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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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