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Everyone deserves to be able to retire with dignity, but this core feature of the social contract is in jeopardy. Companies have swerved away from pensions, and most of the workforce has woefully inadequate retirement savings. If we don’t act to fix this broken system, rates of impoverishment for senior citizens threaten to skyrocket, and tens of millions of Americans reaching retirement age in the coming decades will be forced to delay retirement and will experience a dramatic drop in their standard of living.
In Rescuing Retirement, Teresa Ghilarducci and Tony James offer a comprehensive yet simple plan to help workers save for retirement, increase retirement savings by earning higher returns, and guarantee lifelong income for everyone. Built on people’s own money in individual Guaranteed Retirement Accounts, the plan requires no new taxes, no more bureaucracy, and no increase in the deficit. Speaking to Americans’ growing anxiety about their ability to retire, Rescuing Retirement provides answers to anyone wanting to understand the growing movement to protect a period of life once considered a deserved time of rest and creativity and offers a practical guide to the future of secure retirement.
Teresa Ghilarducci is the Irene and Bernard L. Schwartz Professor of Economics and Policy Analysis at the New School for Social Research, director of the Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis, and director of the New School’s Retirement Equity Lab. She is the author of When I’m Sixty-Four: The Plot Against Pensions and the Plan to Save Them (2008) and How to Retire with Enough Money: And How to Know What Enough Is (2015).
Tony James is executive vice chairman of the Blackstone Group and a member of Blackstone’s board of directors. He previously served as Blackstone’s president and chief operating officer.
Foreword, by Timothy Geithner
Acknowledgments
1. Society’s Retirement Crisis
2. How We Got Here: America’s Broken Retirement System
3. Six Key Problems: The Consequences of a Broken Retirement System
4. Rescuing Retirement: A Four-Pronged Solution
5. Case Studies: Similar Plans in Action
6. Why Not Just Expand Social Security?: Americans Need a Universal Pension System
7. Growing Support from the American People and a Mandate for Congress
8. The Employer's Stake in Retirement Reform
9. Conclusion
Questions and Answers on the Guaranteed Retirement Account
Appendix A: The Cost of a Principal Protection Guarantee
Appendix B: GRAs Versus Other Policy Solutions
Appendix C: Looking at Retirement Coverage Across the Country
Notes
Bibliography
Index