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A Cautionary Retirement Tale
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Neil Bhatiya,
The Century Foundation,
7/26/2010
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When President George W. Bush introduced his proposed overhaul of the U.S. Social Security system, the cornerstone of which would have shifted a portion of workers’ payroll taxes into personal retirement accounts, he all but guaranteed that the available investment vehicles would be safe and provide a reliable source of income over the long-term. Continue Reading on the Taking Note Blog.
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Should We Raise the Retirement Age?
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Maggie Mahar,
The Century Foundation,
7/1/2010
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Speaking at a Third Way event recently, House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (MD) had this to say about the deficit: “On the spending side, we could and should consider a higher retirement age, or one pegged to lifespan; more progressive Social Security and Medicare benefits; and a stronger safety net for the Americans who need it most. “ On the face of it, lifting the retirement age makes sense. Americans are living longer, so they could retire later and still enjoy their golden years. Continue reading on the Taking Note blog.
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How Social Security Can Gain Without Much Pain
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Greg Anrig,
The Century Foundation,
6/17/2010
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Advocates of cutting Social Security benefits often argue ruefully that they wish that there was some other way to “save” the program. But, they say sadly, the only realistic choices involve shared sacrifice and pain. So they recommend changes like further delays in the age when full retirement benefits can be collected, reducing cost-of-living adjustments to Social Security payments, and other cuts that would reduce how much future retirees are scheduled to receive. Continue Reading on the Taking Note blog.
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A Brief History of Attacks on Social Security
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Ted Marmor,
The Century Foundation,
6/16/2010
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The National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform set up by President Obama claims both that reducing the projected federal deficit should be a major national objective and that Social Security should be considered as one potential source of relief either through reducing benefits or enhancing revenues or some of both. That much is simply a fact.Continue Reading on the Taking Note Blog.
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Our Children's Social Security
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Eric Kingson,
The Century Foundation,
6/15/2010
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Former Senator Alan Simpson was on a tear when he declared that the traditional defenders of Social Security “don't care a whit about their grandchildren...not a whit." Besides being disrespectful, the logic of his assertion is all wrong. The nation’s children have a huge stake in preserving Social Security. Even more than their parents and grandparents, they stand to gain the most from the organized efforts of older Americans to strengthen Social Security, not cut it. Continue Reading on the Taking Note Blog.
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Deficit Hawks Should Listen to the Public on Social Security
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Nancy Altman,
The Century Foundation,
6/14/2010
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Deficit hawks plotting to cut Social Security to reduce the deficit are seriously misguided. The truth is that Social Security contributes not a single penny to the deficit. Indeed, it is the poster child for fiscal responsibility. Social Security has administrative costs strikingly lower than those of private sector retirement plans. Unlike 401(k) plans, for example, whose administrative fees are routinely 15 or 20 percent of plan contributions, Social Security’s administrative costs are less than one percent. It returns in benefits more than 99 cents of every dollar collected. Continue Reading on the Taking Note Blog.
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When to Take Social Security: Questions to Consider
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National Academy of Social Insurance,
2/1/2010
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Retirees can claim Social Security benefits at any age between 62 and 70. There are sound financial reasons to work beyond the earliest age and to delay claiming Social Security benefits if you can. Monthly benefits will be higher for the rest of your life if you wait. Social Security is the safest and most secure source of retirement income most people have, it is guaranteed to last for life and it automatically keeps up with the cost of living. At advanced ages, work may no longer be an option, pensions may be eroded by inflation and savings may be depleted. Maximizing Social Security benefits for the long term can offset some of the decline in other sources of support.
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Download the report.
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Tough Times Require Strong Social Security Benefits: Views on Social Security among African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and White Americans
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National Academy of Social Insurance,
1/1/2010
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SUMMARY: Americans agree that Social Security has an important role to play during tough economic times. Worried about the poor economy’s effects on their prospects for retirement, Americans want to make sure that Social Security is strengthened for current and future generations. This is particularly true of African Americans (95%) and Hispanics (85%), who are more likely than whites (80%) to assert that Social Security is or will be an important part of their retirement income. Plagued by higher unemployment rates, fewer assets, and worries about paying their monthly bills, African Americans and Hispanics are especially supportive of strengthening Social Security. For example, when given a choice between cutting taxes and government spending or strengthening Social Security in response to the economic crisis and large deficit, two in three Americans (66%) – including 73 percent of African Americans, 67 percent of Hispanics, and 66 percent of whites – support strengthening Social Security over cutting its benefits. African Americans (90%), Hispanics (86%), and whites (75%) also strongly support benefit enhancements, such as extending benefits to college age children whose working parents have died or become disabled. Overall, 88 percent of African Americans, 84 percent of Hispanics, and 74 percent of whites agree that preserving Social Security for future generations is critical, even if it means increasing Social Security taxes on workers. A large majority of African Americans (98%), Hispanics (98%), and whites (90%) also agree that Congress should take action soon to strengthen Social Security’s financial outlook and guarantee income for benefit recipients.
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Download the report.
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How About a Bailout for Social Security?
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Greg Anrig,
The Century Foundation,
5/13/2009
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The media’s coverage of the new governmental reports showing that the severe economic recession has unsurprisingly taken a hit on the Social Security and Medicare trust funds uniformly leaves out an important fact: those two programs have proved to be invaluable to many millions of American families at a time when virtually every other form of personal financial support has collapsed. Retirees and near retirees have lost more than $10 trillion in housing and investment security wealth in the past two years, according to the Center for Economic and Policy Research. Even those who not long ago seemed relatively comfortable with modest nest eggs and a decent home now recognize they would face severe financial hardship in the absence of Social Security and Medicare. Younger workers confronting their own economic pressures who have retired parents and loved ones would face much greater burdens and stress if those two stalwart programs provided less support than they do now for the elderly. Continue Readingon the Taking Note Blog.
