NAACP: Social Security plan hurts blacks

Denouncing President Bush's plan for Social Security reform as one that would disproportionately hurt blacks, NAACP leaders asked to meet with the president to discuss the issue, the organization's chairman announced Saturday. Julian Bond, speaking at a news conference during the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People's annual meeting here, also said he expects to name the Baltimore-based organization's new president by July. A search committee has interviewed more than 200 candidates to replace Kweisi Mfume, who resigned in December. Last week, NAACP leaders asked to meet with Bush, submitting a letter detailing concerns about education and unemployment but focusing largely on his plan to privatize Social Security. "This proposal is extremely dangerous to us," said Hilary O. Shelton, the NAACP's Washington bureau chief. Among married couples, twice as many blacks as whites rely on Social Security for their entire retirement income, and blacks in their 50s are twice as likely to become disabled as whites, he said. But Bush says blacks would stand to benefit from his privatization plan because, on average, they die earlier than whites and would not have to wait until retirement to receive benefits. That argument has rankled many black leaders who denounced the president for trying to capitalize on the life-expectancy problem one they say is rooted in health disparities and urban violence rather than solve it.Among its goals for 2005, the association plans to curb police brutality by setting up watchdog groups, to urge removal of the Confederate flag from South Carolina's Statehouse and to reduce racial disparities in education and health, Bond said. [more] and [more]