Social Security
Social Security

Author: John Attarian

Publisher: Transaction Publishers

Published: 2006-02-01

Total Pages: 416

ISBN-13: 9781412804912

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One of today's most important national concerns is the projected bankruptcy of Social Security some time in the next few decades and the resultant inability to pay full benefits on time. It has been said that Social Security is the third rail of American politics--touch it and you die. Consequently, it took over two decades of warnings before it was established as a major domestic concern. In Social Security, now in paperback, John Attarian argues that the major cause of this impasse has been the misleading manner in which the program has been depicted to the public, and the beliefs about Social Security that prevail as a result. Most Americans see Social Security as retirement insurance under which taxpayers pay premiums to buy benefits for old age, with their contributions being held in a trust fund that will pay guaranteed benefits as an earned right. Attarian demonstrates that this false picture was deliberately cultivated by Social Security officials to ensure the program's constitutionality, while downplaying the power of Congress to eliminate, cut, delay, or tax benefits or deny them to certain classes of people. It was also presented in this manner to the public so as to make it popular and politically invulnerable. The resultant false consciousness about Social Security has decisively shaped the responses to the program's financial crises over the last two decades and helped preclude corrective action.

Social Security
Social Security

Author: Theodore R. Marmor

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2017-03-14

Total Pages: 266

ISBN-13: 1400886988

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What are the possibilities and prospects for Social Security over the decades ahead? The essays in this interdisciplinary study explore what social insurance has meant historically, socially, economically, politically, and legally in the years since the founding of the American social security system in 1935. Questions examined include: Does Social Security have a coherent and defendable ideology? If so, is that ideology adequate to the demands of a contemporary political environment that seems to emphasize the re-privatization of many roles adopted by the modern welfare state? What explains the peculiarly feverish quality of recent Social Security politics--which has been characterized by periodic high anxiety, claims of doom and crisis, and rigid resistance to any alteration, followed by eventual marginal adjustment and continuing uncertainty about the future? Although the authors do not offer answers for all these questions, they convey confidence about the basic structure of American social security and optimism about its future possibilities. Contributors to the work are Robert M. Ball, Robert M. Cover, Michael J. Graetz, Rudolf Klein, Theodore R. Marmor, Jerry L. Mashaw, Michael O'Higgins, Paul Starr, and James Tobin. Originally published in 1988. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.

Social Security Works!
Social Security Works!

Author: Nancy Altman

Publisher: New Press, The

Published: 2015-01-21

Total Pages: 321

ISBN-13: 1620970473

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A growing chorus of prominent voices in Congress and elsewhere are calling for the expansion of our Social Security system—people who know that Social Security will not “go broke” and does not add a penny to the national debt. Social Security Works! will amplify these voices and offer a powerful antidote to the three-decade-long, billionaire-funded campaign to make us believe that this vital institution is destined to collapse. It isn't. From the Silent Generation to Baby Boomers, from Generation X to Millennials and Generation Z, we all have a stake in understanding the real story about Social Security. Critical to addressing the looming retirement crisis that will affect two- thirds of today's workers, Social Security is a powerful program that can help stop the collapse of the middle class, lessen the pressure squeezing families from all directions, and help end the upward redistribution of wealth that has resulted in perilous levels of inequality. All Americans deserve to have dignified retirement years as well as an umbrella to protect them and their families in the event of disability or premature death. Sure to be a game-changer, Social Security Works! cogently presents the issues and sets forth both an agenda and a political strategy that will benefit us all. At stake are our values and the kind of country we want for ourselves and for those that follow.

Will America Grow Up Before it Grows Old?
Will America Grow Up Before it Grows Old?

Author: Peter G. Peterson

Publisher: Random House (NY)

Published: 1996

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13:

