 Thank you very much for coming in person. Welcome to the New America Foundation. My name is Michael Calabrese. I'm a senior research fellow with the asset building program here at New America. And of course in our asset building program is all about promoting savings and and the development of assets particularly for low and middle-income people across the life course including retirement which is retirement policy is something I've focused on quite a lot over the years. So this event is Encore Careers. Can second careers bridge the retirement income gap? And we'll be hearing from the leading advocates of a promising initiative of course called Encore Careers that seeks to give workers approaching what we what we've traditionally thought of as retirement age with opportunities to combine continued income and public service. So I will introduce just in a minute former Senator Harris Wofford who will who has been you know a leader of this of this effort followed by his colleague David Bank to describe their idea and efforts and then that will be followed by our expert panel of respondents and one I should mention a housekeeping thing is please remember pretend we're at the movies turn your cell phones down at least the ringers off and when we get to Q&A you know we'd love to hear from you all you know any kind of very brief comment and definitely questions but but I remember to identify yourselves we'll come around with a microphone because we need to know where you're from and people on the web will as well. So the basic idea is to catalyze the creation of four to eight year Encore Careers as an attractive alternative to dropping out of the workforce as too many do as early as 62 the earliest eligibility age for social security. From my perspective the timing of this event is very fortuitous. Yesterday I testified before the economic policy subcommittee of the Senate Banking Committee they held a hearing about our nation's retirement savings deficit and the data that were presented by the witnesses were really quite sobering. I'd encourage you if you're interested in that there's Jack van der Heij from eBree for example did sort of a greatest hits of all eBree's research on this and it's quite a quite a nice package. So there there is no what I said yesterday was there's no question that widening retirement the widening retirement savings gap is growing in security among the nation's 78 million baby boomers. Most individuals are simply not saving nearly enough over their working life to supplement today's meager social security benefits. You know there's been a couple different groups including eBree and the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College that have calculated the share of older workers that are at risk of not being able to replace their not being able to replace their pre-retirement standard of living given what they've saved and they found that between even among older workers right from 45 say between 55 and 64 between 40 and 50 percent are considered at risk of not even being able to cover you know what what's been their basic cost of living and the Center for Retirement Research a couple years ago calculated that in present value terms we have a 6.6 trillion dollar retirement income deficit. One key indicator of this problem is very relevant here for this event and that is despite steadily increasing life expectancies and and health care costs that are rising in real terms much faster than inflation on average nearly half the nation's older workers are claiming social security are still claiming social security benefits at age 62 as I said the earliest age and as a result reducing the benefits that they'll receive later in life you know which they'll really need as they live into their 80s by 30 percent or more and I'm sure Steve Goss will tell us more about that I see is head nodding so right now we'll hear about how anchor on core careers can address this as well as give a boost to public service and discuss the questions it raises about the implications for the size shape and direction of our labor markets going forward so first up will be former senator Harris Wofford and I and I should I should give the caveat that I think for everyone else I'm just going to give their name rank and serial number because you have bios but but for senator Wofford I just want to say a few extra things because I've been a long time a fan of his and he's been a lifelong civil rights activist and advocate for for citizen service as a as a White House aide the president Kennedy he played a key role in launching the Peace Corps and was later work closely with Sergeant Shriver was an envoy for the Peace Corps then later as a senator played a key role in both crafting and working to pass the legislation that created AmeriCorps and the learn learn and learn and serve America program then after his time in the Senate he then served for six years as the CEO of the Corporation for National and Community Service which runs those domestic service programs so I could go on and on many years of college president all sorts of other things but I think we'll stop there and give him the time to speak senator thank you Michael not yet lifelong fortunately I'm lucky to have had a number of encore opportunities it should be your hope to if you're lucky to live for eight decade eight score and six years the younger generation I found doesn't actually know what score is but now by the way Chris Matthews gave me new life but and by the way I was 65 years old when I had the opportunity to go to the Senate and 70 when I had the great privilege I'll put it that way for the moment of bequeathing Rick Santorum on to the Senate of the United States who defeated me almost no one has ever introduced me as they tell the success examples but no one has ever told the other side of a resume and no one has ever really introduced me saying and he was beaten by Rick Santorum right which would have given some electricity at the current moment Chris Matthews on hardball talking about actually it was on an Al Sharpton show talking about his book Jack Kennedy an elusive hero was asked to give some of the examples of things that the Kennedy's that particularly the president had done in the field of civil rights that surprised Al Sharpton that if you added them up they were really quite an extraordinary record and he said that good thing thing or two about me and my colleague in the civil rights section of the Kennedy campaign Louis Martin said and Louis Martin is no longer with us but in he ended with as if it was Saturday night he said but Harris Wofford is still alive so I will do my best I was asked to give a frame for the panel to follow that's rather challenging because I've been not in this room but in the New America Foundation discussions and many of them have been extraordinarily lively and good and I hope the panel that I look forward to hearing will start that kind of a discussion and I look forward to David Bank giving laying out once I finish the the facts of life as the as he and Mark Friedman and civic ventures whose board I had the delightful privilege to be on for some years and I will be delighted to pass this torch to David in just a few minutes the frame for the conversation about an aging America for me the watchwords would be we have to be more inventive if we're going to do our duty now it's interesting to me and you might ponder it how similar the needs of what I would think of as aging Americans are alongside of parallel with the needs of not just older Americans but younger Americans I'll explain what I mean and though it may be a self-evident truth to all of you and to veterans I spent the morning with a group of veterans who the leader of whom Eric Gritons who wrote this wonderful book fist and heart on his life as a Navy SEAL in Iraq and Afghanistan before that a Rhodes scholar of middleweight boxing champion at Duke a White House fellow and quite quite extraordinary man who when he came home decided he had visited the most wounded and surviving colleagues that he had in Iraq and Afghanistan and some of them were Walter Reed Bethesda and he spent the day asking how they were and also what they would like to do if they when they get out almost all of them said I want to go back to our unit in the armed forces almost none of them will be able to do that he said well what if you can't do that what would you like and if he added up all his answers every one of them wanted to do something that was good for the community for the country something that was good that was service they talked about being coaches of kids to help them avoid alcoholism and drug addiction helping police community policing a whole range of things and he started the mission continues based in St. Louis generously funded by various foundations now for fellowship a number of things but the central program of the mission continues is to offer fellowships for six months in some cases more of work in the nonprofit field in the service field in one form or another well carved assignments where they really wanted the veterans to help the leaders in in efforts of those particular projects that they went to several hundred of in these fellows and it's it's it's a true success story but the morning discussion that began at 745 led by veterans was how do we apply this principle not just to a few but to the millions that are involved in the GI Bill and I think you'll hear more of more of this and do in due course in the next this year and it calls to our attention my attention at least the best thing I think our country is a public policy and action ever undertook which was the GI Bill I say it was self-centered in the sense that it helped me go to college and the law school it opened the door to millions of people remember it's a voucher you get and then you have the choice of where you want to apply and the institutions that you apply to colleges universities job training programs and now it's extended to apprenticeships and such they choose whether to seek you and compete for you and whether they have something to offer my Republican friends might might say this is a very