Experts agreed at a recent forum that Social Security is a critical component of retirement security — and that lawmakers must act to strengthen the program.
The Concord Coalition and the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) co-hosted the forum last week on Capitol Hill. It featured two panels of experts from across the political spectrum, as well as Jason Furman, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, and Sen. Orrin Hatch, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.
Experts agreed at a recent forum that Social Security is a critical component of retirement security — and that lawmakers must act to strengthen the program.
The Concord Coalition and the Bipartisan Policy Center (BPC) co-hosted the forum last week on Capitol Hill. It featured two panels of experts from across the political spectrum, as well as Jason Furman, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, and Sen. Orrin Hatch, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.
Former Senator Kent Conrad and Jim Lockhart, co-chairs of BPC’s Commission on Retirement Security and Personal Savings, also spoke.
Furman said a key goal should be “strengthening Social Security and improving its ability to deliver retirement security for Americans, which, to be sure, includes extending its solvency to prevent abrupt and dramatic benefit reductions.”
In prepared remarks, Hatch noted that “the longer we wait, the more disservice we do to younger generations of workers who, with deferred action, will face worse options in terms of taxes paid and benefits received.”
Conrad said that “while fixing Social Security will involve tough decisions on revenues and benefits, we shouldn’t just be looking at this through the lens of making the program solvent. Social Security, many of us believe, also needs to be modernized.”
This sentiment was echoed by the first panel, which featured Eugene Steuerle of the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center, Jared Bernstein of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, and Doug Holtz-Eakin of the American Action Forum.
While they differed on specific solutions, all three agreed that Social Security’s challenges should be addressed soon.
Social Security’s Disability Insurance (DI) trust fund will soon be exhausted, and Congress must act by late 2016 to prevent a 19 percent cut in disability benefits. As Conrad suggested, this would be “an opportunity to address these broader retirement issues.”
The second panel featured Judy Miller of the American Society of Pension Professionals & Actuaries, Christine Marcks of Prudential Financial and Karen Friedman of the Pension Rights Center. They discussed ways to promote expanded personal savings.
