Millie Parekh,
Greg Anrig,
The Century Foundation,
8/4/2010
The bursting of the housing bubble in 2007, the financial meltdown in 2008, and the most severe recession since the Great Depression have destabilized the economic security of the baby boom generation of Americans—those born between 1946 and 1964—just at the time when they are approaching retirement. Savings plans, 401(k)s, Individual Retirement Accounts, and other investments have become depleted not only because of the market’s decline, but also because individuals withdrew funds during the crisis, often incurring penalties in the process. Even more significant for most baby boomers, the housing equity that they expected would be their major asset in retirement has plummeted in value and remains far lower than it was just a couple of years ago. Download the brief.
Amy B. Dean,
David B. Reynolds,
Century Foundation Press,
Cornell University Press,
5/1/2009
In A New New Deal, the labor movement leaders Amy B. Dean and David B. Reynolds offer a bold new plan to revitalize American labor activism and build a sense of common purpose between labor and community organizations. Dean and Reynolds demonstrate how alliances organized at the regional level are the most effective tool to build a voice for working people in the workplace, community, and halls of government. The authors draw on their own successes to offer in-depth, contemporary case studies of effective labor-community coalitions. They also outline a concrete strategy for building power at the regional level. This pioneering model presents the regional building blocks for national change.
Robert M. Ball,
Century Foundation Press,
4/28/2010
The National Commission on Social Security Reform—better
known as the Greenspan Commission—is widely credited with having
successfully addressed the financing crisis that the nation’s most
successful social insurance program faced in the 1980s. Today, the
Greenspan Commission is routinely cited as a model with which to resolve
divisive political challenges, most recently inspiring the appointment
of a bipartisan commission to address the federal deficit. But did the
Greenspan Commission /really/ succeed—or did one key member find a way
to work around its failure?
Francisco Rodríguez,
The Century Foundation,
5/14/2010
The idea that infrastructure investment should have a positive effect on
economic
growth is intuitively appealing. Roads, electricity provision, and
communications
appear to be necessary for the basic functioning of an economy. It is
not hard
to write an economic model linking infrastructure and productivity, and
indeed
several such models have been written. Thus, one would expect the
existence of a
link between infrastructure and development to have been long established. However, the discussion of the link between infrastructure and economic growth is far from settled. A number of prominent authors have argued
that this
link is weak or nonexistent, and the question as to whether
infrastructure should be
given preference in public investment decisions is a controversial one.
This report
intends to serve as a guide to literature on this link that clarifies
the grounds for
disagreement between different authors and the implications of existing
empirical
results.
Download the report. See more from the Building a Stronger America series.
Even though unemployment remains well above 9 percent, and the federal government could be doing much more to strengthen the economy, attention in Washington has turned to how best to reduce long-term federal deficits. In “How to Reduce the Deficit and Improve the Tax System without Hurting Most Families,” a new issue brief from The Century Foundation, economist and senior fellow Bernard Wasow weighs in with a solution to a significant part of the long-term deficit challenge that would be relatively pain free for low- and middle-income citizens: reform the income tax system to fix the problems with tax breaks. Download the brief.
More than seventy years have passed since Congress laid the foundation of the modern U.S. pension system by enacting the Social Security Act. The full structure took nearly fifty years to complete and encompasses private pensions and tax-sheltered saving, as well as Social Security. From the start, some critics thought Social Security was a wrong-headed interference with personal liberty that would undermine self-reliance. Others came to believe that however well Social Security served an industrial nation less affluent and less mobile than America is today, it is not well designed for a post-industrial, twenty-first-century America. Still others argue that the original vision, although attractive, is unsustainable because of the much-cited “entitlement crisis.” Download the report (PDF).
Richard C. Leone,
The Century Foundation,
9/2/2010
Though most of us are all sobered up, there remains in the minds of many investors the whispered questions: “Is it time to get back in?” “Will I miss the big move that gets me back to even?” We’re often still susceptible to the siren call of the markets, despite the costly lesson of believing in the “The wisdom of crowds,” “Dow 36000,” or the so-called “the risk-free premium.” We want these things to be true. Who wouldn’t want to live in a time of endless prosperity – in a world where all problems vanish as the magic of the market provides the plenty from which flows more jobs and goods? This yearning – this uncritical belief system – underpinned the conviction that the magic of markets could lead to wealth for all (see privatized Social Security), and the less regulation the better (see your daily newspaper, if you still have one). Continue Reading on the Taking Note Blog.
Catherine Vieth,
The Century Foundation,
8/30/2010
“I became an adult at 22: Why can't you?” Nelle Engoron’s piece in Salon.com asked. The column, an excerpt from her blog, comes on the heels of the New York Times’ piece on twentysomethings a few days ago. Hers is not the only response to the piece, but she got at something different than most responses. Engoron asserts that twentysomethings today are actively choosing not to become adults, and instead rely on Mom and Dad for our “personal computers, cellphones, DVRs, [and] Frappuccinos.” Continue Reading on the Taking Note blog.