Republican sort of approach vouchers and the market principle in both cases the individuals and the institutions and they're exploring how you might apply the same principle to the whole of the veterans community in the GI Bill not just grants that you get from foundations to expand a program like that well then you look at aging America and I'd say the other end of the spectrum at young America and in both of those years ages essentially the same thing is needed by millions of young people and older Americans I think in terms of being inventive the idea of the encore career that Mark Friedman and his tremendously instructive books and civic ventures is advancing is a transformative idea that I hope the panel in one form or another will look at and consider and that and we will use that as an invitation to be more inventive now I came to some of this as CEO of the Corporation for National Service in the 1990s when we needed to Clinton wanted to help in saving America or that had just been terminated by the sweep of Republicans of both houses of Congress for one of their first acts was to terminate AmeriCorps that roller coaster continues one of the first acts of the new Congress House of Representatives this case only one house voted to terminate AmeriCorps and that's that's another story but the the serve America act of named for Ted Kennedy the last bill he shepherded on the floor of the of the Congress of the Senate after the health care bill before and after the health care bill was the serve America act which calls for a quantum leap in service of all ages and very specifically also of older Americans including the proposal for encore fellowships it's in the act the quantum leap of AmeriCorps of national service positions not necessarily AmeriCorps from 75,000 to 250,000 in the next five years according to the bill that hasn't been funded adequately obviously it's a holding operations it's fighting to keep the present level of funding and not be cut but that bill is there it was passed with Republican majorities in all the committees that advanced it with Republican support in all four of the committees and by the ranking or the chairing Republican in those committees Senator Senator of Wyoming and NZ NZ got up and said this is the most truly bipartisan action that we've ever experienced and I hope we'll learn to apply this to some other areas well these areas we're talking about today it seems to me are are very vital to our body politic the light bulb went on in my head for part of this when you know I have to say it's going on several times in my life once as a very young man out of college in college I traveled to Europe on a trip ship turned into a student ship at right after World War two and there was a group of young men singing night and day too late at night and I cornered one what are you doing and he said what we're young Mormons and when we turn come of age the question is not will we serve and go on a mission about where at home or abroad and we chose devastated Europe to go to I think that's where Mitt Romney chose to go to if I'm remembering right but the the I said to myself you know that's something that something like that should be asked of all young Americans coming of age and I would personally extend it to if not then when you do it very young do it when you're older we desperately as head of the Peace Corps in Africa then as the representative to Africa living in Ethiopia for two years doubling the number of secondary school teachers they had with GA mostly with GA generalists we desperately needed older experienced teachers as part of that venture and we had about 20 in their 60s and 70s and they were tremendously helpful but the the light bulb to the fundamental idea that I want to close with and start with is reflected by the moment I was painting not scraping the walls of a building that the service youth service Corps of Philadelphia was building on one of these service days I'm not sure it was Martin Luther King day but it was an eventful day and I was told that the young African-American who is going to be next to me on that wall scraping was had been a gang leader had dropped out of school was on his way to disaster and and probably to the penitentiary and he joined the service Corps and he was he had become the star of this remarkable group of young people and I said to him why did you take that turn and join this program and he said well he said I think it was because I wanted to meet different kind of people and and then he said and I didn't want to get killed at the end of what I was doing and then we went back to work and I think he perceived that I was earnest and he turned and said you know the real reason is because in the projects where I grew up good people were coming to do good things and to help me and they kept coming and I think I got tired of these good people doing good against me and and then he said this is the first time in my life anyone had ever asked me to do something good and he basically said it's fun and the light bulb really went on I said you know we all need that the young and old and in between so that that's the frame I want to put to you and I do want to say if you're if you're going to try to figure out how to be inventive as I hope some number of us here will do in any one of these three fields the the young the old and the veterans you want to to move to that I used the word transformative before transformative idea that you're not asking seeing people as victims but as agents for action and for good work not as as victims but as contributors not as liabilities but as assets and for a while I was for while the program lasted I was an ex national spokesperson for the experience wave an affiliate of civic ventures an outgrowth of Mark Friedman's ideas the the experience wave was that there is a wave coming of the boomer generation that everybody is worried he's going to sink social security it's a terrible problem we're facing or as Rick Santorum said and when he was campaigning against me and was asked what's the problem with social security and Rick was on tape and it almost won us the election it pulled us ahead for a few days when we put it on television at Temple University he said well the problem with social security is that when it with the law was passed people assumed that almost everybody be dead by 65 but now they're living to 70 75 80 85 that's the problem with social security and and you know then he had a couple of answers such as raising the level of age the the the dependency idea is an idea that needs to be counteracted or balanced and in most of the youth field the great organizations have had a difficult time turning their battleships around to include the service route they are instilled with the desire to help young people and you know even city year that started with that idea suddenly a group of them in Boston said at a retreat you know we're not practicing what we preach we say it's better to be to serve than to be served etc etc etc and all we're doing with the young people we're working in our after-school programs is serving them we haven't asked them and so they went back to their classes and all and asked them and the young people said let's let us they named themselves young heroes and they had sat 13 Saturdays of service and various things and it was partly seeing that that turned Rick Santorum around by the way you ended by supporting AmeriCorps I think that would help sink him as a candidate if if I advertise that he he flipped flopped and became a supporter of national service but that's the idea that I think the boomer generation is ready for I I think finding the ways and means and how to do it is is a challenge it's a challenge to the area agencies on aging who are instilled with the idea of help the therapeutic approach and I respect the work they do but lifting sites to this other it's a you know another version of ask not what your country can do for you but what you can do for your country ask not what can be done for you but what you can do and we all need to be asked I've been lucky to be asked and I think the room has a lot of people here who have heard the call that they're asked and we need to find out how to make that call practical and loud and taking as the other watchword of America and I hope of the new America is all that all men are created equal all men and women old and young need to be asked and need to be able to do something good thank you so thank you senator next up is is David bank who is the vice president of civic ventures which is the organization that has been developing this concept of encore careers and David was also by background a journalist the technology reporter for the Wall Street Journal and launched the papers of philanthropy philanthropy beat right good all right David should we do something with the can we just kill the lights up here maybe what do you think can you see it all so first we want to thank MetLife Foundation which funded the research that we're going to talk about and and for all their past support of civic ventures and encore careers I'm David bank as Michael said I had I'd put I'm from civic ventures out in San Francisco and I had said insert joke here but I think I'll I'll skip the San Francisco joke thank you Harris for your wonderful remarks and thanks to all of you for coming out and thanks to the panelists who will meet in a moment and thanks very much to New America for bringing us all together the the proximate reason for today's event is this research that we've put out over the past year about encore careers in the aftermath of the of the recession and the economic downturn and we'll get into that in a bit but there's a connection that I want to make with New America Foundation itself because I think about 10 years ago the founders Ted Ted Hall said and also Michael Lind put out a book called the radical center that devoted a fair amount of time to to this notion of a of both a new social contract and a reinvigorated American community but also a new vision of of an aging America where older adults work contribute and participate in much broader and deeper ways