Everyone should read this book! Why don't we learn about healthcare or social security in school?! This brilliant book picks up where the school system never dares to go.

Social Security Works for Everyone is an informative and thought-provoking read on the soundness of the Social Security program and the advantages of a defined benefit system over a defined contribution system. At a time when a massive number of people in the US are facing a retirement savings crisis, this book is timely in strictly defining the problem and bridging generational gaps in developing solutions.

Broken into five parts (plus appendices), the authors move quickly through a motivation for the existence of social security at all into a motivation for its expansion and recommendations for what that should look like, before spending more time on recent actual threats to the stability of the safety net. A large focus throughout is on the All Generations Plan, the proposal put forth by the Social Security Works organization to expand the program.

I would say I am much more familiar with the ins and outs of the Social Security program than the average American due to a variety of personal and professional experiences, and yet there are still things I learned from this book. I was pleasantly surprised by the amount of time spent on discussing disability benefits, especially Disabled Adult Child benefits, as opposed to just old age benefits, although there are a number of overlooked benefits as part of the program that I wish were at least mentioned in their piteous inadequacy (such as the one-time lump-sum death payment).

I do wish that the authors had been more intentional in redirecting the deserving vs. undeserving poor narrative that comes along with the stigma around the word "entitlement." While the All Generations Plan is extremely progressive in that respect, the rhetoric in this book repeatedly emphasizes that people who worked hard "deserve" their money and that in a society as rich as the United States, we should prioritize caring for individuals who are unable to work. Indeed, the recommendation is only to bring the SSI payment standard up to the federal poverty line--a completely outdated and practically meaningless measure that persists in policy solely out of convenience (and frugality). Presumably because these individuals have never worked, they don't "deserve" even the most threadbare of existences. They propose a significant amplification of the SSDI calculation, why should SSI be so substantively different?

While I agree overall with many of the claims made in this book, I did find the tone of much of the argumentation irritating and at times condescending. There were many points where technical aspects of their policy proposal were glossed over with a "this is complicated to understand without knowing the details," or comments such as "this may sound reasonable" but that's only because you're not "thoroughly immersed" in how benefits are calculated. This could have been easily addressed by simply moving Appendices A and B to an introduction to inform the discussion.

There is a tremendous amount of moralizing about and homogenizing "values as American as apple pie" that really does not accurately reflect how split Americans (not just active Republican politicians) are on many of the fundamentals around social security benefits. And yet even the overt emphasis on equity in this policy centers white women and significantly shortchanges people of color. For example, a significant amount of time is spent exploring the long-term cost in benefits of leaving the workforce to care for one's own child and the resultant advantages of a defined benefit vs. a defined contribution plan, as well as the provision of paid family leave through a social security expansion. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for that. But when you couple a discussion in that much depth designed to support middle class women with a few paragraphs on how social security is "not unfair" to African Americans and is bolstered by more generous immigration policies (because immigrants have bigger families!), that's not an equitable approach. It really left me wondering who the "Americans" are that authors seem to take for granted will share their values.

Advancing the idea that Black Americans benefit more proportionally from social security than White Americans because the benefit calculation is progressive and as a demographic they make less money than White Americans (and are more likely to receive disability benefits), flagrantly ignores that the benefit calculation perpetuates poverty. Using the FPL as the measure of poverty, Black and Indigenous Americans are 50% more likely than White (non-Hispanic) Americans to live in poverty after age 65 (according to the most recent ACS 5-year estimates). While the authors are railing against excluding FSA contributions from FICA contributions, they are silent on how people of color are increasingly likely (and disproportionately likely compared to white people) to be working as contractors versus regular employees and contributing nearly twice as much to social security. So when the authors discuss "modest" increases to payroll taxes, let's not forget what that means for those who are contractors.

Once I read through the All Generations Plan overview in Appendix B, I had a lot of questions about the proposal that were not discussed here. For example, the authors propose reallocating money from the Defense budget, the estate tax, and from tax expenditures (explicitly those on fossil fuels), and from other sources into Social Security. But a large portion of this book is focused on explaining how social security is self-sustaining and has its own tax and appropriations structure for that very purpose. Pulling money from other sources also significantly undercuts the claim that social security spending is not harmful to younger people. Even while social security does have a positive impact on child poverty, for example, its unlikely to be the most effective program to achieve that goal and reallocations or additional appropriations could have a stronger effect on the broader welfare of Americans if targeted to other populations. I was left wanting to know a lot more about what it would mean to change the revenue structure that significantly, how sustainable that would be, and, again, whose values those changes would be based on. If we're going to pour that kind of money into social security from the general tax base, the very least we could do is improve the equity of the program and make sure that the standard of living we are are pushing so hard to protect for people into retirement is sufficient in the first place. After all, is not the entire point of social security to ensure that people can survive when they can no longer work?

Overall, this book is a great resource for better understanding how social security works in its current state, but I found the proposed policy very lacking in both discussion and expected efficacy. Since the policy is such a huge component of this book, my rating is significantly impacted by this element.

**I received an eARC of the this book from The New Press and NetGalley in exchange for the review. Charts and figures were not legible in the copy I received.