The Retirement Challenge

Condition: BRAND NEW ISBN: 9780197639276 Author(s): Martin Neil Baily Format: Hardcover Language: English Year: 2023 Publisher: Oxford University Press Inc Pages: 304

Description: A comprehensive plan from two leading experts on how to fix America's outdated retirement systemAmerica's retirement system has serious problems. While it works well for some retirees, millions of others don't have the sound retirement they have worked decades to secure. Roughly 40 percent of today's $4 trillion federal budget is devoted to supporting retirees, which will grow to roughly half over the nextdecade--imperiling the sustainability of the whole system. The system is out of date. It reflects the America of a bygone age--an era in which company or union pensions provided middle-class families adecent standard of living in retirement. In America today, however, private pensions have mostly disappeared, Social Security is threatened to go insolvent, people are living longer, and health care costs continue to rise. Poorer retirees now must choose between buying enough to eat and their prescription drugs.In The Retirement Challenge, influential former White House economists Martin Neil Baily and Benjamin H. Harris explore America's outdated retirementsystem and explain how improving retirement requires changes by families, employers, and policymakers alike. Households need to save more, get smarter about their finances, and trade part of their 401(k) balancesfor insurance products. Companies need to take a more active role in their workers' retirements. And lawmakers need to amend the tax code, Social Security, and a host of other programs.Despite today's wide political divide, policymakers from both parties can come together around changes that will promote a stable retirement. This book shows that these changes do not represent a radical overhaul. If families, businesses, and policymakers do their part, everyone--currentretirees and future generations--can enjoy a much more secure and