Financing Longevity

Age Boom Academy Experts Examine Social Security

June 15, 2008 — The ILC-USA's annual Age Boom Academy -- a week-long seminar designed to deepen journalists' understanding of the age boom's multi-pronged impact -- was held at our New York City headquarters last week, and results are already beginning to come in.

One participant, Nancy Stancill, Personal Finance Editor of The Charlotte Observer, inspired by a panel led by Greg Anrig from The Century Foundation, quickly penned “Simple fixes could work to help Social Security”, for her On the Money column.

Anrig presented the case for increasing the taxable amount of annual income for the highest earning 6 percent of the nation’s workforce, along with reducing benefits, and/or investing part of the Social Security trust fund in equities or corporate bonds, as ways to buoy the program's long-term stability.

ILC-CEO Robert Butler also expressed support for raising the qualifying age for Social Security benefits by tying it to increasing longevity. Currently, full benefits begin at 65, but will increase to 66 and 67 in phases, starting with retirees born after 1937.

Such simple changes, Stancill reported,could keep Social Security solvent for at least another 75 years.

Age Boom Academy sessions, supported with a seed money grant from the New York Times Company Foundation, are held annually at the ILC-USA's headquarters in New York City and over 100 journalists have attended the institute since its founding in 2000.

Along with Stancill, this year’s participants represented a large swath of respected media outlets, including Kim K. Dixon, Correspondent, Reuters,; John Leland, National News Reporter, The New York Times; Allison Drury, Senior Editor, Yahoo! Health; Matt Sedensky, Reporter, Associated Press; Phil Vaughn, Producer/Reporter, New Hampshire Public Television; Maribel Villalva, Features/Multimedia Reporter, El Paso Times; Peter Wong, Reporter- Capitol Bureau, Statesman Journal; Jordan Rau, State Capital Staff Reporter, Los Angeles Times; and Ashton Applewhite, Freelancer.

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Related Links: Simple fixes could work to help Social Security

Keywords: Social Security, Age Boom Academy, disability, longevity

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