Source: United States House of Representatives – Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi Representing the 12th District of California
San Francisco – Today, Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi hosted a Save Social Security Day of Action roundtable, bringing together San Francisco community leaders, advocates, seniors and people with disabilities to discuss the critical importance of protecting Social Security for the over 109,000 recipients in San Francisco.
The roundtable featured key speakers, including Anni Chung, President and CEO of Self-Help for the Elderly; Kelly Dearman, Executive Director of the San Francisco Department of Disability and Aging Services; and American Federation of Government Employees, Social Security beneficiaries and storytellers.
The event highlighted the struggles that seniors and individuals with disabilities face under current conditions, with many reporting service delays and system failures at the Social Security Administration. The discussion also focused on the Trump Administration’s decision decision to gut SSA staffing, close SSA field offices and restrict access to essential services, which disproportionately affect seniors, Veterans, and people with disabilities.
Watch the full roundtable here. View photos from today’s event here.
Read Speaker Emerita Pelosi’s remarks as delivered below:
Speaker Emerita Pelosi. Thank you very much, Anni.
As I have been working as suggested on all of these issues you have been a tremendous intellectual resource on all of this, especially those issues that relate to the health and the well-being of our seniors. For decades—decades, several decades—Anni has been a great resource.
She has been wise. She has been dissatisfied from time to time, and patient. But always, always focused and strategic. So, thank you. It’s so appropriate we’re here. Appropriate that we are here at self-help, because that term is so important for the elderly.
I thank all of you. We will hear from our panel from the standpoint of policy and personal experience, because nothing is more valuable than the stories that people tell about their own experiences.
What’s so sad about what’s happening now is they’ll say, “Oh, we’re not touching benefits,” but they’re closing offices and shutting down the phones. Now, there’s been resistance to the phone thing, but it’s still taking a long time.
And then, at the end of the day, they say “the office is closed and use of the phones is over.”
That is just such bad news for seniors or people with disabilities.
So, this is a Day of Action for Social Security. Last week, we had a day of action to save Medicaid. These are related. These are related because there will be action for Medicare and the rest.
But understand what we’re up against, and I think you know this, that’s why you’re here. They are saying Social Security is a scam. Imagine that. Imagine that.
Okay, so let’s talk about nine decades ago, in the depths of the Great Depression, half of America’s seniors lived in poverty. In poverty.
Instead of resting, retirement only brought uncertainty and hardship. President Roosevelt said, “There is no tragedy in growing old, but there is tragedy in growing old without means of support.”
By signing Social Security into law, he established a pillar of financial stability that has stood for generations.
Today, it safeguards the well-being of millions—tens of millions—of Americans, whether they are retired or living with a disability. You all know this. Social Security is one of our nation’s greatest legislative accomplishments and one of the most widely supported.
In San Francisco alone, more than 100,000 residents receive $196 million in Social Security checks per month—$196 million, hard earned.
Donald Trump, and co-president Musk are spreading lies about Social Security, calling it a “Ponzi scheme” and a “scam.”
Musk’s DOGE is putting benefits at risk and Republicans in Congress want to end Social Security as we know it. No matter what they say. They’re fighting to hike the retirement age, slash benefits and push privatization. All to give tax breaks to billionaires.
I know they talk about fiscal responsibility? Yet, they’re willing to give tax breaks to billionaires with nothing to offset—you know we want to feed children and they say, “how are you going to pay for it?”
But tax breaks for the rich don’t need to be offset—that’s just plain wrong.
I was just telling this story. A few Saturdays ago, which was our Day of Action for Medicaid, I was at a wedding in Scranton, Pennsylvania, of my college roommate and maid of honor at my wedding.
It was like a family wedding for me, for her grandson. That’s where I participated in the day of Action. We had this big thing in Scranton. It was so exciting. They didn’t expect that I would be there. We didn’t tell them before I decided that I would be there. We didn’t tell them. I bring it up because I go the wedding, and I do not know bride’s family. So I am with the groom’s family.
After the wedding, before I had a chance to visit the families, they came to me. They were very nice and complimentary, so that was good. Then the grandmother came up and said, “What are they doing with my Social Security!?”
This is at the church. “I paid into that. That’s my money!”
I said, “Let’s go. Let’s go to the rally for that.” It was so indicative to me that people know. They have to know what is happening.
Lincoln said, “Public sentiment is everything. With it, you can accomplish anything; without it, practically nothing.”
In order for public sentiment prevail. People have to know. So this has to happen. Drumbeat. Drumbeat. Drumbeat. A constant drumbeat. This is what they are doing.
Some of you were part of our strategy in 2006, when the then-President wanted to privatize Social Security. That was our fight. We had not won since 1992, This is 2006. Beginning in 2005, we started organizing events against privatizing Social Security. In one day, we had 200 events on this.
I had a good rapport with the President. Today, it’s a different story. We are talking about a patriotic American versus someone who uses words like “scam” and “Ponzi scheme.”
He [President Bush] said “You keep saying I want to privatize Social Security and that’s not really so. I just want to partially privatize it.”
And I said “Mr. President—that’s good enough for me.”
Everyplace you go, we will have a positive team to talk about our plan for Social Security. And we won for the first time since 1992. Not to talk politics but civics.
So we want them to have their hands off. That was our whole theme on Saturday in the rain in Pennsylvania.
Christine was at the one here, but all over the country, millions of people participated. Hands off our Medicaid.
But we want hands off our safety net—Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, food for our children.
They are saying we can’t really do our budget unless we can find an offset with the food so we will have to cut the food. SNAP. The safety net. So, this is what we are up against among other things.