Pension Publications

Listed below are other publications related to retirement income security. Descriptions are from the publisher's web site, and links to these publications do not necessarily imply the Center's endorsement of their content or the authors' positions.

• Pension Policy: The Search for Better Solutions, by John A. Turner, November 2009.
  "John A. Turner tackles the current problems facing pension policy for U.S. private sector employer-provided pension plans. He provides a thorough overview of defined benefit, defined contribution, and hybrid retirement plans; describes the problems inherent in the current pension system; and presents possible solutions to those problems. In doing so, he approaches pension policy from a key perspective, the international perspective."

• High Wire: The Precarious Financial Lives of American Families, by Peter Gosselin, June 2008.
  "Drawing on interviews with hundreds of Americans and new statistics he developed, Peter Gosselin traces a quarter-century shift of economic risk from the broad shoulders of business and government to the backs of working people. It is a shift that has shaken the pillars of most families’ lives-stable jobs, solid benefits, government protections."
  

• When I'm Sixty-Four: The Plot against Pensions and the Plan to Save Them, by Teresa Ghilarducci, May 2008.
  "A crisis is looming for baby boomers and anyone else who hopes to retire in the coming years. In When I'm Sixty-Four, Teresa Ghilarducci, the nation's leading authority on the economics of retirement, explains how to confront this crisis head-on, revealing the causes behind the increasingly precarious economics of old age in America and proposing a bold plan to guarantee retirement security for every working citizen."

• While America Aged: How Pension Debts Ruined General Motors, Stopped the NYC Subways, Bankrupted San Diego, and Loom as the Next Financial Crisis, by Roger Lowenstein, May 2008.
  "Lowenstein recognizes that fixing pensions will be difficult but securing retirement is a critical issue―especially in our rapidly aging country―and he proposes a cogent solution to the impending crisis. Masterfully written and convincingly argued, While America Aged is a timely and crucial wake-up call to a pension damaged America."

• The Big Squeeze: Tough Times for the American Worker, by Steven Greenhouse, April 2008.
  "The Big Squeeze takes a fresh, probing, and often shocking look at the stresses and strains faced by tens of millions of American workers as wages have stagnated, health and pension benefits have grown stingier, and job security has shriveled."

• When the Good Pensions Go Away: Why America Needs a New Deal for Pension and Healthcare Reform, by Thomas J. Mackell, April 2008.
  "In When the Good Pensions Go Away, Thomas Mackell suggests remedies to the quagmire that has been created by the conflicting interests of the health care and pension service providers, the aging population, and the inertia that has permeated our policymakers. Mackell proposes a 'New Deal' for restoring fiscal sanity in Washington, reimposing budget discipline, rolling back irresponsible wartime tax cuts, and investing in America and its people."
  

• Pension Dumping: The Reasons, the Wreckage, the Stakes for Wall Street, by Fran Hawthorne, March 2008.
  "Pension Dumping explains in shocking detail how terminating the pension plan became a knee-jerk strategy for bankrupt companies that hope to attract big investors to help them reorganize."

• Guaranteed Retirement Accounts: Toward retirement income security, by Teresa Ghilarducci, November 2007. EPI Briefing Paper #204.
  "Developed by retirement security expert Teresa Ghilarducci, this proposal would provide a guaranteed supplement to Social Security that is reliable, affordable, and both actuarially and economically sound. The new accounts would correct the distortions and inequities that have multiplied in the shift from defined-benefit pension to defined-contribution plans like 401(k)s, a shift that has exacerbated the growth of retirement insecurity and inequality for most American workers."

• Building on Social Security's Success, by Virginia Reno, November 2007. EPI Briefing Paper #208.
  "Virginia Reno makes the case for expanding Social Security benefits, showing that U.S. seniors have lower replacement rates from Social Security and are more likely to be poor than are seniors in other advanced economies. Benefit cuts already enacted and growing obligations for Medicare cost-sharing mean that seniors will need higher benefits in the future just to maintain replacement rates that retirees have attained for the past 25 years; and the rest of the retirement system is becoming less adequate and is subjecting workers to more risks."
  

• Employee Pensions: Policies, Problems, and Possibilities, edited by Teresa Ghilarducci and Christian E. Weller, October 2007.
  "This volume outlines a fresh view on pension plans from the perspective of both the employer and employee, describing the possibilities in American labor relations and in Congress to meet employers' needs to compete and to fulfill the enduring desire of workers to plan for a financially secure period of leisure at the end of their working lives."

• Protecting Your Pension For Dummies, by Robert D. Gary, Esq. and Jori Bloom Naegele, Esq., July 2007.
  "This easy-to-follow guide explains all the latest pension laws, what your rights are, and the best ways to keep your money safe. It demystifies the various types of pension plans and outlines just what it takes to qualify for a pension."
  

• What Women Need to Know About Retirement, edited by Jeffrey R. Lewis and Cindy Hounsell, July 2007.
  "Available for free on the Internet, this book will provide the reader with a blueprint to both get started planning a retirement and to grow that investment."
  
  
• The Great Risk Shift: The Assault on American Jobs, Families, Health Care and Retirement And How You Can Fight Back, by Jacob Hacker, October 2006.
  "A devastating critique of the 'ownership society,' revealing how this conservative crusade puts all of us at greater economic risk than at any time in recent history."

• A Country That Works: Getting America Back on Track, by Andy Stern, October 2006.
  "Today's average American household is deeply in debt, has set aside inadequate retirement savings, and may or may not have health insurance. More than ever, we are living paycheck to paycheck and too many of us are only one illness or accident away from bankruptcy. SEIU President Andy Stern examines these realities and presents his ideas for reforming our political and social systems to meet the 21st century needs of everyday working Americans."
  

• 50+: Igniting a Revolution to Reinvent America, by Bill Novelli with Boe Workman, September & October 2006.
  "AARP CEO Bill Novelli challenges the largest retirement-age generation in U.S. history to come together and grasp the unique opportunity that faces them to transform society, dramatically and for the better. All proceeds go to the AARP Foundation."

• The Oxford Handbook of Pensions and Retirement Income, by Gordon L. Clark, Alicia H. Munnell and J. Michael Orszag, September 2006.
  "The only comprehensive review available of the latest research, policy-related tools, analytical methods and techniques and major theoretical frameworks and principles of pension and retirement income."

• Saving Social Security: A Balanced Approach (Revised Edition), by Peter A. Diamond and Peter R. Orszag, 2005.
  "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."

• The Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974: A Political History, by James A. Wooten, 2005. "This study of the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974 (ERISA) explains in detail how public officials in the executive branch and Congress overcame strong opposition from business and organized labor to pass landmark legislation regulating employer-sponsored retirement and health plans."