I was interviewed on WNYC's the Takeaway about my recent opinion column the New York Times "Our Ridiculous Approach to Retirement." In a segment titled "Has the American Retirement System Failed?" I discuss the findings of SCEPA's Guaranteeing Retirement Income Project - the implications of our inadequate retirement savings system based on individual retirement accounts, such as the 40(k), and what to do about it. Even with adequate planning under the current system, a period of sickness can wipe out any health or security a person has. Even with financial literacy, events can overtake people. This inevitably leads to a greater risk of falling into poverty for retired Americans.

The inadequacy of the current system of retirement savings has gotten worse since the Great Recession. The risk of poverty filtering up to the middle class as the recession wiped out lots of near-retirees (ages 55 to 65) savings and work history. The spector we all saw of more and more retired americans moving into poverty has actually been moved up about 20 or 30 years.

For the past 30 years, the American system of retirement savings experiemented with people saving on their own. The experiment hasn't work. Tthe solution doesn't fall on people knowing more or being more realistic, we need an expanded social security system that expects people to just be human beings, live their lives responsibly... We can't expect human being to act like spreadsheets. This generation of retirees or near retirees can still be helped with include social security plus.

I joined American Public Media's Marketplace in a segment titled, "The 401(k) System Doesn't Work." I discuss how our current, individual-based voluntary system for retirement doesn't work because it expects individuals to know when when they will lose their job, get sick, get divorced, lose a spouse and eventually die. The coming retirement income security crisis was not caused by a set of isolated individual behaviors; the system was simply never realistic. The solution to the problem lies in government-mandated, guaranteed retirement accounts on top of Social Security. See the Guaranteed Retirement Accounts (GRA) plan for more information.

The New York Times published an article by reporter Steven Greenhouse, "Should the 401(k) Be Reformed or Replaced?" Greenhouse writes, "Every good retirement system needs to have adequate accumulation for individuals, the money needs to be invested appropriately and the payout needs to meet the needs of retirees for life. Unfortunately, 401(k)'s fail in all three categories." It's inefficient to provide $80 billion in annual tax breaks for 401(k)s, a sum that largely benefits high-income individuals likely to save without a tax incentive.

The article cites my proposal calling for the creation of Guaranteed Retirement Accounts (GRAs) as gaining support. The plan would require both employee and employer contributions into a federal retirement fund that would earn a 3 percent, inflation-adjusted minimum return pegged to the long-term growth rate of the U.S. economy. Account balances would be converted into annuities that would provide a life-long stream of income in retirement.

CNN ran an op-ed I co-authored with Rick McGahey, “Americans are Not Moochers.” We dispel Republican Presidential Candidate Mitt Romney’s claim that 47 percent of Americans expect government programs to provide for their basic needs.

Digging deeper into why 47 percent don't pay federal income tax, what we find are many former taxpayers: twenty-two percent are the elderly, living mostly on Social Security, a benefit they got by working and paying payroll taxes. Others are unemployed or are paid close to the minimum wage, so they don't have enough income to file any taxes.

What is missing from the discussion is the fact that the lack of progressivity in the U.S. tax system. While in theory, higher income individuals pay a higher tax rate, it is the middle class that pays the highest percentage of their income in total taxes due to lower tax for capital gains and larger deductions that reduce taxes for the highest earners.

Romney’s suggestion that older Americans and low-income households feel entitled to government assistance is a theory that does not fit the data. In fact, less than 4% of the U.S. population has received a year’s worth of income-based assistance programs such as food stamps, and more than 50 percent of older people looking for work are too young to receive social security, leaving them close to the poverty line.

On October 4, 2012, Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz gave a lecture at The New School on his latest book, “The Price of Inequality: How Today's Divided Society Endangers Our Future." His presentation was followed by a discussion with Michael Cohen, director of The New School Graduate Program in International Affairs, New School President David Van Zandt, and myself.

On November 16, 2012, I was asked to add commentary to Bill Moyers' “Group Think: Fiscal Cliff” blog.

In my post, “Jobs and Growth, Not Austerity”, disputed the common argument that tax cuts for the rich create jobs. In reality, the wealthy are more likely to spend on foreign goods or to save, rather than spur domestic consumption or investment. Middle and working class consumers need increased buying power to increase growth, and that the government can make this possible by extending unemployment insurance and tax cuts for low and middle income households. I propose four measures included in the Economics Policy Institute’s Plan to reduce the federal deficit while spurring growth:

·  Extend Emergency Unemployment Insurance (EUI) for the long-term unemployed;

·  Gradually phase out the temporary payroll tax cut and increase the earned income tax credit so that lower middle class people will be paid for the increase in payroll taxes;

·  Allocate federal expenditures for infrastructure spending;

·  Raise top tax rates to about those in the 1990s in order to pay down the debt.