and they called out a as an intergenerational win-win older people working with young people in childcare in schools so we feel that this is we feel very much at home here with New America and so we're very happy to be here at Civic Ventures we're on a campaign to establish on core careers and really what we think of as a whole new sort of on core stage of life it's really a sort of experiment in social construction a way to reframe as Harris said that opens the way for for invention and innovation I guess I want to click through all this what we saw is that retirement I mean either it's golden years form maybe this one or it's or it's sort of downsized version is really a dead letter or is at least being dramatically postponed for for a whole variety of reasons just about two thirds of people see that the next stage of their life is really about a new stage of work of some kind by choice or by necessity so the competition in the in the marketplace of ideas really is what is the shape of that new stage is going to be an aspirational rewarding payoff for a for a life well lived or is it a sort of more desultory grind driven by financial insecurity so in the spirit of name it and claim it we've we've tried to establish on core as the best brand for that new stage sort of hybrid that combines that works for both the want to works and the and the and the need to works and delivers that kind of intergenerational win-win that that Ted Halstead and Michael and we're talking about purpose passion and a paycheck on core careers are already here we found that there's estimated nine million people already in their on core careers those are people between forty four and seventy that's up a little bit since 2008 so even during the downturn it continued to grow not by much and it's a it's a rolling number more people you know people leave their on core careers at some point and more people enter of this thirty one million we found that about six million say they plan to enter and make the transition to their on core careers in the next five years there they're doing and on core careers remember specifically has to do with fields that have some kind of social purpose or social impact so people in their on core careers are working the biggest chunk is in is in education as teachers in another roles in health care in government and then and also in nonprofit and community organizations all together we found or we estimated you can take this number for what it's worth sixteen point seven billion hours of on core labor each year and just to give you a comparison frame of reference there's about eight point one billion hours of volunteer work contributed each year but by people of all ages so so that's the that's the on core labor contribution and these are folks from all strata all socioeconomic groups not just a leader or or affluent in fact one of the interesting things about the survey was very little difference between people in the in economic terms between people interested in on core careers and those who are not that the median was about fifty thousand dollars of of income half had asked assets of under hundred and fifty thousand dollars a third had assets of under fifty thousand dollars so to what Michael was saying about a retirement savings gap it cuts across both people who want on core careers and those who were less interested we did find of course the widespread financial anxiety the the numbers are are fairly common to the fairly well known to us now but this is what's both what's driving on core careers and it's also what makes it makes people nervous about making the switch so there's a whole raft of concerns about why people might not want to make the jump to on core careers and and and these are also you know fairly predictable and just to be delay our cards on the table we actually found that the most enthusiastic group about on core careers actually fallen by about a quarter since 2008 so the notion that hey maybe just stick with what I'm doing might be a better a better a better option you know is definitely out there but but overall the takeaway is that income security is kind of a gating factor for on core careers that people need to get past that concern before they even get to consider the sort of relative luxury of having a work that's driven by by purpose or passion so so it's sort of the price of admission and we need to take it seriously to sort out this whole mix of issues we we segmented the the people who were interested in on course what we called potential on course and they kind of fell out into three three pretty distinct groups and the the the smallest group are the ones who were least concerned about their income in retirement had the highest the highest average income they tended to be college and post college graduates and they want their on core careers to be about helping others staying active being productive achieving personal fulfillment and when we get that pushback which we often get that on core careers are really an option only for the elite or the the educated this is frankly the group that people are talking about their their early adopters as it were and they're finding their own pathways to on core careers and they're probably going to do it more or less without institutional supports in fact they already have and there haven't really been that many institutional supports in contrast there's about a third of the potential on course are interested mostly because they weren't looking for a source of continued income and benefits they may be in social purpose roles in healthcare and education in green jobs but they also want to stay and they want to stay active and productive but they're less specifically motivated by a desire to help others now the biggest group actually is in the middle and that's something like 14 million people of those of those 31 million and they share the passion of the passion firsters but they have the income insecurity of the paycheck firsters and they're most likely to say that their personal financial situation has deteriorated through the downturn and they're most likely to be concerned about losing their job but at the same time they're the most fired up about on core careers and they're most responsive to the messaging and they really see that potential for both the personal and the social win-win interestingly they're also the most of all the groups guided by faith and spirituality and their decisions and they're also the youngest group and they expect to have the longest on core careers so they want to fulfill their their desire to step up and make a difference but they also need to satisfy their their income their income security needs so so if we want to move on core careers beyond the sort of early adopters and the and the and the boutique and into the mass market we need to help people do what they already want to do and what they need to do which is build purpose driven financially secure lives there's no one-size-fits-all on core career a 50 something like like me might make a switch to a full-time full-pay new career that might carry him or her into their late 60s or beyond someone at 62 might shift more to a sort of part-time role or other kind of flexible role that extends their income to perhaps 70 and it turns out that even modest levels of continued income can make a dramatic difference on your lifetime financial security so it's always a question of sort of compared to what if you're unemployed you're already retired and ends aren't really meeting or you can't keep going in a physically demanding job or you need additional flexibility because you've got caregiving responsibilities or any any host of other reasons continuing to work at least part-time and earn a modest income is still a good idea you'd let you postpone claiming social security which gives you that higher benefit that Michael mentioned it defers the drawdown of whatever other assets you have and let's them continue to grow hopefully and it means those assets have to cover fewer years so you really do get a multiple effect and just like there's no one-size-fits-all encore career there's no one-size-fits-all transition there does seem to be some common experience around the transition in terms of sort of psychic challenges and economic challenges and it turns out that the transition itself rather than the encore career that you eventually get into really that those challenges are the biggest obstacle to activating those 31 million people so from civic ventures point of view and from from a strategic point of view we think that the transition is where we can get the biggest bang for the for the buck so let's talk about that for a second the first the first thing is to normalize this as a transition people think about transitions out of college perhaps other kinds of life transitions we want to sort of disabuse the expectation that you can jump from your old life into your into your new new thing overnight and that if you don't do that you're somehow you're somehow not not being successful it does take a while for people to get the kind of experience through volunteering or an internship or what have you or the training or education to get a certificate we found that of the nine million people who had already made their their encore transition something like a sixth took about one to two years another six took two to three years and and a whole quarter 26 percent took three or more years to really find their footing in their encore careers I think on average the it was an 18 month transition that people reported so carving out 18 months when you don't have full income is not an easy thing and that becomes a barrier in particularly low income people people don't have the assets to carry them them through that two-thirds of the people who had made the transition on core careers reported that they had significant gaps in income during that transition nearly a quarter no money at all during their transition so and for most of the folks the gap was at least six months and for a third they had a gap of at least two years so this is a this is the serious issue here people who who who have made the