The following is a guest post by David Certner, AARP legislative policy director.

The last time we made significant changes to Social Security — including adjustments to benefits — was the 1983 Social Security amendments. At the time, Social Security had less than a year’s worth of solvency, and a bipartisan agreement to put Social Security on sound financial footing was essential.

That legislation, negotiated by President Reagan and Democratic House Speaker Tip O’Neill, focused on what was needed protect Social Security for the long term. Reagan understood that Social Security is a separately funded program unrelated to problems in the rest of the budget, and he clearly stated that: “Social Security has nothing to do with the deficit.”

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Indeed, today the Social Security trust funds hold $2.8 trillion in government bonds. These reserves have been built up with the contributions that workers and employers have paid into the system for the dedicated purpose of paying Social Security benefits. These funds are held in legally established trusts and cannot be used for any purpose other than paying benefits. According to the latest Trustees’ report, Social Security can pay full benefits through 2033, and roughly 75 percent of benefits beyond that time.

Since the 1983 amendments, and despite the numerous deficit reduction debates over that time period, Social Security cuts have never been part of any deficit reduction agreement. Congress has always understood — as Reagan observed — that Social Security has nothing to do with the federal budget deficit.  Unfortunately, many policymakers today have forgotten that basic truth and have suggested cuts to Social Security as part of the end of year “fiscal cliff” budget package. The proposal — the so-called chained CPI — would change the formula for calculating the Social Security cost of living adjustment (COLA).  This COLA cut would reduce benefits by over $100 billion dollars over the next 10 years and would result in thousands of dollars of lost benefits for current (and future) retirees.

Social Security has a long-term shortfall, but any changes to Social Security should be done — as President Reagan and Tip O’Neil achieved in 1983 — in a balanced and separate measure for the purpose of securing Social Security for the long term. Social Security should not be cut as part of a budget package to pay for a shortfall in the rest of the federal budget.

See also:

• Demystifying the Chained CPI
• Social Security, the Fiscal Cliff and Chained CPI
• Why Inflation Matters for Social Security

Photo: Universal History Archive/Getty Images

That’s how Jean Chatzky opened her hour long session on financial security and retirement at Life@50+ today. She admitted that rules don’t seem fun – and the audience agreed. But soon she brought the crowd around to the virtues of boundaries, planning and delayed gratification.

“Once you start planning, and get the numbers down on the page, things may not be as bad as you think they are,” said Chatzky, giving a packed room some hope. “And know that you can recover from any financial mistake by simply saving more.”

She makes it sound so easy, doesn’t she!? Chatzky admits that when it comes to money, there’s not much fun in planning, saving and investing, but she laid out some rules that might make it less intimidating:

Personal finance is more personal than it is finance. You have to make decisions that are good for you and your family, nobody else. It might mean swimming against the tide – leaving more money in the bank so you can sleep at night, or renting instead of buying.

Money is simple…people make it complicated. Sometimes the person who’s telling you you’re doing it all wrong is someone who’s very close to you. Also, the  more money that’s on the line, the likelier it is that irrationality comes into play. The reason? We treat it different than any other commodity.

Financial plans don’t fail people. People fail to plan. More baby boomers are more afraid of outliving their money than they are of dying, one study showed. And most Americans have never even tried to figure out how much money they need in retirement. That’s dangerous, very dangerous.

Hope is not an investment strategy. You have to plan, and the first step is answering some difficult questions. How long will you live? Nowadays, with healthy behaviors and great health care, you have to plan for 95 or 100! Planning is all about outlining your hopes and dreams and fears and needs.

Count dollars like calories. While most of you reading this can probably name the calories in a Big Mac, you probably can’t say how much money is in your retirement account. It’s time to start taking action – run a retirement calculator and see how much you have versus how much you need.

If you can’t see it and you can’t touch it, you won’t spend it. This is one of the reasons 401(k) plans work so well. IRAs, CDs, Health Savings Accounts – the idea that you have money sheltered away for something specific — they all work surprisingly well!

