The predictable surprise : the unraveling of the U.S. retirement system
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
The predictable surprise : the unraveling of the U.S. retirement system
Oxford University Press, c2012
Available at / 4 libraries
-
No Libraries matched.
- Remove all filters.
Note
Includes bibliographical references and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
Social Security is in jeopardy, private pension systems have fallen apart, and workers are trying to save for their own for retirement with the stock market in the worst shape since the Great Depression. In The Predictable Surprise, Sylvester J. Schieber shows that forewarnings of the coming retirement crisis have been apparent for decades, but we have never mustered the political will to address the problem. This book explains how we have gotten into the retirement predicament and where we can go from here. Schieber, a renowned authority on this topic, provides a compact, insightful history of Social Security, pension plans, and other retirement options, highlighting both their original justifications and the point when things began to go wrong. He brings his discussion right up to the present morass and concludes with suggestions as to how we can reform our retirement system. Our situation is not hopeless, Schieber concludes, if we take on some of these issues and resolve them. If we do not, we will severely jeopardize the prosperity of younger generations.
Table of Contents
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Preface and acknowledgments
- Part 1: Foundations and Fault Lines
- 1. Retirement USA
- 2. Early Motivations behind the Pension Movement
- Part II: Social Security, the dream and reality
- 3. Development and Passage of the Social Security Act
- 4. Early Concerns Prove Nagging and Persistent
- 5. Moving to Pay-as-You-Go Financing
- 6. A Deal too Good to Last
- 7. Operations under Pay-as-You-Go Financing
- 8. Crisis Reactions: Conflict, Consensus and Surprise
- 9. Sorting out the Trust Fund Semantics and Realities
- 10. Policy Stalemate at the Demographic Divide
- 11. Understanding Social Security in Modern Times
- Part III: Employer-based pension provision
- 12. Employer Pensions Taking Root
- 13. Growing pains for Private Retirement Plans
- 14. ERISA: the Transition to a New Regulatory Regime
- 15. The 1980s, a Decade of Regulatory Schizophrenia
- 16. Good Intentions Gone Awry
- 17. Some Good News-or Not
- 18. The Unfolding of a Predictable Defined Benefit Surprise
- 19. And Then, a Predictable Defined Contribution Surprise
- 20. Public pensions: the good, the bad and the ugly
- Part IV: Delivering benefits and providing retirement security
- 21. Retirement Income Security and Workers' Residuals
- 22. End Game: A Gold Watch, Pat on the Back and More
- 23. We've Killed the Goose, Let's Gild the Eggs
- 24. Tax Benefits and Benefit Taxes
- 25. Retiree Health Benefits: Misfortune or Malpractice
- Part V: Truth and consequences
- 26. The Fellow Behind the Tree
- 27. Securing the Social Security Foundation
- 28. Securing Tax-Favored Benefits and Living Standards
- 29. Remembering the Future
- Glossary
by "Nielsen BookData"