transition mostly relied on their personal savings so by definition if you don't have those savings you're in effect precluded from getting to your encore career even though that encore career may be able may be economically beneficial in terms of your your future earnings and so not surprisingly half of the people who who are interested in encore careers expect the transition to be very difficult and of those most say that it's a financial issue whoops yeah so the first step is obviously some kind of financial planning and a re a rethinking of financial planning because that like we're saying that temporary dip in income can be justified if you think of it as an investment in a in a longer term stage of work that will allow you to to boost to top up your assets and and improve your long term security we've talked to a number of financial services providers about providing that kind of of advice and even creating what could be called individual purpose accounts maybe companions to individual retirement accounts to specifically save for and manage the financing of encore transitions the survey indicated some pretty straightforward ways to to help people grants and scholarships for the for the training and education volunteer programs that can help people get the hands-on experience other kinds of experience through national community service community colleges of course are key for the training and certification part and in particular as Harris was saying national and community service has huge potential as an encore transition pathway this is gary maxworthy is one of our favorite examples he was the food executive who used his vista experience to work in a san francisco food bank and he was he was appalled at the lack of fresh produce fruits and vegetables that that were being distributed and he set up a collection system and a distribution system through all the food banks in california and I just checked this morning that last year they delivered a hundred and twenty five million pounds of fresh produce to families in california and it all started with his vista with his vista experience so the ventures has a model that we've been that we've been expanding of what we call encore fellowships and these are one year modestly paid gigs placed in non-profit organizations that give mostly business professionals a foot in the door of the nonprofit sector they're about a dozen or so of these around the country and they're expanding fast and last year intel corporation announced that they were extending this program to all u.s. eligible all retirement eligible u.s. employees so they're covering a twenty five thousand dollars stipend some part of the health coverage and helping people get matched into their into their positions and then the others one of the other findings we found is that a large number of people we've estimated at something like twelve million people are interested in starting their own small ventures or non-profits but but also businesses that employ themselves and and others and and so there's a big need for for mentorship and obviously financing assistance to help people get these small businesses going this is consistent with findings from kaufman foundation and others that that this age group 55 to 64 actually the most likely to start small small businesses contrary to sort of impressions of 20 somethings so investments in that transition can have a big payoff all the respondents reported that they expect to work longer now than they expected to before the before the downturn but those in encore career said they expected and those interested in court careers said they expected to work even longer so people who are currently in encore careers expect to work till they're 66 and a half and those interested in encore careers almost as long and they plan to spend eight years or more in their in their encore careers another interesting finding that Steven might be interested when people understood the benefits of postponing social security claims sort of pre and post messaging on that they're interested in working longer dramatically increased so so one notion is can if you were going to claim social security could some part-time encore career type job that paid as much or more than that minimum benefit encourage you to postpone that that that claim and then you get the higher benefits for life after that so we think there's a real opportunity to drive economic and fiscal benefits for the whole society so the increased spending power of older adults who have continued income is a significant boost to GDP and thus to jobs and employment that drives tax revenues and and benefits to the Social Security Trust Fund we have the privilege of having Steven Gossier I wasn't sure that when I put these marks together so I was going to quote him I think I'll still do that to put him on the spot he can really tell you the real numbers but entirely separate from any reduction in benefits any any increase in the in the eligibility age for Social Security actually encouraging people to work longer and so raising the median retirement age to 67 that the actual retirement age not the statutory retirement age and that is the that is the statutory retirement age for people born 1960 or later would cut Social Security's long-term shortfall nearly in half so this is not just at the margins of the fiscal discussion this is actually could be a serious policy option just to quote him from from a finance committee Senate Finance Committee here in a couple years ago finding ways to encourage people to actually go and do more work will greatly benefit the finance of Social Security Medicare and really all the retirement and health systems within this country so Steven you'll get to put all the caveats and asterisks on that so just to sum it up oh sorry I wanted to be there on court on court careers are are a way to use carrots versus sticks to encourage and enable people to do what they already want to do what's good for them and good for all of us it's a win-win that should be taken seriously by policy makers tackling the challenges of an aging society and the first win is it is a windfall of talent for all kinds of social needs that may otherwise be met this is Lillian Rice who's teaching Native American language and culture to children so that was the 16.7 billion hours the second win is increased financial security people are just waking up as as Michael was saying to the reality of how woefully inadequate their retirement savings are so longer work is going to be a reality that can either be seen as a punishment and a bummer or an opportunity for some innovative new arrangements and finally the third win of a revitalized economy and at least at the margins more balanced budgets one of the primary indicators of an aging society is the dependency ratio but what would happen to that ratio if the many older adults who want to and are able to contribute weren't so dependent by extension that would create more resources for those who for health reasons and others are not able to on court careers are not one policy or program but really a movement or a reinvention as Harris was saying it really touches almost every institution and really each of our lives what we want to leave you with is the trend is real it's happening at some level it's inevitable but with a little bit of investment and a lot of leadership we can make it a truly mass market phenomena a new social norm where people just naturally ask so what are you doing for an encore great thank you David I asked the you know the panel to come up and David you could come join us as well and what we'll do is just go right down I think the line with some you know just a few minutes of opening remark so I think what I'll do is I think I'll introduce you all first that may work work better and don't usually like to do that but but since they have your bios people can you can refer back as as individuals speak so starting from from the far end there is my colleague Phil Longman who is a longtime research fellow here at the new America Foundation currently with the health policy program in a short senior fellow at the Washington Monthly where he writes many cover stories that you all probably read and I thought it was it was interesting I I didn't know until today that Phil's obviously been thinking about this for a little while 25 years ago his first book was called or is called born to pay the new politics of aging in America so that's you know very very appropriate next we have Nancy Altman who is the co-director of strength and social security and co-director of Social Security works and I know her from her her service as chairman of the board of one of my favorite organizations the pension rights center Stephen goss who's been been mentioned is the the chief actuary of the Social Security administration in fact for so long we don't even need to mention what you did before that right and and and Deborah Banda is the state director of ARP Massachusetts for so ARP in the state of Massachusetts since 1999 and it's really impressive that ARP has 825,000 members in Massachusetts that's that's that's quite something so when we I guess start with Phil and we can come I think straight down the line so I'm all for on-court careers and not only a personal level but obviously from a fiscal point point of view this is very important so and I'm particularly like to associate myself with remarks of senator Wofford about the importance of of national service and of giving back but my my role that I've been asked to play here is to be something of a skeptic and I and I saw I just want to add some points of information and some cautionary notes about where this kind of talk could go if it doesn't go the right way so how many of you here have heard formulations like 70 is the new 60 right right this is probably one of the greatest factoids of American life you know we hear over and over and over again that we're in the midst of this longevity revolution now I've just come back from Kalamazoo where I had this had duty to bury my grandmother who died at 102 so yes I'm well aware that there are certain individuals in our