title: How to supplement Social Security fairly and effectively.
abstract: Over the past 3 decades, the base upon which Americans obtain income for retirement has become increasingly tied to fluctuations in the financial markets. Because Social Security provides a small percentage of pre-retirement income in retirement, most of the nation's workers need a supplement to Social Security. This study demonstrates the failure of the 401(k) system and advances a bold, but realistic, solution to America's crumbling retirement system: guaranteed retirement accounts (GRAs), a universal government program that supplements Social Security by providing guaranteed rates of return, by locking up balances until retirement, and by mandating annuities at retirement-with survivor's benefits. The GRA plan is compared to other proposals, including President Obama's, which aims to expand the voluntary, commercial, individually directed account-based system.
authors.affiliation: Department of Economics, The New School for Social Research, New York, New York 10003, USA. ghilardt@newschool.edu
authors.forename: Teresa
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ghilarducci
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D006801:Humans; D007182:Income; D010415:Pensions / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011057:Politics; D012179:Retirement / Q000191:economics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012943:Social Security / Q000191:economics / Q000458:organization & administration*; D013660:Taxes; D014481:United States