Skip to main content
  • Book
  • © 2016

Retirement on the Rocks

Why Americans Can't Get Ahead and How New Savings Policies Can Help

Palgrave Macmillan
  • Weller is a frequent talking head on national broadcast and television news, including CNBC, CNN, ABC, NBC, Fox, Bloomberg; radio interviews, including the Diane Rehm show, NPR's On Point, NPR's Market Place, and many others. He has been cited as an expert in including the New York Times, the Washington Post, the LA Times, NewsWeek, USA Today, the Boston Globe
  • Weller is senior Fellow at the Center for American progress, a highly regarded think tank for domestic economic issues, that carries brand name recognition
  • Weller diagnoses the reasons why the middle class is shrinking in the US and what to do about it. It's an issue that will be central in the 2016 campaign as presidential hopefuls compete to convince the American public they can bring back the middle class. We will be pushing this as a publicity title in that period

Buy it now

Buying options

eBook USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book USD 50.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Other ways to access

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check for access.

Table of contents (11 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xi
  2. The Elusive Goal of a Secure Retirement

    • Christian E. Weller
    Pages 1-12
  3. Americans’ Growing Risk Exposure

    • Christian E. Weller
    Pages 13-26
  4. More Risk, Greater Wealth Inequality

    • Christian E. Weller
    Pages 27-40
  5. The Looming Retirement Shipwreck

    • Christian E. Weller
    Pages 41-55
  6. Social Security: The Leaky Lifeboat

    • Christian E. Weller
    Pages 57-71
  7. Sink-or-Swim Retirement Plans

    • Christian E. Weller
    Pages 73-88
  8. The Pitfalls of Employer-Sponsored Retirement

    • Christian E. Weller
    Pages 101-118
  9. Upside-Down Tax Incentives

    • Christian E. Weller
    Pages 119-136
  10. Sidelined: The Millions Who Are Left Out

    • Christian E. Weller
    Pages 137-150
  11. Charting a New Course

    • Christian E. Weller
    Pages 151-164
  12. Back Matter

    Pages 165-223

About this book

In the US, retirement savings are low while risk exposure is high, thus dooming many retirees to a low standard of living. This book offers straightforward solutions to build real retirement security for American families.

Reviews



"Weller provides a fresh, new perspective on the challenges that Americans face when saving for retirement. His account helps us all to think more clearly about the types of labor market and financial risks that families face, how they are changing, and their impact on Americans' retirement security. Weller argues that exposure to these risks has risen just as these risks have become greater, leaving people's retirement prospects diminished. Further, the account flows nicely into a discussion of his innovative policy ideas, which deserve serious consideration and debate. This book has much to offer to retirement scholars, policymakers, and the interested public worried about their economic security in retirement." - Sarah Rosen Wartell, President, Urban Institute, USA

 

"The vast majority of working Americans - including more than 40 percent of workers over age 50 - feel unprepared for their own retirement. Weller effectively describes how our current system undermines the goal of retirement security. But more importantly, he offers a broad set of solutions to improve retirement savings, investing and withdrawals and even update Social Security to help low income families. Too often people only look at a single quick fix that misses the complexity of all that is broken." - Debra Bailey Whitman, Executive Vice President, Policy, Strategy and International Affairs, AARP, USA

 

"Few issues vex Americans more than inadequate retirement preparation. And few books provide a clearer picture of the problem - and what can be done to fix it - than Weller's deeply researched analysis. Weller covers all the bases: the gaps in Social Security, the perils of employment-based accounts, the upside-down structure of tax breaks, and the huge financial barriers that stand between a risk-inundated middle class and sufficient retirement wealth. Perhaps most important, he lays out an ambitious but realistic path toward a stronger and fairersystem that can provide the retirement security that so many Americans feel they have lost." - Jacob S. Hacker, Director of the Institution for Social and Policy Studies and Stanley B. Resor Professor of Political Science, Yale University, USA; author of The Great Risk Shift: The New Economic Insecurity and the Decline of the American Dream

About the author

Christian E. Weller is Professor of Public Policy at the University of Massachusetts Boston, USA, and Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress, USA. He is a prolific author with well over 100 journal articles, edited volumes, book chapters, book reviews, and other publications, in addition to numerous policy reports and briefs. He serves on several editorial boards and is a past member of the executive boards of the Eastern Economic Association and the Labor and Employment Relations Association.

Bibliographic Information

Buy it now

Buying options

eBook USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Hardcover Book USD 50.00
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Other ways to access