society who are living to amazing old ages however this is very much a class phenomenon life expectancy at age at birth has not changed at all since the 19th early 1970s for the half of the population that earns less than the median income more to the point really is that the health of the population is deteriorating so that today's late middle-aged people are on whole and particularly among the those of us their social economic status is actually worse than what was the case among their counterparts 20 or 30 years ago so we're now at the point where among the cohort that's now between the ages of 45 and 64 almost a third of them according to Census Bureau are officially disabled not only that there's a very important piece in a study coming out and in health affairs about a year ago you know that showed that rates of disability among the late middle-aged are going up and up and up now this is despite all the money that we're putting into health care right probably the largest single commonsensical explanation is the gigantic explosion in obesity and sedentary lifestyle in our time but nonetheless this is a reality of the next generation of elders the next great big factoid that really just drives me insane and has I guess throughout my entire adult life I was reminded of it not so long ago when Tom Brokaw had a great new special on boomers Tom Brokaw of course wrote about the greatest generation now it's our turn to get the Tom Brokaw treatment and they spelled boomers in this documentary with a dollar sign and for the S on the end reinforcing this other stereotype that's out there that not only are boomers living longer than any generation history but they're wealthier than any generation history and therefore as per Rick Santorum doesn't it make sense that they would also work longer than any other generation right well let me just recite a few facts right how many people in this room are not college graduates one 70% of the baby boom generation is not college graduate you know how many work in a physically demanding job I'm none that I see right according to a report from McKinsey Institute two years ago 50% of baby boomers work in physically demanding jobs you know that includes 14% that work in occupations like police fire food preparation only 21% of baby boomers are professionals so we're talking about a generation that is overwhelmingly blue-collar and so we have to be very careful in painting a picture of this generation in its old age is one of people who are so healthy and so wealthy and so privileged that why shouldn't they just work to 67 or 70 or whatever because that's not what we're going in fact we're going to someplace unbelievably worse if we don't pay attention to it you know we have all lived through an era I think everybody in this room for their entire lifetime the socioeconomic status of the elderly as a group has continuously improved to the point by the 1980s the elderly as a group were substantially better off than children than middle aged and younger people well we're about to come on an inflection point where that will no longer be true the socioeconomic status of the elderly is about to drop tremendously including their health status and that requires a whole new kind of advocacy for the elderly and one that will not be helped if we continue to push an image of the of the baby boom generation as a bunch of yuppies ready to ready for their on-core careers thank you the the social security system is extremely well-designed both to provide economic security to the the population Phil was just talking about and also to enable on-core careers it's really wonderfully designed for both it is we often talk about a single statutory defined retirement age but actually it's more accurate to think of social security as having a band of ages the earliest age at which one can claim benefits as you know is age 62 for every month you delay you have what's called an actuarially equivalent adjustment the ideas you're getting one month less you're getting one month less of benefits and therefore you get a slight increase so that on average you you come out the same place and the concept behind that is to be neutral it neither subsidizes any particular retirement age nor penalizes any particular retirement age the idea is that people are free to choose starting at 62 and through after 70 there aren't those actuarial adjustments but certainly between 62 and 70 other factors play a role about whether to claim those benefits or not it also unlike the rest of our retirement system is is virtually totally portable between jobs you carry it from job to job there are multi-employer defined benefit plans that are within an industry portable but employer provided defined benefit plans other than the multi-employer plans are not portable which means young workers who switch jobs are really getting very little benefit from it similarly defined contribution plans when you often people take lump sums and that money often never makes it to retirement so it has that advantage too that you switch jobs you take an encore career it is totally portable you continue to to accrue benefits it again it is exquisitely designed to both accommodate to accommodate part time or less remunerative work after the the statutory defined retirement age it's an annuity and so at that point you can claim benefits whatever you want and whether you work or not you you get those benefits and it's an actuarially equivalent amount depending on when you claim prior to that you can earn up to it's around just under $15,000 this year if you earn over that amount you don't get your full benefits are reduced or even eliminated or with I should say withheld temporarily so that when you reach the you you stop working stop drawing cash salary as someone who's been a mom at home I always say like just different you work whether you're paid or not but you after that when you cease getting cash income or after you reach the full retirement age you you get the adjustment you get the benefit of that so as I say it is it's wonderfully designed it's really its only short come is that the benefits are too low that often the the David talked about the those with the the purpose and the paycheck who would like to encourage careers but financially can't do it and Social Security generally is not enough without any kind of supplementation to provide that fortunately we have some wonderful new trends just today Senator Harkin introduced a bill in the Senate which will increase benefits across the board and get an improved cost of living adjustments so benefits don't erode over time the AFL CIO several two weeks ago came out with a policy statement urging increased benefits Social Security since its enactment has provided workers with freedom and choice including the choice to change jobs and start new careers or if they're unable to do that or don't want to continue working simply retire and have some leisure time after a lifetime of work on core careers are one way to experience the freedom and choice that in any Social Security with increased benefits could provide thank you okay next in line just a couple of marks well if there was ever a better example of one size does not fit all not sure what it is I mean you know you're challenging with all the remarks here but but there's no question but that one component for a significant segment of our society that could augment their retirement income would be work but I just you know a couple little snippets of things that I remember from the past about 25 years ago visited Bulgaria and talked to the chief actor of Bulgaria who was probably about my age then and he said the only secure source of income and retirement as a job you know and there there is that to some extent for those who can another guy named that probably all of you remember from your economics textbook when you were in college Paul Samuelson about five years ago before he passed away was asked at a conference so you know what's your source of retirement income and what are you doing with your investments and he says well you know my source of income my investment that's my human capital so he was channeling on the same thing now he was in the select group of people who still have the capability to carry on and to keep working for those who can though I think there's a very good point to be taken here to encourage people to work more beyond where possibly our earlier generations have gone cruelly more work for as long as people can and also more savings and accumulation of money and buying annuities working at both ends of the spectrum would be a really good thing so if we want to if we want to all move towards this direction of having people in better shape undo some of these shortfalls of retirement income that that are easily noted for for the elders and in the future let's work more towards having real annuizations that a people taking lump sum distributions from all kinds of things when they reach 65 and buying that boat or the trip around the world or whatever actually buying an annuity and having it saved for it toward the future social security is of course as Nancy pointed out it is one of those annuities it's an annuity you can't walk away from thank goodness there is one such annuity but what's critical about this and several people now David have mentioned that social security offers the possibility of buying extra annuity how well if we have a 62 year olds and we have some little charts on this if you have a 62 year old new your career of adjournings were about 20 grand that's about the 25th percentile of our retirees and you retire at 62 you'll get a benefit a monthly benefit for the rest of your life that's equivalent to about 40% of what your career average earnings were 40 so it's a good start that's one of the what we used to call the three-legged stool one leg of it so 40% if you start at 62 receiving your benefit if you're a high earner you know like a lot of people in this room probably and you made equivalent to our hundred ten thousand dollars taxable maximum throughout your career then you get about 20% replacement from Social Security in the