Yesterday the AFL-CIO learned President Obama's budget will cut Social Security and Medicare benefits for working families. The so-called "chained" CPI will cut Social Security benefits and middle-income seniors (people who made $47,000 a year and more) will be asked to pay higher Medicare premiums.

Prominent Democrats—including the president and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi—are openly suggesting that Medicare be means-tested and Social Security payments be reduced by applying a lower adjustment for inflation. 

This is even before they’ve started budget negotiations with Republicans—who still refuse to raise taxes on the rich, close tax loopholes the rich depend on (such as hedge-fund and private-equity managers’ “carried interest”), increase capital gains taxes on the wealthy, cap their tax deductions or tax financial transactions. 

Read the rest of Selling the Store: Why Democrats Shouldn’t Put Social Security and Medicare on the Table on Robert Reich's blog. 

In more than 100 events across the country Wednesday, working families rallied outside lawmakers’ offices, federal agencies, military bases and elsewhere to shine a spotlight on the impact of the sequester’s across-the-board cuts that will cost more than 750,000 jobs this year alone and to call for its repeal.

While most of the actions aimed at members of Congress were focused on Republicans who are using the sequester as leverage to get their way in Congress, in Beckley, W.Va., a group of more than 50 AFGE and other union members and community supporters received a shout out of support from Rep. Nick Rahall (D).

In his most recent column, Economic Policy Institute President Lawrence Mishel demolishes arguments in favor of "chained" CPI, which is often offered in grand bargain negotiations, saying it is nothing more than a way to explain away cuts to the program.

As part of  Wednesday’s national day of action to repeal the sequester, “Building Unions,” a weekly radio show from the Connecticut AFL-CIO and Greater Hartford Central Labor Council will discuss sequestration, its impact on working families and the drive to repeal the across-the-board budget cuts.

The show airs from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. on WATR 1320 AM. Click on the “Listen Live” button to stream the show that will feature Connecticut AFL-CIO President John Olsen, labor council President Peggy Buchanan and members of AFGE, AFT and the Machinists (IAM).

The "chained" CPI cost-of-living formula—which would result in a painful cut in benefits for Social Security recipients—was touted as good policy by White House National Economic Council Director Gene Sperling in an "Ask Me Anything" Reddit chat yesterday. 

Across-the-board budget cuts—called sequestration—will cost more than 750,000 jobs this year alone and many more jobs over the next decade. There is a simple solution to make this problem go away: repeal sequestration.

It's that simple.

Join working families on March 20 for a national day of actions at congressional offices and in our communities.

Find an event near you.

Democratic Reps. John Conyers (Mich.), Keith Ellison (Minn.), Alan Grayson (Fla.) and Raul Grijalva (Ariz.) will demand action on a one-sentence bill introduced by Conyers called the "Cancel the Sequester Act of 2013."

You can watch the press conference live at 12 p.m. EDT here or in this blog. 

Are people really living longer? That depends...how much money do you have?

Media pundits and Washington elites love to point to their own lives and say, "Hey, we're living longer, why not raise the Social Security retirement age and Medicare eligibility age?"

What they fail to realize is that large gains in life expectancy are closely related to how wealthy a person is. Just look at the case of the two counties in Florida that Washington Post reporter Michael A. Fletcher examined in Research Ties Economic Inequality to Gap in Life Expectancy.

Debates over Social Security and Medicare reform cannot continue inside the Washington, D.C., vacuum without "adequate consideration to facts," writes Thomas B. Edsall in a recent New York Times op-ed. Yet that's exactly what is happening—not to mention "reform" inside the beltway means "cut" for policymakers trying to forge grand budget bargains.