Just because someone will lend it to you doesn’t mean you should borrow it. This is the time of life when we should be thinking about paying it down, not acquiring more debt. Keep your spending in check – ask why you are buying something? Do you need it? Or are you doing it for more emotional reasons.

Don’t shop angry. Anger makes us more optimistic, oddly enough. You’re more likely take a risk, make a jump and say “what the hell” and buy something.

Don’t shop sad. Sadness will make you more eager to buy just about anything.

Don’t shop hungry. It might sound cliché or obvious, but it’s true. All those free samples are meant to manipulate you into getting excited about all the other things you don’t need.

Diversify. Nobody knows where the markets are going, and that means being an investor is frightening. But certain areas of the markets like bonds, swim against the tide and can be safer at times. Stocks and bonds are not enough though – there are so many ways to diversify, and it’s more important than ever before to do so.

It’s not about having it all. It’s about having what you value the most. You have to give yourself a break. You could look at a friend or loved one and think they have it all, but you never see the challenges they faced to get there. You have to know what you want most so that you can plan ahead for it.

Photo credit: 401(k) 2012 via Flickr.

Ms. Denise in the edible schoolyard.

“What do you do to get the kids to like stuff like kale? Or radishes?” I asked. Ms. Denise immediately begins shaking her head in protest, with a huge grin on her face. “If they take the seed and plant it. If they grow it. If they see it every day while they’re out on the playground. If they walk by and smell it. They will love eating it,” she said.

We were standing in an edible schoolyard on a clear, sunny day at SJ Green Charter School in New Orleans. Around us, a gaggle of AARP volunteers from all over the country are seeding sunflowers, sifting pebbles out of soil, trimming and digging. Beyond us, in the edible school yard, a kindergarten class has their arms prepped as bee wings and are flying between rows of spicy peppers, deep green kale, red strawberries, lettuces, carrots and more. Their task for today’s class? To smell yummy vegetables and talk about what they smell like. Not bad for school work!

Ms. Denise and a steady stream of volunteers —  today ranging from AARP folks to parents, City Year participants and community members — plant and harvest more than 50 different kinds of fruits and vegetables each year. Their goal is not only to teach kids how to grow food, but how to cook it, too. All of the 500 students at the school take a gardening and cooking class each year with a curriculum in each course that compliments science or nutrition lessons the kids are getting in their other classes.

Smelling yummy vegetables.

School gardens have risen in popularity over the last four years, perhaps because first lady  Michelle Obama has made ending childhood obesity her cause. At the same time our national relationship with food has evolved and there’s a movement to bring us closer to the ingredients that end up on our plate. Edible schoolyards like the one I worked in today, are one of many initiatives that aim to do just that. The idea being that learning about food, developing a relationship with it and ultimately realizing how food makes us feel will bring us a step closer to ending an obesity epidemic that rages on.

Inspired by the work Ms. Denise and her bees were doing I asked how folks, in New Orleans or anywhere, could get involved in one near their own homes. Here’s what she told me:

1. A quick Google search for “school garden” or “edible schoolyard” and your city is the easiest way to find a garden to help.
2. Bring your skills. Such programs are always in need of gardeners (pro or amateur) and cooks of all types.
3. Donate tools. If in cleaning out your garage you find you have 3 shovels you have no use for, give them to a school garden.
4. If you’re short on skills and tools, even a small donation of $10 or $15 can help buy seeds for the upcoming season.

If you don’t have kids or grandkids in a school with a garden, that’s okay. Schools are all about communities, and besides, teaching a child who is not your own all about raspberries might be the yummiest way to volunteer ever.

Paul’s grandma wasn’t like ours. Whereas the other grandmothers of my first four years left impressions of intensified mothering—cozier, calmer, softer than Mommy—my neighbor Paul’s was an assault on the senses. A grand assault, mind you: Phyllis Diller would burst on the scene in a storm cloud of sparkle and shine, loudness and laughter. I watched her with equal parts fascination and intimidation every time she visited. I’d never seen such big hair, such painted eyes. Best of all, her name kinda rhymed.