It has become politically impossible for President Obama to pursue more stimulus spending to sustain the economic recovery. Part of this is due to his opponents’ resolve to seize on every opportunity to block what the President wants. Part is due to the understandable discomfort many people feel at the idea of deficits and debt accumulation. But the main reason it is impossible today to pursue active fiscal policy is that the capacity for it has been undermined by twenty years of fiscal mismanagement. Like the mouse that failed to store food for the winter, we have arrived in hard times with the federal borrowing margin severely damaged by twenty years of unnecessary fiscal profligacy. Continue Reading on the Taking Note blog.
Deficit hawks plotting to cut Social Security to reduce the deficit are seriously misguided. The truth is that Social Security contributes not a single penny to the deficit. Indeed, it is the poster child for fiscal responsibility. Social Security has administrative costs strikingly lower than those of private sector retirement plans. Unlike 401(k) plans, for example, whose administrative fees are routinely 15 or 20 percent of plan contributions, Social Security’s administrative costs are less than one percent. It returns in benefits more than 99 cents of every dollar collected. Continue Reading on the Taking Note Blog.
In an otherwise admirable New York Times article about how deficit fears have impeded an adequate response to persistently high unemployment, David Leonhardt writes: “The federal government has promised to pay out vastly more in Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security over coming decades than it will collect in taxes.” But grouping Social Security together with Medicare and Medicaid presents a highly misleading description of the nation’s fiscal challenge. And that conflation, which advocates of cutting social insurance programs have strategically promoted, has a lot to do with Washington’s misplaced priorities that the rest of the article insightfully analyzes. Continue Reading on the Taking Note Blog.
Richard C. Leone,
The Century Foundation,
4/30/2010
As the story behind the great financial meltdown unfolds, we can also see evidence of deep changes in the culture and practice of Wall Street firms. Greater risks were routinely taken in the pursuit of what had become expected huge returns. Firms drastically increased their trading for their own accounts, often using their regular customers as counter-parties to take the other side of a big trade. Continue Reading on the Taking Note Blog.
Although the contentious last steps toward passage of President Obama’s health care reform package dominated last week’s headlines, it was not the only important debate taking place. On Sunday, March 21st, thousands of protesters attended an immigration reform rally in Washington, D.C., calling on legislators to overhaul the nation’s immigration system. The rally came days after President Obama publicly pledged to support the Bipartisan Immigration Reform Framework, advanced by Senators Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC). Continue Reading on the Taking Note Blog.
Jeffrey Laurenti,
The Century Foundation,
3/16/2010
“It’s time to take a stand,” economics Nobel laureate and New York Times commentator Paul Krugman advises this week . “Something must be done.” No, Krugman is not talking about health care reform this time. He is calling for action against a threat to global economic recovery as dire as the creative schemes for financial destruction he regularly rails against Wall Street for hatching. Continue Reading on the Taking Note Blog.
Jeffrey Laurenti,
The Century Foundation,
1/26/2010
The panic that has gripped Democrats in Washington since their special-election ambush in Massachusetts last week has strengthened President Obama's apparent resolve to confront more boldly the country's economic challenges--lost jobs, ballooning deficits, and financial profiteering. But Obama seems tethered to his Wall Street bodyguards of economic policy on the one initiative that could address all three with one blow -- an international financial transactions tax.Continue Reading on the Taking Note blog.
Americans are immensely proud of our constitution. Some people even claim Higher Powers were at work when it was drafted. Indeed, apart from one war between the states, the constitution has held the country together for more than 200 years, a noteworthy accomplishment. Yet, in spite of the many democratic constitutions crafted in many countries since 1800, almost none has a legislative branch in which substantial power is based not on population but on geographical happenstance. Our Senate is almost unique among modern democratic institutions in that it is constructed to guarantee inordinate power to small electoral minorities based on the historical accident of state lines. Continue Reading on the Taking Note Blog.
Patrick Radden Keefe,
The Century Foundation,
12/29/2009
To many progressives, one of the most galvanizing aspects of Barack Obama’s campaign for the presidency was his pledge to roll back the executive excesses of the Bush-Cheney era and restore a sensible balance between national security and civil liberties in American political life. “We reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals,” the newly elected president declared in his inaugural address. And after eight years of secrecy and skullduggery in the name of national security, Obama’s stated determination to get the country back on track engendered an upswell of devotion that helped sweep him into office, and an almost impossibly high set of expectations. Continue to the blog
Richard C. Leone,
The Century Foundation,
11/3/2009
If Washington is “dithering” about anything these days, it’s the slow pace of financial regulatory reform. What does it take to get this show on the road? Maybe an understanding that the sensational scandals are just reflections of a larger reality.Bernie Madoff obviously represents one of the extreme cases of financial chicanery in our history. But I’m fascinated by all the attention given to the investors who lost money with Madoff. Sometimes they are described (not without relish) as complete investment boobs, whose ignorance is exceeded only by their social and celebrity status. Continue reading on the Taking Note Blog.
