Caregiver credits are clearly superior

A trio of retirement experts said it's not the right approach. "This type of parental leave bill would undermine retirement security," Alicia Munnell, director of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, said in an email. Social Security is already cutting benefits back as the program's full retirement age increases to 67. Plus, many people have modest to no 401(k) savings, increasing their reliance on Social Security benefits. "Workers are simply not in a position to give up future benefits from Social Security," Munnell said. Instead, Munnell favors some type of caregiver credit, either by increasing the number of work years excluded from Social Security benefit calculations, or giving earnings credits to parents who take time out of the workforce for caregiving. "Either one of these ideas could be paid for by some modest reduction in benefits for higher-income workers, not by forcing all women to take a reduction in their retirement benefits to get paid leave," she said. Cindy Hounsell, president of the nonprofit Women's Institute for a Secure Retirement, said the proposal did little to ameliorate the gender gap women face. "It is essentially an unpaid leave bill since you are using retirement money to pay for unpaid caregiving," she said. Hounsell also favors giving women extra retirement credits for giving birth—or to those who leave work to care for elderly parents or a partner. Olivia Mitchell, a professor of insurance and risk management and business economics and public policy at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, was more succinct: "It is a terrible idea," she said in an email. "Social Security is already facing insolvency such that benefits will need to be cut 25% to 30% soon." The trust fund for Social Security is projected to run out of money in 2034, with most expecting benefit cuts for future retirees.