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The facts are plain: Social Security is headed for massive, unsustainable deficits in the next century. Politicians talk of a Social security "trust fund" but there are no hard assets in it--only government bonds. The reality is that Social Security is really a "pay as you go" system, with benefits to current retirees paid not out any saved trust funds but out of taxes on the payroll of today; s workforce. But what will happen when these employees retire; when, in less than fifteen years, the 76 million members of the baby boom generation -- the largest in our history -- stop paying in and start taking money out? And what can we as individuals and as citizens do now to prevent these catastrophic deficits. The crises towards which we are careening (by 2025, 1 American in 5 will be 65 or older and it will take an already overloaded 1.6 working Americans to support each retired person) will not only be felt personally by the many millions stranded with no savings and without benefits, but will shiver the country's economy as a whole as well as the world financial system. With courage, clarity and incontrovertible evidence, Peterson spells out this huge -- if politically unmentionable -- problem more clearly than ever before and tells us what we must do now for our personal survival and that of our children. According to recent polls, more young Americans believe in UFOs than think they will ever receive a Social Security check. Yet most Baby Boomers, as they approach retirement age, believe they will continue to live their present lifestyle in retirement -- without a fraction of the personal savings or pensions necessary to pay for the future they expect. This agingpopulation -- double today's load -- will depend on as few as 1.6 working Americans to support each retired person. Who will support this nation of Floridas? In this short, powerful book, Peter G. Peterson, one of American's top investment bankers and a leading critic of our entitlement policy, spells out in the clearest possible language, with unmistakable numbers and easy-to-read charts, the disaster that lies ahead if we continue to ignore our low saving rate, our ballooning federal deficits, and our enormous unfunded and unsustainable commitments to retirees. Peterson reveals what politicians are afraid to admit: trillions of dollars of promised benefits for which no funds have been provided. Shattering the myths surrounding this subject with hard facts and eye-opening views of the future, Peterson gives the most comprehensive and candid plan for a gradual, humane, fair, and realistic answer to the greatest challenge of the next century: transforming our political, economic, cultural, and social assumptions to adapt to the realities of the graying of America.

Social Security Works For Everyone!
Social Security Works For Everyone!

Author: Nancy J. Altman

Publisher: The New Press

Published: 2021-04-13

Total Pages: 337

ISBN-13: 1620976234

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Social Security expansion is back on the agenda, at a time when Americans need it more than ever—here’s what it should look like (and why it matters to everyday people all over the country) “Altman and Kingson cut through the fog of calculated confusion and outright lies about Social Security.”—David Cay Johnston, Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and author The COVID-19 crisis has pulled the curtain back on America’s looming retirement income crisis, a fraying of the national community, and ever-worsening income inequality. Never before have so many people’s livelihoods and futures been thrown into flux. Now more than ever, expanding Social Security is essential to addressing these challenges. Social Security Works for Everyone!, an evolution of the argument Nancy J. Altman and Eric R. Kingson made in their acclaimed first book, Social Security Works!, presents the case for expanding Social Security, explaining why monthly benefits need to be increased; why Americans need national paid family leave, sick leave, and long term care protections; and how we can pay for it all. Don’t believe the nearly four-decade, billionaire-funded campaign to convince us that the program is destined to collapse. It isn’t. At a time when growing numbers of Americans are seeing beyond the false choice between financial security for working people and financial security for the federal government, this book eloquently makes the case that universal programs that benefit all Americans (yes, even the rich) make our country stronger and our lives more secure. Social Security works because it embodies the best of American values—the ones that will allow Americans to obtain financial security and weather the next crisis.

The Gender Impact of Social Security Reform
The Gender Impact of Social Security Reform

Author: Estelle James

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2008-09-15

Total Pages: 294

ISBN-13: 0226392023

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As populations age and revenues diminish, government and private pension funds around the world are facing insolvency. The looming social security crisis is especially dire for women, who live longer than men but have worked less in the formal labor force. This groundbreaking study examines alternative social security systems and their disparate impacts on men and women. Emphasis is placed on the new multi-pillar systems that combine a publicly managed benefit and a mandatory private retirement saving plan. The Gender Impact of Social Security Reform compares the gendered outcomes of social security systems in Chile, Argentina, and Mexico, and presents empirical findings from Eastern and Central European transition economies as well as several OECD countries. Women’s positions have improved relative to men in countries where joint pensions have been required, widows who have worked can keep the joint pension in addition to their own benefit, the public benefit has been targeted toward low earners, and women’s retirement age has been raised to equality with that of men. The Gender Impact of Social Security Reform will force economists and policy makers to reexamine the design features that enable social security systems to achieve desirable gender outcomes.

Privatizing Social Security
Privatizing Social Security

Author: Martin Feldstein

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2008-04-15

Total Pages: 484

ISBN-13: 0226241823

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This volume represents the most important work to date on one of the pressing policy issues of the moment: the privatization of social security. Although social security is facing enormous fiscal pressure in the face of an aging population, there has been relatively little published on the fundamentals of essential reform through privatization. Privatizing Social Security fills this void by studying the methods and problems involved in shifting from the current system to one based on mandatory saving in individual accounts. "Timely and important. . . . [Privatizing Social Security] presents a forceful case for a radical shift from the existing unfunded, pay-as-you-go single national program to a mandatory funded program with individual savings accounts. . . . An extensive analysis of how a privatized plan would work in the United States is supplemented with the experiences of five other countries that have privatized plans." —Library Journal "[A] high-powered collection of essays by top experts in the field."—Timothy Taylor, Public Interest