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Episode 194: The “Graying Population” Panic and the 90-Year War on Social Security

Added 2023-12-06 17:04:12 +0000 UTC

“Aging population to hit U.S. economy like a 'ton of bricks',” Reuters reported in 2021. “Aging Is The Real Population Bomb,” the International Monetary Fund cautioned earlier this year. “How an aging population poses challenges for U.S. economy, workforce and social programs,” PBS declared in June. “Why we’re borrowing to fund the elderly while neglecting everyone else,” The Washington Post’s Catherine Rampell wrote just this past November.

Year after year, it seems, American media issues the same warning: The population of the US, due to - among other factors - rising life expectancy and falling birthrates, is getting older, which spells doom for our economy. A graying public, we’re told, will inevitably upend the labor force, destroy productivity, bleed programs like Medicare and Social Security dry, and thus place an undue burden on the younger population.

But the premises for this panic are based on misleading stats, goofy non-sequiturs, and misdirected faux class warfare. So, why do media keep insisting the olds are out for your hard-earned money? Who gets to shape our understanding of what an aging population actually means economically or socially? How does this narrative shift the burden from the state to the individual in terms of managing retirement benefits and systems of care? And what are the real harms of treating people over the age of 65 like they’re a cancer on society?

On this episode, we examine the narrative that an aging population is necessarily dire, looking at how it’s instrumentalized to gut public benefits for seniors and thus for everyone, advance the financialization of retirement, and reframe the conflict between rich and poor as one between young and old.

Our guest is social security expert Nancy Altman.

Guest

Nancy Altman has over four decades of experience in the areas of Social Security, Medicare, and private pensions and is currently the president of Social Security Works and chair of the Strengthen Social Security Coalition. Nancy is the author of four books on social security, the most recent of which, co-authored by Eric Kingson, is Social Security Works For Everyone! Protecting and Expanding the Insurance Americans Love and Count On, published by The New Press in 2021.

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Show Notes

Author delves into U.S. Social Security's origins to debunk myths

Mark Miller and Nancy Altman | August 2, 2018 | Reuters

Social Security Lifts More People Above the Poverty Line Than Any Other Program

Kathleen Romig | June 2, 2023 | Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

Why The Right Hates Social Security (And How They Plan to Destroy It)

Nathan J. Robinson and Alex Lawson | February 23, 2023 | Current Affairs

Aging Populations and Great Power Politics: The Problem is for the Elites, not the Masses

Dean Baker | February 13, 2023 | Center for Economic Research and Policy

What Does It Mean to Increase the Social Security Retirement Age?

Matt Breunig | October 26, 2022 | People's Policy Project

In 2005, Republicans controlled Washington. Their agenda failed. Here's why.

Andrew Prokop | January 9, 2017 | Vox

Increasing Payroll Taxes Would Strengthen Social Security

Kathleen Romig | September 27, 2016 | Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

Why Raising the Retirement Age Would Hurt African Americans

Elvis Guzman and Nakia Gladden | July 2015 | Center for Global Policy Solutions

April 15, 2023 | Associated Press

Pension reform: How long, and in what health, do the French live after 65?

January 6, 2023 | Le Monde

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Transcript

For a full transcript of this episode, go here. You can find transcripts of past episodes and News Briefs here.

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