Retirement Insecurity
Pensions and Social Security
Healthcare
Medicare and Medicaid
Putting Food on the Table
Food Stamps and Unemployment Insurance
Attacks on the safety net have been fierce, lavishly funded, and sustained over the past 85 years, and have intensified since the Reagan era, 45 years ago. All of us – retired and active, old and young – must fight with a new urgency to keep and expand the benefits that we have earned.
The safety net is a set of federal, state and local programs, legislated and contractual, intended to provide protection against economic calamity. Without it, people facing old age, infirmity, unemployment, underemployment, disability, the death of a wage earner, below-poverty wages or contingent work – all run the risk of being unable to fend for themselves. Learn more in our “DEFENDING THE SOCIAL SAFETY NET: A CALL TO ACTION” brochure.
The PSC’s Social Safety Net Working Group (SSNWG or Safety Net Committee) was formed in 2010 and initially consisted of nine retirees. Learn more about its history here. Its intentions articulated at the time remain relevant today:
- To educate PSC members, especially younger members and those currently in-service, about governmental programs designed to ensure the wellbeing of all the people;
- To set the record straight about these programs by dispelling the misinformation used to undermine support for them;
- Join larger coalitions already formed in defense and expansion of the social safety net.
Our Current Campaign
Protect Our Healthcare! Our healthcare campaign focuses on resisting healthcare cuts and privatization efforts targeting municipal employees, retirees, and their dependents, while advocating for affordable, quality healthcare for all. The SSNWG was instrumental in raising the alarm about the massive shift of retirees to a Medicare Advantage plan. The campaign underscores that healthcare is a human right, not merely a negotiable benefit, and encourages union members to educate, organize, and mobilize to prevent cuts and promote healthcare reform at both state and federal levels.
Forum on Healthcare Crisis
Forum on Healthcare Crisis / The Crisis in Health Care sponsored by the PSC Task Force on Health Care Reform and Social Safety Net Working Goup.
- Part 1: Our Health Care: what we’ve got, what we need: (recorded December 16, 2021)
- Part 2: Healthcare as a right and a public good (recorded on March 17, 2022)
- Part 3: Heath Care Privatization and the Single-Payer Response: (recorded May 19, 2022)
- The Endangered Health Benefits of NYC (including CUNY) Employees (slide deck September 2024)
Join the work of the Safety Net Working Group!
Both in-service (active) as well as retiree members are welcome. If you are interested, email [email protected] and let us know of your interests. We also welcome other organizations and activists to join us in defending and expanding the safety net.
Advocacy. Educate, agitate, organize, mobilize on your campus, across titles, with other unionized and non-unionized workers!
Group Meetings. Our working group meetings are held monthly on Zoom for two hours.
Listserv. Join our virtual space (https://groups.google.com/g/psc-safety-net-working-group/) where members can participate in information sharing, engage in interactive discussions on topics related to the safety net, and network and stay connected, fostering collaboration, support, and collective action.
Interim Chair: Lorraine Cohen
Email: [email protected]
