Policy Changes for a Brighter Retirement

This week, I contributed to a panel with the same title as the post. My two questions were:

If you could make one policy change to improve the retirement outlook for the average American, what would it be?

“I would change the Social Security benefit formula, in an actuarially fair manner, so that initial benefits were lower but benefits grew with age in real terms. Elderly poverty is concentrated among older households and, in particular, widows. Without spending more or less on average, we could do more to keep elderly out of poverty in their retirement years.”

Beyond that, and aside from overall economic improvement, what needs to happen for our aging population to enjoy a secure retirement?
“It is not complicated. To consume more in retirement, consume less while working or retire later. People should be thinking about which of those options suits them better and looking for ways to save and ways to extend the productive part of their working lives.”

You might enjoy the responses from the other panelists, posted here.