Safeguarding Social Security for Future Generations

W. Andrew Achenbaum is a semiretired professor of history and gerontology in the Texas Medical Center, Houston. He served as Deputy Director of University of Michigan’s Institute of Gerontology and as Professor of history, before he became founding dean of the University of Houston’s College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences. A former board chair of the National Council on Aging, he has received several teaching and public service awards and won the Gerontological Society of America’s highest honor, the Kent Lectureship. Achenbaum has published six books, coedited a dozen others, and written more than 200 peer-reviewed articles at the interface of the humanities and aging.

Introduction Part One: Communication Gaps across Generational Perspectives 1.Can Baby Boomers Leave a Meaning-filled Legacy to Millennials? 2.Social Security Myths in an Age of Misinformation and Big Lies 3.Why Historical Facts Matter When Interpreted Pragmatically 4.Risks, Rights, and Responsibilities under Social Security Part Two: A Senior Historian’s Evolving Interpretations of Social Security 5.The Significance of the 1983 Social Security Amendments 6.Conservatives Create a Different Historical Context for Social Security 7.Will Fears over a Pandemic, a Fractured Political Economy, and Racism Stir New Hopes and Demand for Social-Security Reforms? Part Three: Re-Thinking Social Security in Order to Become Change Agents 8.Changing within Myself to Better Relate to Others 9.Negotiating Solidarity, Sustainability, and Stewardship under Social Security Conclusion