Diller’s daughter Sue and my mother were close friends, two young divorced neighbors raising their toddlers together in a 12^th-Street Santa Monica apartment complex. My older sister and I competed for Paul’s attention, and together we’d hang out backstage at his grandma’s show (Knott’s Berry Farm perhaps?) and her home—a place I now assume was a mansion full of 20^th-century Hollywood chic. As I recall, it was simply ginormous, white with a tinge of pink around the edges, and Paul’s grandma sparkling in the center of every view.

I compared notes with my sister recently, hoping Mary could improve upon my pinkadelic toddler visions. “We were at Phyllis Diller’s house,” she offered. “I was talking on the phone to Mom and claimed that I’d eaten my lunch—which included peas—and Phyllis Diller said that no, I had not eaten my lunch.”

Profound pea recollections melt all too quickly into ones of new stepparents, new cities, less Paul. Mom died of breast cancer in 1984, taking with her most of the details of those years. But recently my Aunt Laura shared something: “When your mom was getting chemo, Phyllis arranged for her own wigmaker to make a couple of wigs for her.”

Suddenly, I didn’t need to ask any more questions.

I am so grateful to Phyllis for lightening Mom’s pain in a way only the Wig Mistress herself could. And I am grateful to Sue for sharing her family with me, especially her flamboyant, outsized mother. My memories might be hazy, but one thing is crystal clear: I have known from my earliest days that no woman need fit a certain mold to be beloved, generous and happy. Phyllis Diller was my first example of that. Her sparkle lives on.

As we watch the thermometer creep up to temperatures that make us perspire just thinking about them, this summer could end up as a particularly cruel, burdensome one for seniors and others who have trouble when it comes to paying for cooling and other energy costs.

According to a new report by AARP’s Public Policy Institute, average residential electricity costs have increased by more than 42 percent between 2002 and 2012 and seniors over 65 in the Western South Central geographic area in the United States are projected to owe, on average, in the vicinity of $335 just for their June cooling costs.  The report, “Summer Cooling Costs and Older Households,” details the fact that the continued high cost of electricity will result in many older consumers receiving high electric bills during the summer cooling season.

June’s estimated cooling costs throughout the United States.

This report comes at the heels of another report AARP’s Multi-State Utility Campaign released earlier this month as the thermometer began to rise that details new loopholes utility companies have successfully used around the country to sneak rate increases past regulators and lawmakers.

Additionally, and likely not by coincidence the Associated Press released a new poll that shows “Nearly 9 in 10 people said they had taken some action in the last year to save energy, with those making less money and on a tighter budget saying it was more important to make their homes more efficient or save money on energy.”

This year AARP helped 10.4 million 50+ Americans save more than $440 million in home energy savings as a result of our efforts.  Even though the summer heat could put a test to the fixed incomes so many depend upon in retirement, AARP’s work will continue to stop unnecessary fees, surcharges and other rate hikes by utility companies across the nation.

For practical ways to save on your own home energy costs and beat the heat, see AARP’s  12 Ways to Stay Cool and Save Money,  along with 18 Ways to Save on Your Utility Costs.

Photo Credit: Cayusa via Flickr

This is a guest post from Mary C. Hickey from the AARP Media Content Team.

A post yesterday on the Wall Street Journal’s At Work blog offered advice to Baby Boomers on how to get along with their younger colleagues in the workplace.

Calling for “mutual respect,” the blogger listed the things Boomers need to understand about young co-workers, including their technological superiority, their lack of company loyalty, their unique ability to collaborate, and their drive for instant success.

Okay. Got it.

But now we’ve got some advice to help these young workers better understand the Baby Boomers in the surrounding cubicles.  Here are five things we want them to know:

1.)  We may not be as tech savvy as you, but we’re not total idiots.

So perhaps you did learn how to maneuver a mouse before you could talk. And maybe you do have an ease with technology that we once had with a rotary phone.  But that doesn’t mean we’re clueless about computers – as that ridiculous photo accompanying the WSJ post suggests.  (A woman putting white-out on a letter on her computer screen? Really?!)  Most of us are doing just fine adapting to the newest technology.  It’s not all that complicated.

