The spring cleaning, 1992 project continues. Within the past 12 months, I watched Doris Day and David Niven starring in the Movie Please Don't Eat the Daisies. Heard these interesting bits of conversation that I transcribed:
DD: Interesting people don't want to meet housewives.
DN: Oh darling, you're so much more than a housewife.
DD: I know darling. So is every housewife.
That was 1960, merely 50 years ago. Things were different then, in so many many ways. For example, Joe Baegent notes:
Social Security is a raw deal for most women who have worked and paid into it all their lives.
The trouble is that the program was designed to serve 1930s-style households, where two-thirds of wives stayed home while their husbands worked. Yet nowadays, only one in five wives stays home, and two-thirds of couples are "dual earners," most likely because it takes two jobs to pay for housing, or to live the Martha Steward pie-in-the-sky lifestyle -- or at least nibble around the edges. You might think that a woman who retires after punching the time clock and paying into Social Security year after year would come out better, or at least not worse, than a stay-at-home ife who has hit retirement age. You wold be wrong though: Married working women who pay Social Security taxes receive no more benefits from Soci8al Security than women who have never paid a dime into the program.
Here's how it plays out: A stay-at-home wife who retires can claim "spousals benefits" amounting to 50 percent of the benefits of her husband. The system treats her decently because it was created in 1935, when her situation was the norm. The married working woman has a choice when she retires. She can claim benefits based on her own lifetime earnings or she can choose the spousal benefit, whichever is higher. More likely than not, because she earned less than her husband, she will choose to claim half of her husbands benefits -- the same benefit as the married woman who didn't work. ... Researchers at the National Center for Policy Analysis have come up with some startling numbers: "If the second spouse in a couple comprised of two high school educated twenty-five-year-olds enters the workforce and works full-time, the couple's expected lifetime taxes increase 74 percent, but their benefits will increase only 17 percent."
Older women depend on Social Security more than men ... They represent 67 percent of all people drawing Social Security, 27 million altogether. Twenty-four million of them live entirely on a Social Security check that is often below the official poverty level, especially those entering the program after living their entire lives below the poverty level. Only 13 percent of older women who draw Social Security have additional income...
But, let us return to Don't Eat the Daisies:
DD: Cheer up darling, The worst is over.
DD: How about you Maggie? [Maggie is their maid / housekeeper / domestic] Do you think the worst is over?
MAGGIE: It hasn't even begun.
In order for FDR to get support of Southern Senators to pass the initial Social Security, he had to agree that the program would NOT cover domestics and farm laborers. After all, they were mostly ... well, of a different skin pigmentation than the general population.
But back a bit of back and forth banter between David Niven and Doris Day serving as a harbinger for the present era of the McMansion:
DD: How come it's so big?
DN: Because we couldn't afford anything smaller.
Here's the lyrics to a Herbert Magidson (lyrics) Harold Sigmon (music writer) song popularized by Guy Lombardo: Enjoy Yourself (It's Later Than You Think), that ought to cheer us all up, while simultaneously providing food for thought. The Guy Lombardo version was on the Billboard chart (as it was then known) for 19 weeks. Ironically, Doris Day too made a recording of this tune in 1950/
You work and work for years and years, you're always on the go
You never take a minute off, too busy makin' dough
Someday, you say, you'll have your fun, when you're a millionaire
Imagine all the fun you'll have in your old rockin' chair
Enjoy yourself, it's later than you think
Enjoy yourself, while you're still in the pink
The years go by, as quickly as a wink
Enjoy yourself, enjoy yourself, it's later than you think
You're gonna take that ocean trip, no matter, come what may
You've got your reservations made, but you just can't get away
Next year for sure, you'll see the world, you'll really get around
But how far can you travel when you're six feet underground?
Your heart of hearts, your dream of dreams, your ravishing brunette
She's left you and she's now become somebody else's pet
Lay down that gun, don't try, my friend, to reach the great beyond
You'll have more fun by reaching for a redhead or a blonde
Enjoy yourself, it's later than you think
Enjoy yourself, while you're still in the pink
The years go by, as quickly as a wink
Enjoy yourself, enjoy yourself, it's later than you think