scheduled benefits however if the same folks were to wait three years and start taking their benefits at 65 through an on-core career through whatever means then their benefit would go from 40% replacement and 20% for the highest earner to 50% and 25% so clearly there's real opportunity here and if they work past 65 you can get even more of a boost in terms of the retirement income just from Social Security relative to the average earnings level you had throughout your lifetime so there there are real possibilities if people can work longer if they find other means to not draw on their benefits quite as quickly they can really augment the level of their retirement income which after all let's face it once you are retired when when that day happens the amount of monthly income you have from day to day from month to month is what really matters the lifetime amount of earnings and income is good but it's it's the monthly amount that really matters David mentioned some of the stuff that we had done for a Senate Finance Committee hearing what a couple years ago and there was a lot of stuff there let me give you one little snippet one of these scenarios that they had asked about and that is what if people age 62 and over all to all we're going to work in the future 10% more than we're projecting that they will be and let me just mention in our projections with our trustees assumptions for the trustees report we already assume that there will be some increases for people looked at by age and by sex there will be increases in the tendency to be in the workforce in the future on the basis of people living longer and living we expect healthier in the future to the extent they're living longer which would give them a greater ability to work and also we believe they'll do this because of a perceived greater necessity if you're going to live longer and you want to retire at the same age you got to do one or two things you need to save a whole lot more during those years of work because you have longer retirement period or don't retire so fast work will work a little bit longer so if we were to expand even more by 10% the level of work that we're assuming people will have in the future that would fix about 5% of the shortfall for social security just to give you a couple little facts and figures not too many I hope if we look from 1990 just 20 years ago to 2010 the percentage of men age 65 and over that were employed jumped from 15 to 22% that's pretty good for all kinds of good reasons part of that of course is the boost not these are people actually in no these are people in the labor force and we've got to remember when the recession hit we had a very interesting situation we knew that because when this big recession hit there had been some drop in the value of assets we knew that there might be some tendency for people to want to work longer to rebuild their assets but at the same time there was unemployment so we thought maybe people drop out well the bottom line is we had both more people filing for social security retirement disability benefits and more people seeking employment so people understood this they took it seriously they were trying to find ways to get employment over that same period from 1990 to 2010 women went from 8% in the labor force to 14% in the labor force this is on an age adjusted basis for 65 and over so these are true increases we're projecting that both of those numbers will rise into the future a little bit more for women than for men what David was mentioning a little bit before where we had this sort of approach that conceivably could eliminate half of Social Security's long term deficit would be a rather aggressive not not totally implausible but rather aggressive approach which would say what if out in the future we had men and women both working at the same rates they were on a non age adjusted basis at ages 45 and over back in 1950 well that's that's a somewhat strained strained example a back in 1950 for example we had 92% of all men between ages 45 and 64 working in in the labor force today we have about 78% for men and about 66% for women so that'd be really a quite dramatic increase in employment at 65 and over we had 46% of men working at ages 65 and over today we have 22% for men and 14% for women a lot of that is just because of the average age at 65 and over has gone up so much so it's a little bit of a strange example and there are some other demographic factors going on like an increasing share of our population is other than legal and therefore we don't expect them to be working and contributing to Social Security but the bottom line is that if through on core careers through whatever kinds of encouragement can be provided we can get a greater share of Americans as they age to continue to work continue to work in the same job if they can continue to work in some of the job hopefully that will contribute to society more than just receipt of their own benefits that can really make a difference for Social Security but the one last point I would make here is something that people in the Senate since committee were very very aware of and we all should be people working longer not only can help Social Security a little bit it can help our whole society not just in terms of the public service provided but when people work longer they're paying personal income taxes longer the whole tax structure the budget deficits for the entire government would be helped substantially and to a greater degree really even then Social Security would be because when you work longer for Social Security you're going to get some extra benefits as a result for the other portions of government when you work longer and pay more personal income tax you're just kicking in more money to help pay for the bills of government so I think I think we would all agree encouraging those who can to work longer is really a good thing and I think that's effort is great and I'm glad to hear that new America is also involved in pushing for people to have more savings and better use of those savings to put it into an annuitized form to last their whole life. I'm going to somewhat agree with Phil in a very small amount even though he depressed me to tears when he started off I just wanted to I do agree that there's a bit of a danger with the encore career movement that it is sounding a little bit too elite at a time when we don't have that luxury but on the other hand I'm going to take a glass half full approach instead of a glass half empty approach and I see on core careers as part of just one piece of a potential to do a major transformation of the way we work in this country and it's a transformation that if we can do it correctly and get not only on core career piece right but some other pieces it's going to help not only the current generation of workers or the boomers but it is going to help all the other generations as well. You know people are living longer lives they are healthier to a great extent. They're looking to strike a work life balance that enables them to remain productive members of society and they're looking for continued work options if the right mix of benefits and incentives are available and the innovative policies and practices and also opportunities frankly that older workers are seeking in the workplace right now are again good for all age groups not just older workers and it's also that's true whether we're talking about on core careers or whether we're talking about lifetime careers. You know there are actually people in this world who do exist who have been doing the same thing for 30 years and absolutely positively love it and are terrified at the thought that they might lose that opportunity just because they're getting to be oh my god 65. So we also have to look at those people too and at and some of the programs that we're working on at AARP are trying to address that. When I was introduced as the director of the Massachusetts State Office at AARP I am but I'm here in DC on a temporary assignment for six months trying to help reboot the association's approach to the 50 plus jobs initiative or the 50 plus worker initiative and one of the things that we've realized over the last several months is that we need to also put more emphasis or more attention to the employers themselves because we need to make the employers realize that older workers are good workers whether it's an on core career opportunity or again whether it's that person who's been in the same job for 30 years and loves going to work every morning. So we need to get that message across and we need to couple that message with this isn't just a do good situation or a feel good situation this is also we need to do a better job at making the business case for keeping older workers on the job again whether it's an on core career opportunity or something else. So we're exploring some ways to make new bridges more use of social media. Our best employers award for example is recognizing employers who are ahead of the curve and who are seeing what older workers want to see in the workplace meaning they want flexible job options. They want opportunities for professional development. They want opportunities for mentoring younger persons. They also want the benefits they need the health benefits and they also want continued opportunities for savings or 401k or something like that. It's it's a big it's a big you know it's the whole package. But in return the employers are seeing that older workers are reliable. They're committed. They are knowledgeable and they're eager to learn new things. So again I think the on core career piece is just it is it is a very valuable piece but it is just one piece of the potential for a greater transformation. And I'll just end I know we're we're almost out of time here. I think everyone running for public office in this country right now and I don't care if they're a town manager or if they're the president of the United States. They should be able to clearly articulate what their vision of aging is for this country or their town or whatever the situation is. And what I mean what their vision of aging is it's not only what are