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The Snapshot: Just Say No to Social Security Privatization
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The Century Foundation,
The Century Foundation,
10/10/2008
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Americans are feeling very dour about their financial situation these days. By about a 2-1 ratio, they say they are worse off today than they were a year ago, rather than better off.
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Does Anyone Still Want to Privatize Social Security?
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Beverly Goldberg,
The Century Foundation,
9/17/2008
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One good thing to emerge from this week’s market turmoil is that it lays waste to the argument that privatizing Social Security is in everyone’s best interest. Ask yourself how you would feel if your retirement took place during a bear market like the one we are now in.
Why would you want to gamble with your future security when you can have the assurance of a steady fixed income from Social Security as it is now structured to supplement anything you manage to save and any private pension to which you are entitled—a private pension that is subject to market whims?Continue Reading on the Taking Note Blog.
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Happy Sweet 73
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Bernard Wasow,
The Century Foundation,
8/14/2008
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Social Security has survived another year. In at least one important policy area, good sense has triumphed over ideology. We have not shredded the safety net in a celebration of rugged individualism. We have not promised to transfer resources from the poor to the rich, from women to men, from the old to the young. Continue Reading on the Taking Note Blog.
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What the Public Really Wants...on Retirement Security
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Ruy Teixeira,
The Century Foundation,
Center for American Progress,
1/14/2008
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The economy has not delivered strong wage growth or adequate savings opportunities in recent years for average Americans, resulting in widespread economic anxiety and insecurity. Not surprisingly, then, one particular area of anxiety is retirement. In this new brief from Ruy Teixeira's What the Public Really Wants...series, polling data consistently show that not having enough money for retirement is at the top of Americans’ economic concerns.
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Download the PDF file here.
View the series archive here.
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Every Time a Bell Rings, Somebody Else Goes Broke!
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Richard C. Leone,
Newark Star-Ledger,
8/27/2007
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In the past several decades there have been several crises in the financial markets with similar causes: tightening credit, vanishing liquidity and innovative and devilishly risky mortgage instruments.
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| Reforming Tax Incentives to Promote Private Savings for Retirement
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TCF's senior fellow Bernard Wasow finds that the complex set of tax breaks intended to encourage household saving for retirement "are enormously complicated, costly, and ineffective." He proposes three straightforward reforms that would better target incentives to the families who need them most. Read more...
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| 2006 Report Shows Little Change for Social Security
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No matter how much the opponents might wail and wring their hands over the future burden of Social Security, that burden does not add up to much. By Bernard Wasow. Read more...
Find additional resoruces and links on the 2006 report here.
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| Public Policy in an Aging America
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The latest installment in TCF's popular Basics series provides readers with the best available facts, figures, and projections about coming demographic changes and the questions they pose for public policy. Read more...
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| Privatization Revived in 2007 Budget
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While this year’s State of the Union looked to many like final proof of the death of Social Security privatization, you wouldn’t know it from reading the FY 2007 budget released last week. Read more...
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| Trouble in Paradise?
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Only a few short months ago, Chile's private account system was being widely hailed by proponents of privatizing U.S. Social Security. Now, while the U.S. privatization drive is on permanent hiatus, the evidence is still mounting about Chile's private pensions troubles. Read more...
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| The Collapse of Private Pension and Health Care Protections
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In the new report "Apart at the Seams," Charles Morris describes how America's private system of retirement and health benefits, once the envy of the world, unraveled in the face of global competition. U.S. social insurance programs will struggle to keep up, he argues, unless we can plug the holes in the existing system. Read more...
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| Other Countries Reject Private Accounts
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A funny thing happened after President Bush backed away from his effort to replace guaranteed Social Security benefits with private accounts. The U.S. Social Security System suddenly is being pointed to as a model safety net—just what countries like Chile and Britain need as they struggle to fix their malfunctioning private account based pension systems. Read more...
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| Bob Ball's Plan for Fixing Social Security
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Updated to reflect recent developments. Bob Ball, the nation's foremost authority on Social Security, has designed a new plan that proves modest and painless reforms can restore the program's financial balance while keeping its promises to future generations. Read more....
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| Basics of the Social Security Reform Debate
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Now revised for 2005! The Basics: Social Security Reform, a popular source for reliable facts about the program and its future, presents the latest numbers on how the program works, who it affects, and the reform debate. New for the 2005 edition: a chapter on privatization proposals and what those changes would mean to the program and tomorrow's retirees. Download it Read more....
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Social Security Claiming Guide
By Steven Sass, Alicia Munnell and Andrew Eschtruth
If you’re approaching retirement, when you claim benefits is the most important financial decision you’ll likely make. The Social Security Claiming Guide sorts through all the options, spells out how much you can get, and answers frequently asked questions - all in a clear, easy-to-read, and colorful format.
- 3/2/2010
The Social Security Fix-It Book
By Steven Sass, Alicia Munnell and Andrew Eschtruth
A citizen's guide to the Social Security financing shortfall and the leading proposals for addressing the problem. Everything the earnest but over-burdened citizen needs to know. Cheerfully narrated and handsomely presented in 28 pages.
- 3/1/2010 |
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