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ChatChat - Claudia Cragg


Jan 27, 2015

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

You may well have noticed that there is now a growing chorus of prominent voices in Congress and elsewhere calling for the expansion of the US Social Security system— people who know that Social Security will not “go broke” and that, in truth, it does not add a penny to the national debt.

KGNU's Claudia Cragg speaks here with Nancy Altman, co-author of Social Security Works!. This book not only amplifies these voices but also offers a powerful antidote to the three-decade-long, billionaire-funded campaign to make us believe that this vital institution is destined to collapse. 

Nancy Altman, a lawyer, is the author of The Battle for Social Security and a co-author, with Eric Kingson, of this book published by The New Press. Altman and Kingson served as staff advisers to the 1982 (Greenspan) National Commission on Social Security Reform and were founding board members of the National Academy of Social Insurance. They founded Social Security Works.org in 2010 and co-chair the Strengthen Social Security Coalition. Altman is the board chair of the Pension Rights Center and lives in Bethesda, Maryland.

From the Silent Generation to Baby Boomers, from Generation X to Millennials and Generation Z, everyone in the US, says Altman, has a stake in understanding the real story about Social Security. Critical to addressing the looming retirement crisis that will affect two- thirds of today’s workers, Social Security is a powerful program that can help stop the collapse of the middle class, lessen the pressure squeezing families from all directions, and help end the upward redistribution of wealth that has resulted in perilous levels of inequality.