Joe Biden (Photo: Andrew Cuatro/Biden campaign)

In laying out his economic priorities, presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden, the former vice president, vowed to reject "every effort to cut, privatize or weaken" Social Security, including attempts to raise the retirement age, diminish benefits by cutting cost-of-living adjustments, or reduce earned benefits.

Biden's 110-page economic manifesto, released after his visit to Scranton, Pennsylvania, on Thursday, called Social Security "the most enduring thread in our nation's social safety net." Biden pledged to "enact policies to make Social Security more progressive, including meaningfully increasing minimum benefit payments, increasing benefits for long-duration beneficiaries, and protecting surviving spouses from benefit cuts."

Democrats, Biden said, will also "act to protect public and private pensions" and "equalize the network of retirement saving tax breaks so that working people can build their nest eggs faster."

Making college more affordable and authorizing up to $10,000 in student debt relief per borrower also topped Biden's list.

As to bouncing back from the pandemic, Biden said: "The economy is not working for the American people. In a matter of weeks, the abject failure of President Trump and his Administration to competently respond to the COVID-19 pandemic erased all the job gains made since the Obama-Biden administration pulled the country out of the Great Recession, and plunged the economy into recession once more."

Solving the public health crisis posed by the pandemic, Biden said, "is the surest way to get the economy back on track."

Instant Insights /

Boosting Social Security payments tops Biden's economic priorities

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