they going to do to meet the needs of this aging population but what are they going to do to capitalize on the talents of this aging population. And on core careers is a part of that. It isn't just showing up social security or fixing Medicare. It's on core careers. It's age friendly communities. It's you know civic engagement. These pieces all fit together and if we can start to taking more of that holistic approach towards it we can see how on core careers will help social security. We can see how on core careers can help build stronger communities. It's it's a multifaceted approach and we need to look at it that way. Thank you. Thanks for those those responses. So so I think before opening it up for for your questions out in the audience I'd like to ask. I think at least at least one question here of my own which is coming back to the the types of on core careers I suppose you know if you look at this most most broadly I mean it could be that you know somebody's on core career could be you know wood carvings or or something like that but I think what you know part of what's very appealing about the on core career proposal and the way Senator Wofford spoke about it is the idea of having kind of a an extra and you know an additional win right the win-win of of social purpose jobs. So you know David and and then others I wonder if you could if you could mention like what do you foresee as being the largest source of these social purpose jobs like where would they tend to be and then also is there enough of it because there's 78 million boomers and obviously this would be a roaring success if you know maybe of 10 or 20 million people got involved but but where where would they be able to do social purpose work and can some of these institutions and education health care and so on absorb these people. I think we found that the most popular on core career is actually teaching and a lot of people had a sort of aspiration to go be a teacher when they were younger they went into some other field for for any number of reasons and they want to get back to it. There's you know budget budgets are tight now so that so hiring has been constrained but there still is a sort of chronic shortage of math and science and special ed and teachers in other fields. So teaching is a key one and there's and some of the programs that train and certified teachers are still overflowing with applicants. We think there's a huge potential for all sorts of new roles there's a sort of emerging category of health navigators. People that are either lay people or or on core health professionals themselves who help people ask the right questions of doctors stay on their treatment plans. In the affordable care act such such as it is there's there's a lot of incentives for say hospitals to reduce Medicare readmission rates and there's incentives for that and health navigators can help hospitals meet those goals and therefore there's sort of an economic rationale for that. Health care obviously you know there's insurance companies for example have an incentive to help people who are pre-diabetic not proceed to full diabetes and so they're financing say YMCA's to help people to hire health coaches to help people get more exercise lose weight and and avoid going to full diabetes. So there's all sorts of ways that part-time or even full-time roles can be reconfigured as as Debbie was saying to meet the needs and you know these don't all have to be you know on core roles there can be jobs for younger people as well that are in these kind of things but there are certain roles that where experience actually does matter and where and where that kind of human touch is is essential. So we do think that there are jobs there the nonprofit sector jobs are actually been growing even during the downturn whereas private sector jobs have been have been shrinking in the long term this very same phenomena of baby boomer retirements actually creates talent shortages in a number of fields that that other boomers perhaps moving into those jobs can can help fill. So you know there's obviously a job shortage now but there you know the recovery will at some point be a full-fledged recovery and we think there will be jobs. One one or a quick question I had I may or may not be quick but you know Steven I think made a good I'm just trying to juxtapose a little bit what Steven and Phil were saying because Steve made a good case for which you might call the ROI right the return on investment from this trend because it's not only going to help shore up social security but also contribute to you know the fiscal health of the country in general you know promote economic activity and so on but then as Phil said that you know certainly it looks like you know and I would be most concerned about you know you know the half half of the older workers who say are are you know less educated and or below median income and you know may have a more difficult transition to these sorts of jobs you know so you so any way can disagree that the transition is any different but to the extent that the transition for the lower wage you know the bottom two terciles you might say is going to be more difficult what sort of supports will be needed like what sort of policy initiatives like training expansions of community colleges I'm not sure what's involved but I think it'd be good to be thinking about you know that we're going to need to do more than just you know say here here are these jobs Steven let me just offer I think there's a real connectivity between these first two questions think about where do we have a growth industry in this country coming up on us we have the age of aging of America we always talk about it because the boomers are going to be retiring well it's really because there were fewer fewer babies born since 1965 so there are fewer workers for every boomer that will be retiring in the future than we've had for retiring generations in the past so if we have the split of the boomers as they as they age some of they're going to be in better shape some are not going to be in such good shape one area where we really have I mean I know I've got a parent and assisted living right now but a lot of people in this room have parents who are in assisted living or will be in the future if baby boomers are going to be retiring and looking for something productive helpful community service to do they could help out at an assisted living there's a tremendous desire for people when they get to be older and are really not capable of taking care of themselves fully to stay at home my gosh what an opportunity to have people go and help out the very older folks that need help to go to them and help them stay in their homes rather than go to an assisted living or a nursing home I think it's just a tremendous demand for this today and it's going to do nothing but increase dramatically in the future so sixty something's helping eighty something's maybe perfect yeah yeah a lot of truth to that but I think we also need to confront the at least partial reality that there is labor competition between the generations not I'm not a fixed pie kind of guy I don't believe every immigrant to this comes to this country takes a job from somebody else I don't think everybody woman that gets in the workforce takes a job from a man but the laws of supply and demand are not repealed in the labor market and I think most young people could relate to the experience of having baby boomers on top of you in some organization that will not get out of the way right now you mentioned teaching right we've we you know far from the public sector employment growing we you know we've had this gigantic downsizing particularly of teachers all every state new unions got hundreds of thousands teachers laid off do we really want to take volunteer labor of you know restless senior citizens who and do gooders and use them get them to teach our kids instead of hiring some teachers back I'm not sure the trade-off is exactly that stark but there's only a dimension to that and I think this is very helpful and just adding to that just as part of the reality you know we do have the continuing high unemployment rate we have age discrimination even though we have a discrimination laws we we've been cutting back EOC enforcement we need to to beef that up if we're really serious about older workers and of course health care costs are going rising very rapidly and the Ryan budget today which voted on today is is calling for an increase in the Medicare age to sixty seven which if that were ever to go through would make employment of older workers extremely unlikely because it would be so expensive for employers to to happen maybe the least expensive part of Medicare but the most expensive part of private pension so that has to inform the whole debate I think the aspirations we've been talking about today are terrific and I think we all applaud them but we need public policies that have a realistic supporting both the young and the old we're absolutely ecstatic even when the the the comments are critical on core careers just to have the conversation be about how to get on core careers established and what the obstacles could be and how we might overcome them so we welcome the the pushback but I will say one thing we often bear the burden of having to sort of defend all of the questions about how older people can actually work longer when in fact those questions should be put to those who would just say just raise the retirement age for Social Security or or the Medicare age without any discussion of what those people are supposed to be doing we're actually saying let's find roles that people can work in when they may be physically physically have physical hardships or let's find ways to to put people to work in jobs that require and and call for sort of the experience of age and therefore don't send older workers into say retail or fast food where they are directly competitive with younger people so so you know we're partly advocates for this so we have an answer to everything but at some level at some level we think on core careers are the response to some of the very