition (NPPC), we know that the fight to protect Social Security and our ongoing battle to defend defined benefit pensions are intrinsically linked. In Alaska, where NPPC proudly supports the effort to restore a defined benefit pension for public employees, public servants also don’t receive Social Security. The billionaire-backed campaign that dismantled Alaska’s public pension system was closely tied to the failed 2005 Bush Administration effort to privatize Social Security. At our core, we believe all workers deserve retirement security—not just the wealthy few.
When states convert a defined benefit pension into defined contribution, 401(k)-type retirement plans, it amounts to privatization. In this case, a public pension would replace a guaranteed benefit managed by a transparent public agency with a lump sum and shift the burden onto workers, like retired police officers and teachers, to manage their own volatile investments. Even worse, states sometimes allow the defined contribution administrator, like Empower in Alaska, to charge predatory fees that eat away at hardworking public employees’ savings. Wall Street wins big in this arrangement, raking in far higher profits from individual 401(k) accounts than they ever could from a large public pension fund.
Similarly, billionaires are now eyeing Social Security as their next target for privatization.
There’s a clear throughline between the failed Bush administration plan, today’s initiative to privatize Social Security, and the billionaire-backed initiatives forcing pension closures: greed. And now, the war on Social Security is ramping up. DOGE is spreading false information about fraud within the program. According to the Associated Press, DOGE could force the Social Security Administration could cut up to half its workforce, potentially interfering with the distribution of Social Security funds.
Billionaire Elon Musk has been explicit in his intent to dismantle the system. In an interview with Fox Business, Musk said, “Most of the federal spending is entitlements. That’s the big one to eliminate.” Translation: he wants to “eliminate” Social Security—and likely Medicare too.
Meanwhile, at BlackRock’s recent retirement summit, CEO Larry Fink complained social security has been “politicized” and claimed it “doesn’t grow with the economy.” But that’s exactly the point: Social Security wasn’t created to serve Wall Street’s interests. It was created by and for working people—built through political will and protected through democratic action.
My grandmother lived in a subsidized apartment in Eveleth, Minnesota, and after my grandfather—an iron miner—passed away at 66, she lived for nearly 30 more years on his survivor’s pension and Social Security benefits. Social Security was designed to provide a retirement floor for those most in need, not to maximize potential growth.
Protecting grandmothers like mine is what organized labor is all about. It’s a testament to what the labor movement can achieve for all workers when we organize and work together. The political process has protected Social Security from the volatile stock market. We’ve been here before. In 2005, the Bush administration attempted to privatize Social Security, gambling it in the stock market. This proposal failed because the politics were untenable.
The attack on Social Security is part of the broader, ongoing assault on defined benefit pensions, and ultimately, retirement security as a whole. In the private sector, pensions have already been decimated, forcing many Americans to pay steep fees and risk their hard-earned retirement savings in a volatile stock market. Now, those same forces are coming for public pensions. Right-wingers and their pawns in Congress have already weaponized the United States Postal Service pension fund to tee up privatization, pitting letter carriers’ retirement security against the long-term viability of the Postal Service itself.
Now, they’re going to gamble with Social Security.
This is not just a policy debate; it’s personal. Social Security kept my grandmother in her home. It provided dignity to my family and continues to define the politics of labor unions for generations. The fight to protect it is not just about economics—it’s about justice, stability, and ensuring that the next generation of working families across America doesn’t see their futures gambled away by Wall Street billionaires.