As a rural community organizer, I’ve been traveling the state, going from one listening session to another in small towns. Since rural communities have older populations, I hear about the needs of Minnesota seniors.
There’s a staffing crisis in Minnesota nursing facilities and many are closing. We see similar staffing challenges with home care. Access to basic health care is a concern. An acceleration of poverty in many rural communities is impacting our elders. In one community that is over an hour from a good grocery store or a place to buy clothes, one elder in the conversation said, “It is difficult to live here.”
We need to craft a state budget that makes sure we are meeting the needs of seniors in Minnesota.
Unfortunately, the proposal to eliminate the Social Security tax in Minnesota would do the opposite. This $1.2 billion tax cut would benefit the wealthiest retirees, wouldn’t help seniors who need it the most, and it would make it difficult to fund the future seniors, and all of us, deserve.
Currently, no Minnesotan living on just Social Security pays any taxes on their benefits. 600,000 Minnesotans — the majority of all Social Security beneficiaries — would receive nothing. This includes the nearly 75,000 seniors living below the poverty line, many of whom live in rural communities.
70% of this $1.26 billion ongoing tax cut would go to the wealthiest 20% of seniors in Minnesota. The bottom 80% of seniors in Minnesota would only see 30% of the tax cut. That’s right, 80% of seniors in Minnesota would get next to nothing while the top 20% would rake in nearly a billion dollars in tax cuts. That doesn’t make any sense, and it isn’t consistent with Minnesota values.
In Minnesota we know that everyone deserves enough, no matter how young or old, what we look like, or where we live. We care about the needs of our neighbors, and we know there are some things we have to do together.
Let’s use $1.26 billion to address the staffing crisis in elder care in Minnesota. Or, let’s use $1.26 billion to address the child care crisis that will create the workforce needed to address the staffing crisis in elder care. We can set up a paid family and medical leave program that will help adult children care for parents and grandparents. Let’s protect our rural hospitals. That will take funding.
$1.26 billion in ongoing tax cuts would make funding everything more difficult. Emergency medical services, fire departments, police departments, roads and bridges, public transportation, excellent public schools and high-quality two- and four-year colleges, and protecting our natural resources are all important and need our shared investment.
Taking from what we need together to give more to a wealthy few is not the path to a brighter future. We need real solutions for Minnesota seniors, and for all of us. Big tax cuts for wealthy retirees isn’t one of them.