Hill - Expand social security now!: how to ensure americans get the retirement they deserve

Read this book before you vote. Few issues are more important to your personal economic future. Steven Hill shows whats at stake, and he offers solutions that Americans of all stripes can agree on.

R OBERT B. R EICH,
AUTHOR OF Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few

Steven Hill has written a barn burner of a book. Or perhaps I should say myth buster, because he systematically demolishes the false justifications for slashing Social Security. In place of misplaced animus and misleading arguments, he offers a strong case for dramatically expanding Americas most successful domestic program in an age of rising inequality and widespread financial insecurity.

J ACOB S. H ACKER,
COAUTHOR OF American Amnesia: How the War on Government Led Us to Forget What Made America Prosper

Steven Hill has written a vigorous defense of Social Security, the countrys most important social program. While most political debate in recent years has focused on ways to cut Social Security or privatize it, Hill goes in the opposite direction and argues for a robust expansion. Hill proposes a Social Security program that would be adequate by itself to support a middle-class retirement.

D EAN B AKER,
COFOUNDER OF THE C ENTER FOR E CONOMIC AND P OLICY R ESEARCH, AND AUTHOR OF Getting Back to Full Employment: A Better Bargain for Working People

Expand Social Security Now! is a must-read. It is about the soul of our nation and what kind of society we want to be. Steven Hill lays it out plainly and powerfully, and shows what we can do about it.

K ATRINA VANDEN H EUVEL,
AUTHOR OF Meltdown: How Greed and Corruption Shattered Our Financial System and How We Can Recover

Expand Social Security Now! is engaging, thought-provoking, and compelling. Hills bold plan to double Social Security benefits is a brilliant response to our looming retirement-income crisis, and to the nations rising income inequality. The book is a must-read for all those who hope to enjoy an independent and dignified retirement.

N ANCY J. A LTMAN,
COAUTHOR OF Social Security Works!

Steven Hill has produced a dynamite handbook for angry Americans who seek to take back democracy. The true contest is not Republicans versus Democrats. It is the American people versus Washington. And this is the sleeper issue the people can win. The governing elites in both parties are trying to eviscerate Social Securityarguably the most successful and most popular program created by the federal government. Hill explains why the political insiders and their Wall Street patrons are wrong about Social Security. He shows us how to mobilize to defeat the power elites and expand Social Security rather than destroy it.

W ILLIAM G REIDER,
AUTHOR OF Come Home, America: The Rise and Fall (and Redeeming Promise) of Our Country

The ability of a people to retire with dignity is the hallmark of a great nation, and with the inadequate 401(k)s of the Inequality Era, our nation is falling short. Steven Hills proposal to expand a twentieth-century idea for a twenty-first-century labor market is at once commonsense and radical.

H EATHER C. M C G HEE,
PRESIDENT OF D EMOS

This book is terrific! Steven Hill proposes specific ways to expand Social Security and make it fairer for everyone. He also busts the myth that Social Security is broke and shows why it matters more than ever in this election yearespecially for anyone who wants to be elected to public office, or even the presidency.

S TEPHANIE T AYLOR,
COFOUNDER OF THE P ROGRESSIVE C HANGE C AMPAIGN C OMMITTEE

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To President Franklin D. Roosevelt and that amazing generation of New Deal leaders who understood that since we all share the same risks, we might as well collectively insure ourselves against them. And thus was born... Social Security.

The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.

PRESIDENT FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT

We are in the midst of a real and growing retirement crisisa crisis that is shaking the foundations of what was once a vibrant and secure middle class.

US SENATOR ELIZABETH WARREN

For more and more Americans, the dream of a secure retirement has become increasingly threatened. The hope for an old age spent in simple comfort and well-being, surrounded by family and community, is sadly fading for many. This transitionwhich we are told is as inevitable and natural as the laws of gravityis part of the ongoing crumbling of the New Deal safety net and social contract that has protected American workers, families, and communities for decades. And this is not happening because America is broke and sagging under the weight of too much debt, as some have claimed. No, this threat to the nations future is self-inflictedits because we have the wrong policies, and just as crucially, the wrong politics.

The correct policies would be eminently affordableif the politicians in Washington, DC, could cease their fealty to wealthy special interests, as well as their partisan sandbox play, and act in the national interest. Instead, both Democrats and Republicans have waged a monstrous two-headed game of brinkmanship that only makes sense to those locked inside the hall of mirrors of our nations capital.

According to todays mistaken Beltway consensus, the United States cannot afford to pay for the present level of Social Security benefits for retirees in future generations, and so benefits must be cut. This consensus is not only wrong in its diagnosis but also mistaken in its prescriptionsand potentially disastrous in its consequences.

The attack on Social Securitythe hugely popular program formally known as Old Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI)is one of the best examples of a larger battle royal that should be headlined: We the People versus Washington. We are locked in a historic struggle over whether our nation is truly of, by, and for the people, or if, instead, it is ruled by an insider ring of powerful economic and political elites who are extracting the best of our nation for themselves.

In the battle over Social Security and other safety-net components, in a very real sense US democracy itself is at stake. Over the next few years, we are going to discover whether the American republic, which has been the model for so much good in the world, is fated to fulfill the prophecy of late nineteenth-century Italian political scientist Gaetano Mosca and his ruling class theory, which said that, at the end of the day, the history of all societies has been, is, and will be, the history of dominant minorities.

To understand how far the Beltway consensus has drifted away from popular opinion, consider these words of a national leader from a previous era: