Teresa Ghilarducci on US debt, the retirement age, Social Security, and more

Ghilarducci highlights lessons from the recent downgrade of America’s long-term credit rating, hails progress in boosting worker power, and more. The PS Say More Newsletter | [View this message in a web browser]( [PS Say More]( This week in Say More, PS talks with Teresa Ghilarducci, Professor of Economics at The New School for Social Research. To read the full interview – in which Ghilarducci considers what we should learn from the recent downgrade of America’s long-term credit rating, praises the Biden administration’s contributions to worker power, suggests how to tackle rising poverty among the elderly, and more – [click here](. Teresa Ghilarducci Says More... Syndicate: Before last year’s midterm elections in the United States, you [warned]( that if Americans elect Republicans “out of anger over inflation, they will not get lower inflation. Instead, they will see benefits, programs, and rights valued by the majority of Americans systematically gutted.” Which benefits, programs, and rights are on the GOP’s chopping block, and what can President Joe Biden’s administration do now to safeguard them? Teresa Ghilarducci: Well, you got it. During the debt-ceiling negotiations in June, Republicans maneuvered to implement stricter work requirements for people aged 50-55 eligible for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which augments the grocery budgets of low-income Americans. They argue that stricter requirements are needed to ensure that... [Continue reading]( [PS. Subscribe to PS Digital for just $50.]( By the Way... PS: You and Drystan Phillips recently published [research]( that challenged the widespread assumption that Americans claim their retirement benefits only when they retire. What were your key findings, and what does this mean for the question of whether to raise the US retirement age? TG: This is one of the most powerful sets of numbers I have published in 40 years. Social Security reformers have devised incentives for workers to delay retirement by giving enormous benefits to those who start claiming at later ages, all the way to age 70. Indeed, monthly benefits are 35% higher at 70 than 62. Yet one out of five older workers still start claiming Social Security benefits at age 62, as soon as they are eligible. And these are most likely to be low-income workers, who are more than three times as likely... [Continue reading]( [PS. Register now for our upcoming virtual event, Africa’s Climate Agenda.]( [PS Say More: Keun Lee on AI, Chinese growth, innovation systems, and more]( [Keun Lee on AI, Chinese growth, innovation systems, and more]( Keun Lee considers what artificial intelligence requires of governments, identifies lessons for advanced economies pursuing industrial policy, highlights the risk inequality poses to China’s development, and more. Lee is a former vice chair of the National Economic Advisory Council for the President of South Korea, a former president of the International Schumpeter Society, Distinguished Professor of Economics at Seoul National University, and the author, most recently, of [China’s Technological Leapfrogging and Economic Catch-up: A Schumpeterian Perspective](. [Read now]( [PS. Subscribe to PS Digital for just $50.]( [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [LinkedIn]( Project Syndicate publishes and provides, on a not-for-profit basis, original commentary by the world's leading thinkers to more than 500 media outlets in over 150 countries. Receipt of this newsletter does not guarantee rights to re-publish any of its content. This newsletter is a service of [Project Syndicate](. [Change your newsletter preferences](. Follow us on [Facebook]( [Twitter]( and [YouTube](. © Project Syndicate, all rights reserved. [Unsubscribe from all newsletters](.