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Ponzi Schemes and Social Security

Document date: September 28, 2011
Released online: September 28, 2011

Earlier this month Texas Gov. Rick Perry made waves when he called Social Security a Ponzi scheme during a Republican Party presidential debate, an assertion he originally made in his 2010 autobiography “Fed Up.” In this video Rudolph G. Penner - an Institute Fellow at the Program on Retirement Policy and a former director of the Congressional Budget Office - explains what a Ponzi scheme is, how it compares with Social Security, and what can be done to fix the program’s underlying structural problems.


 

 



Topics/Tags: | Retirement and Older Americans


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