Saving Social Security: A Balanced Approach

by Peter A. Diamond

New in Paperback. While everyone agrees that Social Security is a vital and necessary government program, there have been widely divergent plans for reforming it. Peter A. Diamond and Peter R. Orszag, two of the nation's foremost economists, propose a reform plan that would rescue the program both from its projected financial problems and from those who would destroy the program in order to save it. Since the publication of the first edition of this book in 2004, the Social Security debate has moved to the center of the domestic policy agenda. In this updated edition of Saving Social Security, the authors analyze the Bush Administration's proposal for individual accounts and discuss the so-called "price indexing" proposal to restore long-term solvency through changing how initial benefits would be calculated. Soc ial Security is essis essential reading for policymakers involved in reform, analysts, students, and all those interested in the fate of this safeguard of American lives. "An honest, transparent and comprehensive approach to making the much needed reforms to the Social Security program."—Journal of Pensions, Economics, and Finance

"Very accessible presentation of facts, analysis of underlying problems, comparison of opinions, and argument for proposed reforms."—Future Survey Exhaustively researched and deeply entrenched in practical issues and mathematical calculations... a highly recommended ray of hope against a looming national crisis." —Wisconsin Bookwatch "Diamond and Orszag bring some welcome realism and decency to the debate."—Robert M. Solow, Institute Professor Emeritus, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Nobel Laureate in Economics

321 pages, Paperback

First published December 4, 2003

Reviews

[Doris · Rating 4 out of 5]

Did not have the time to read the whole book before returning the library interloan, so concentrated on how Social Security was paying out more in the early years than it had collected, creating a legacy debt that is being borne by current generations and generations yet to come. I thought that this book did a good job explaining a lot of technical details about why Social Security works the way it does.