Articles

GenPolicy Articles



  • Path to retirement has pitfalls for women
    - Christine Dugas

    Baby boomers and younger generations, Paul Hodge says, have been all but programmed to    spend and consume rather than save money for their futures. But given the nation’s economic squeeze, you should think about shrinking both your spending and your debt. You might, for example, move to a smaller, less expensive home and avoid buying expensive high-tech gear. “There are a lot of women in debt, big time,” Hodge says. “How many TV sets and cars do you need? Think about downsizing. It makes your life a lot easier and leads to a worry-free retirement.”

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  • Happy 150th birthday? New era looms for aging High-tech medicine expected to increase life expectancy, experts predict
    - Ben Hirschler

    OXFORD – Modern medicine is redefining old age and may soon allow people to live regularly beyond the current upper limit of 120 years, experts said on Wednesday. It used to be thought there was some inbuilt limit on lifespan, but a group of scientists meeting at Oxford University for a conference on life extension and enhancement consigned that idea to the dustbin. Paul Hodge, director of the Harvard Generations Policy Program, said governments around the world – struggling with pension crises, graying workforces and rising healthcare costs — had to face up to the challenge now. “Life expectancy is going to grow significantly, and current policies are going to be proven totally inadequate,” he predicted.

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  • The gender gap endures, even in retirement Older women’s income half that of men; number of poor likely to swell
    - Bob Moose

    Ms. Brown, who’s 63 and lives in Oak Cliff, is one of millions of older women who live alone and scramble to make ends meet. Their median income is $12,080 a year, half of what older men receive. Long overlooked, these women have begun to gain the attention of policy analysts and lawmakers who expect the number of poor older women to swell as 40 million baby boomer women retire. “Unless there are dramatic policy shifts, boomer women, particularly minority women, will find retirement a never-ending struggle,” said Paul Hodge, chairman of Harvard’s Global Generations Policy Institute.

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  • Abilities keep older managers, coaches in game
    - Carole Moore - USA Today

    Experts on aging say 80- and 90-year-olds will be doing things that were thought impossible to do at that age a generation ago. “That’s the future you’re going to see with the aging of the baby boomers,” said Paul Hodge, director of Harvard’s Generations Policy Program. Hodge thinks that in 20 years, retirement as we know it will be obsolete “because people in their 70s and 80s will have the ability and economic need to work. And the elderly are especially likely to hang on to high-paying, sought-after jobs, such as those in sports”.

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  • WILL YOU STILL NEED ME? WILL YOU STILL FEED ME? WHEN I’M 65
    - Lewis Rice

    “A lot of Americans who are approaching retirement are adopting the point of view that the government is going to take care of them,” says Paul Hodge head of the Harvard affiliated Global Generations Policy Institute. “But the government’s not going to be able to take care of them”. He says that people should heed the Aesop fable of the carefree grasshopper, who plays all day, and the ant, who plans for hard times ahead, when it comes to preparing for their retirements. The problem is, he says, “We have a lot of grasshoppers running around right now.”

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  • CHECKS AND BALANCES NEW FORM OF FIGHTS FINANCIAL ABUSE
    - Bette Booker

    Financial exploitation of the elderly is growing exponentially, with no end in sight as greedy relatives and ne’er-do-wells go after investments and assets. “This area of elder abuse is the Wild West of law enforcement. As the population gets older, we’re going to have more and more of these cases,” warned attorney Paul Hodge, president of the National Healthcare Law Enforcement  Alliance. “Demographically speaking, the generation who grew up before World War II and then prospered in the United States with the greatest increase in wealth in the history of the world is now going to pass that on to the next generation. The next generation hasn’t been able to live as well as the former generation, and they would like to. So they’re going to go where the money is and see if they can get the money from the parents or the elderly people whom they know.”

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  • FORMER BABY TO SOCIAL SECURITY BOOMER
    - Kenneth Cooper

    As currently structured, Social Security faces a financial shortfall around 2042. But Paul Hodge, director of Harvard University’s Generations Policy Project, predicts another, less-noted concern: The declining value of the dollar will create a problem for Social Security by effectively reducing benefits. “Down the road, you’re going to have a huge groundswell for a major increase in benefits,” he says.

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  • The $400 billion income shortfall
    - Robert Powell

    Baby-boomer women must and should take retirement-planning matters into their own hands and not wait on government or business to solve the looming problems that await three-quarters of the 40 million women born between 1946 and 1964. “Baby-boomer women are in trouble,” said Paul Hodge, director of Harvard Generations Policy Program and editor of the just-published study, “Baby Boomer Women: Secure Futures or Not?” “Unlike any other time in our nation’s history, unless there are dramatic policy shifts, in terms of absolute numbers, baby-boomer women, most particularly minority women, will find their elder years to be a ‘never ending’ struggle. Most retirement policies, government and private, are gender- biased toward white males,” Hodge said. “This needs to change quickly. If we don’t deal with (these policies) we have a ton of minority women living below the poverty line with no safety nets in place.”

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  • Later Life Is Ripe for Reinvention, Nonprofit Leader Asserts in New Book
    - Suzanne Perry

    ….  Mr. Marc Freedman is basically upbeat about the prospects for improving the way people live their later years. Other experts are more cautionary. Paul Hodge, director of the Harvard Generations Policy Program, in Cambridge, Mass., says he agrees that people need to think more about how to shape their careers over a long life span.

    But the aging of America presents some severe challenges, he says, and “we have a lot of work ahead of us before we make things rosy.” For example, he says, many Americans are approaching retirement with meager financial resources — especially women. Mr. Hodge, who was an expert adviser to the 2005 White House Conference on Aging, edited a recent study that found that boomer women have more debt than their predecessors and are less likely to have traditional pensions, spousal benefits, or health coverage in retirement. Furthermore, Mr. Hodge adds, “age discrimination is rampant. Nothing fundamental has changed in terms of the marketplace. It’s very difficult for older workers.”

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