Getting Behind the Rhetoric on Social Security

Featuring professor Fay Lomax Cook, director of the Institute for Policy Research and professor at the School of Education and Social Policy.

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Is it true that Social Security will go bankrupt in 2041? Are young adults more likely to believe in UFOs than to think they will get Social Security when they retire?

Fay Cook, SESP professor of human development and social policy and director of the Institute for Policy Research, explores some of the myths surrounding an issue that affects Americans of all ages. Cook’s presentation separates fact from fiction and examines what we know about Social Security’s problems, the politics surrounding the debate, and the policies that are being proposed.

Dr. Cook has been president of the Gerontological Society of America, a member of the Expert Panel on Performance Outcome Measurement for the U.S. Administration on Aging, and a scientific consultant to the National Institute on Aging, among others.  In 2004, she was a visiting scholar in Paris to organize a conference on the politics of pension policy and the “crisis” of the welfare state. She is the author and co-author of several scholarly articles and books, including Support for the American Welfare State: The Views of Congress and the Public (with Edith J. Barrett) and Navigating Public Opinion: Polls, Policy, and the Future of American Democracy (with Jeff Manza and Benjamin Page).

This NAA podcast was taken from her presentation at A Day with Northwestern in Evanston, April 19, 2008.