At a well-attended conference on September 30, organized by the Center for American Progress and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, various experts discussed the federal budgetary outlook and its consequences. They fell into two camps. One group worries that the prospect of big, long run deficits will eventually spook bond markets. They want the Obama administration to announce what it plans to do in the long run to raise revenues and lower federal spending. Continue Reading on the Taking Note Blog.
It is no accident that civility broke down in Congress when President Obama was discussing the access of immigrants to subsidized health care. The most persistent and entrenched reason for opposing progressive change in America has been that “the undeserving” might benefit. With health care reform, too, much of the opposition, at its core, comes from those who would rather have nobody benefit than to see benefits extended to groups they despise. Continue Reading on the Taking Note Blog.
Here are three questions widely being asked about the state of the U.S. economy and answers to them:
1. Is the recession over?
This question gets a lot of people mad: how can the recession be over when nearly one in ten job seekers cannot find work and unemployment is rising? The answer is that a recession is like a flood. When the water stops rising, the recovery begins. But early in the recovery, a lot of homes are still under water. The end of the recession means things have started to improve, not that the recovery is complete. It is quite likely that the recession soon will officially be declared over. Continue Reading on the Taking Note Blog.
TCF and UNA-USA Southern New York State Division
- 2/19/2010
The session, part of the TCF and UNA-USA Southern New York State Division Mid-Atlantic Regional Conference,explored how to re-tool the world economy to produce broad-based improvements in people's standards of living worldwide.
TCF Public Policy Lunch Series for NYC Interns
- 6/17/2009
As the current economic crisis continues onwards with no clear end in sight, and with recent unemployment statistics released this month alarmingly rampant, American youth fresh out of college are struggling to find entry-level jobs. More experienced middle-aged workers, who are forced to take low-paying positions they are overqualified for, are being hired over college graduates, who are in turn taking unskilled positions normally occupied by high school teens. The rate of jobless college graduates has doubled in the past year and is particularly high among black male graduates. Join us on June 17, 2009 as we discuss what policy should be enacted in order to provide college grads with good employment prospects in this bad economy!
With our current recession deepening amid rising costs of healthcare, plunging 401k portfolios, and the collapse of the housing market, there is growing evidence that retirement security for today's seniors is unstable, at best. According to a recent Demos report, 78% of senior households are financially vulnerable, or lack the resources necessary to sustain themselves through the rest of their lives. With the baby boomer generation approaching retirement age, the future for older Americans is more uncertain than ever.
Robert Kuttner, an expert contributor to The Century Foundation and Demos' joint Fiscal High Road Project debated David Walker, on the current deficit. The event was sponsored and hosted by The Agenda Project.
This year marked the ninetieth anniversary of the founding of The Century Foundation (which was known for most of its history as the Twentieth Century Fund). Our founder, Edward Filene, created this organization with the goal of supporting studies and analysis that could lead to constructive action on our nation’s public policy. That heritage has compelled us to educate, provoke, and develop better answers when evidence and reason show that public debates are badly off track. Over the past nine decades, we have called attention to facts and analyses to correct widespread misconceptions and provide policymakers with new ideas for addressing the challenges facing the nation.
We have created this video to provide a glimpse into our story and how it is intertwined with America’s story for much of the twentieth century and beyond.
The Century Foundation's 2010 Public Policy Lunch Series Forum
- 7/13/2010
The Century Foundation Public Policy Lunch for NYC interns held an event to discuss the growth of green industries during the ongoing economic recession. The United States faces the challenges of both the ongoing economic recession and environmental degradation. One potential path to recovery is the growth of green industries. But while green jobs have the potential to transform the American economy, can green industries grow in a way that is both inclusive and profitable? On July 13, the 2010 Public Policy Lunch Series Forum hosted an event with noted panelists. Read the invite.
The Century Foundation's 2010 Public Policy Lunch Series Forum
- 7/27/2010
The Century Foundation Public Policy Lunch for NYC interns held an event on July 27 to debunk the debt myths that today's generation face. Panelists included Hilary Doe; Director of the Roosevelt Institute
Campus Network,
Teresa Ghilarducci; Bernard L. and Irene Schwartz,
Chair in Economic Policy Analysis at the New School and
Barbara Kiviat, staff writer for Time Magazine.
Greg Anrig, Jr., Vice President of Policy and Programs
at the Century Foundation moderated the program.
August 4, 2010 —As baby boomers head toward retirement, many are facing a financial bust. Those retirees could face a grim future without the support of strong social insurance programs, according to a new issue brief from The Century Foundation.
Even though unemployment remains well above 9 percent, and the federal government could be doing much more to strengthen the economy, attention in Washington has turned to how best to reduce long-term federal deficits. In “How to Reduce the Deficit and Improve the Tax System without Hurting Most Families,” a new issue brief from The Century Foundation, economist and senior fellow Bernard Wasow weighs in with a solution to a significant part of the long-term deficit challenge that would be relatively pain free for low- and middle-income citizens: reform the income tax system to fix the problems with tax breaks.
Issues in the debate over the federal budget and its long term outlook.
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Taking Note
