3. The Politics of Deservingness

Social Security is characterized by a politics of deservingness. Through a close analysis of the 2005 Social Security privatization debates, as captured on the Congressional Record, Beechey documents that despite divergent policy positions, Democrat and Republican members of Congress deploy an exclusively positive framing of Social Security and its beneficiaries; everyone agrees Social Security must be strengthened and saved, even though there is great disagreement on the reform proposal under debate. Social Security is constructed as a promise to the American people, and in sharp contrast to a pejoratively constructed welfare policy. Recipients are deserving of their benefits whether through poverty, masculine work, or gendered dependency. The power of the politics of deservingness is seen when important silences are considered.