criticisms that that you're raising Phil in the sense that you can get out of the way of those younger people wanting to move up the ladder because you have a non-core career to go to you can do a job that requires some some some of your experience and therefore not compete for the low-end job or the entry-level job with with a younger person I totally agree with that right but but here's where I'm coming from when I work as I see this the principal vulnerability of Social Security today appears to be the polls say and certainly the public and say right the thing we were most likely to do is raise the retirement age which strikes me is about the cruelest, crudest, stupidest thing we could ever do right because for all the reasons I laid out at least half the generation it will be lucky to hold on to 67 right so the question is you know do you just want to see that to them so oh we're going to raise okay so we're raising the retirement age here's some ways we can ameliorate all the damage we're going to do on court careers or do we hold the line here and say you know what we're not going to raise the retirement age there's all kinds of independent reasons why older people should have the freedom and the opportunity to be full participants in our society but it has nothing to do with whether or not we raise the retirement age. It sounds to me as though you're not really speaking at cross purposes here I mean if you would rather not see the retirement age increase if it could turn out that through on court careers or other approaches we could improve the financial set of social security in the federal budget as a whole that actually would diminish the pressure that some people might be calling for to increase the retirement age and do other things of that sort. The one thing I mean just going back to your point about the competition some of us are old enough to remember back a few decades back when everybody thought when the boomers were going to retire and we're going to have the shift in the age distribution have all these people retired and so few working age the demand for labor in this country was going to be so much then everybody would have to keep working to much higher ages. Well a funny little thing called outsourcing and other issues sort of came up and lots of blue collar jobs manufacturing are not so much on our shores anymore but that's why I really emphasize the idea that we should look at where the demand will be where the jobs will be and I related to the idea of hey think when we were little kids do we want to have you know somebody like me or you know you know in their teaching or would rather have a young vibrant energetic person teaching I think there's something to that but there are some things that we can do in our 60s like helping the people in their 80s that really there's going to be a tremendous demand for a tremendous need for and I think we would probably be pretty good at it. And I think it really comes down to this point that Dave raised about the carrot versus the stick. I mean the reason raising the unemployment the retirement age would keep people in the workforces that they couldn't afford to retire it's it's you know and raising raising the early age with some talk about does that even worse. What the encore careers though are inspiring people who choose to stay into the in the workforce so I think what I what I what I hear people saying and what I certainly think is that it should be a choice and not a requirement you you let people have dignity and freedom in old age to make those choices. So we're running out of time so I want to give a chance for the audience if and Senator Wofford said that he would be willing to answer a question as well so and yeah and we'll run you know till 2 p.m. I think this might have been scheduled to 145 but we obviously need a little more time but feel free to if you need to go so I don't know if if folks out there have have any any any any question one over here. Hi I'm Dr. Caroline Poplin I'm a charter baby boom member I applied for Medicare last week and I'm here to tell you that encore careers are difficult even for the elite I retired from the federal government I was a retired from the federal government in 2007 I was a lawyer for my first career and a physician for my second career and I thought well that makes me perfectly suited to go into health policy which is what I really wanted to do and I it became apparent right away that there would be no money I would have to live on my pension it's a nice pension but it's 40% of what I was making and I ran into a brick wall in this town including here they wanted they either wanted very distinguished people who'd made a career in health policy or they wanted young promising people that they could mentor into the next generation of health policy so with all the will and all the expertise and agreeing to work for nothing I couldn't. Interesting perspective which I'm not in certain certain areas especially in DC not to not too surprised about that oh you were yes did you have. Hi my name is Patricia DeVecchio I have a consulting business called International Purpose Deborah I really liked what you had to say because I think it was a very balanced look at at the whole situation and I believe we need to totally rewrite the way we do work and the way we define work that it's a very very old model doesn't serve us doesn't allow us to evolve as as human beings you know doesn't really always feed the pocketbook on those all at the same time and we just need to start from a clean slate you know we need to really really think inventively as the senator said here really think out of the box. I know some of us were talking beforehand about how the United States is somewhat behind the curve as far as the way it looks like it looks at a person's working career in other countries it is very acceptable to sort of dip in and out or up and down without having you know making the choice to step away from a high powered position for a few months you know around here that tends to be a career killer you know whereas in other places it's used as recharging so if we can again start to transform the work place across the generations and what we are doing again for older workers I think has the potential to do that but we but it is have to be a transformative process for the entire working experience for all people. Questions back there as well. Yes right right here. Oh the green thank you very much to the panelists I found the whole conversation quite interesting my name is Karen Lashman yes my name is Karen Lashman and I'm now an independent consultant I'm a sort of I say forced retiree because I worked in the UN system which has mandatory retirement at age 62 for those who don't know that but what I wanted to pick up on is Ms. Banda's point and also the first commenters which is about the need for though a whole culture change because as I seek employment now and because like many people in this room I had very senior level positions there's no credibility with younger work either people that are often going to hire you for these encore careers are younger and you know the reality is they see you as a threat you can tell them that and it's true in my case in many people's case I've been there done that I do not want to move up in management in your organization I would like to be able to mentor younger people I know I have a wonderful skill set from international work that I can bring to the workplace and they by and large I have found in this town or at least I haven't tried in other markets yet are quite threatened by senior level people that have an impressive resume so that is a reality for people seeking encore and even when you're saying I have a pension and I'm not looking for you know there for a high salary the reality still hits that those people are very the people that are in those employment decisions even for part-time are extremely reluctant so I would say in addition to your work with ARP on the 50 plus and in and the employers is really promoting as I said or more of a culture change even among younger people that can see the benefits of older people and don't feel so threatened and I think that's a huge challenge certainly any reaction to that or so I think we're we're out of time but if if there's any final final comment that anyone wants to make from the panel just a I would just say to the two comments that go to the difficulties of it that's that's why we need this the sea change in attitudes I mean we're not trying to paint a picture that it's all that it's all rosy because you know then we wouldn't be the work to do so so you know we think that both the changes in employer attitudes as Debbie was saying and and new kinds of roles that do make sense both for the for people and for organizations are sorely needed and just one point is when I hear people say that right now isn't the time to be talking about on core careers because the economy so bad and the still a high unemployment rate this whole transformation it's a movement and it's going to take time and it's not going to happen overnight and if we put it on the shelf right now when we really need it it's not going to be there so we can't keep using the current economy as an excuse to not be acting on some of this stuff my opinion and I think you know so much it's so much in Washington we talk about and center offered referred to this that oh people are growing old it's such a problem and suppose you know it's not a problem in the individual case and the social security it's a problem it's got this financing shortfall decades away and such a problem rather than seeing both the aging of the population and social security as a real asset that can that these are solutions and these are and it requires the sea change in the case of social security it requires pushing back against the conventional wisdom but I think they all are opportunities and challenges and opportunities and strengths and assets that can make the country better all right well thank you very much for attending the event and thanks to our all of our speakers this was really really informative thank you