U.S. Senator Tim Scott visits with seniors

U.S. Senator Tim Scott (R – SC) chatted for nearly an hour with seniors at the Williamsburg County Vital Aging Center in Kingstree, answering questions and concerns regarding a variety of topics. Scott dropped by after a January 17, meet-and-greet event in Florence. Scott talked about death benefits, the Impeachment, and disability payments tied to Social Security.  “If you’re disabled, whether you’re 30, 40, 80 years old, that money comes out of the social security pot. I’m confused why that is,” said Scott. “I don’t know that we should be paying our disability for people who are unable to work for money that is set aside for our seniors.” He would like to see a national conversation addressing that issue and how to appropriate dollars for the disability component verses the retired component. “Today we see them in one bucket. We may need to look at it differently,” he said.

Social Security continued to be a topic for the Charleston native. A senior was worried about benefits running out. Scott explained how the math for Baby Boomers is the same math used today when 16 people were working and a person retired and had a life expectancy of three years. “Today, it’s two-and-a-half people working, one person retired and they will live for 15 years,” he said. Scott would like to see changes now before a crisis. “We can prevent a crisis by having the courage to make good, hard decisions now and not wait 10 years when it’s too late to make those hard decisions,” he said.

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Scott is a majority member of the Special Committee of Aging. Since joining the Senate in 2013, Scott’s signature legislation creating Opportunity Zones was passed as part of the 2017 tax reform package, which has the potential to bring billions of dollars of private investment into distressed communities across the country.

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