Contact:
Christy Hicks, 212-452-7723

A New Publication from The Century Foundation Offers the Basics for Understanding the Real Issues of Public Policy in an Older America

The coming retirement of the baby boom generation is a topic that engenders much discussion and debate in the media, on Capitol Hill, in state houses, and in board rooms. All too often, individuals and groups promote their particular agendas with misleading statistics about the impact of the aging of the population on the United States. But while the aging of the population is inevitable, a financial crisis arising from that process is not.

Public Policy in an Older America, the latest entry in the Basics series published by The Century Foundation, provides the best available facts, figures, and projections about the coming demographic changes and the major questions they pose for public policy. After examining why and how the U.S. population is aging, this guide to the issues explores how these changes will affect income security and health care policy.

Other available titles in the Basics series that are related to Public Policy in an Older America include Social Security Reform, Medicare Reform, and Medicaid Reform. These and other guides in the Basics series can be downloaded from The Century Foundation Web site at www.tcf.org. A list of all guides in the Basics series is available online here.

The Century Foundation’s Basics series offers readers a clear, succinct summary of essential facts about important policy issues and unbiased assessments of strengths and weaknesses of reform proposals in the news. These guides are important resources for legislators, journalists, students, and the general public who want the facts and analysis without the rhetoric.

For more information related to aging policy, visit our subject area Web sites: The Social Security Network (www.socsec.org) and Health Policy Watch (www.healthpolicywatch.com). Century Foundation experts who are available for interviews or background discussions on these issues include Richard C. Leone (president), Greg Anrig (vice president, program), Bernard Wasow (senior fellow), and Leif Wellington Haase (health policy fellow). For more information or to schedule an interview, please contact Christy Hicks at hicks@tcf.org or (212) 452-7723.