2.)  We’re accustomed to a more formal workplace. 

Yes, we know you think it’s okay for Mark Zuckerberg to wear a hoodie when he’s meeting potential investors on Wall Street. And that it’s perfectly acceptable for a woman to come to work in a tank top that reveals not only her cleavage and bra straps, but all of her tattoos as well.  But understand that we came of age even before the dawn of casual Fridays — and that Boomer women actually lived through a time when they had to wear shoulder pads and little bow ties to be taken seriously.  Is it really so crazy to think maybe the pendulum has swung a little too far in the opposite direction? 

3.)  We’re jealous of your work/life balance.

You may hear us grumbling about how you scoot out of the office at 5 on the nose every night – or that you think it’s okay to work from home because your dog sprained his left paw.  But that’s just because we’re envious of your ability (so early in life!) to strike such a sensible work-life balance.  Many of us didn’t have that luxury.  In fact, we may have paved the way for you to have it — so at very least, give us our props.

4.)  We’re secretly threatened.

Believe it or not, many Boomers have actually considered the possibility that you can do our job as well as we can — and for a lot less money to boot.  But as a generation, we haven’t exactly been model citizens when it comes to saving for retirement. So we’re planning to stick around the workplace for as long as we can.  Make no mistake: We love having you as colleagues, but we’re not ready to have you displace us just yet.

5.)  We actually could teach you a thing or two.

Sure, you definitely know more than we do about a lot of things: Instagram,  FourLoko, artisanal soymilk and Nicki Minaj, to name just a few. But over the years we Boomers have acquired a lot of workplace wisdom that’s still relevant — in spite of all the changes we’ve seen.   If there’s a generation gap in the workplace, one of the best ways to help bridge it is allowing us to share some of the lessons we’ve learned.  

 Photo credit: Brian Auer via flickr. 

Not sure if it was the era (the early 80s) or the guy (a slowly recovering hippie) but my marriage proposal – if you can even call it that – was distinctly unromantic.  “We can get married if you want to,” my now husband said matter-of-factly one Sunday afternoon, after we’d been living together for over a year. We have been married almost 30 years, proof that it’s the person – not the proposal – that ultimately matters.

Nonetheless, I’ve been totally intrigued by the elaborate marriage proposals that seem to be routine these days:  A former student of mine whose fiancé arranged to have a diamond ring placed at the bottom of an ice cream Sundae they shared.  An assistant at work whose husband proposed, on his knee, on the top of a mountain at sunset.  Another colleague whose entire family was on hand when her betrothed popped the question.

Grand gestures, all of them, but none come even close to this fabulous proposal that definitely sets a new standard for romantic men everywhere.  Best wishes Isaac and Amy.  Hope the relationship is every bit as wonderful as the way it got started

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When a friend told me she had a spare ticket to see Betty White here in DC, I immediately jumped on the opportunity to go with her. I figured an interview with Betty would be funny, insightful and heartwarming, but it exceeded my expectations in every sense.

Of all the answers she gave or nuggets of advice she offered, one comment stuck with me the most and I knew I had to blog about it.

An audience member submitted a question for Betty: “How does it feel to have made a come back in your career so late in life?” To which Betty responded:

“Thank you for welcoming me back! But perhaps it’s you who’s been away?” -Betty White

Touche, Betty. Touche.

Photo thanks to flickr user mmatin.

On June 25, 1949, Robert Thompson married Juliette (Judy) Hance married 63 years. (Photo from Scott Thompson)

This past weekend, I watched the film, The Iron Lady.

I had seen the film once previously, back in January during Oscar nomination season. At the time, I was awed by Meryl Streep’s performance, but I found the overall tone of the film flat — undeserving of the complex political life on which it was based. This time, however, the point of the film resonated with me in a new way — the way I believe its filmmakers had intended.

Rather than an in-depth analysis of political events, “The Iron Lady” focused on something that affects each of our lives:  the reality of memory, of looking back. Regardless of whether we are Prime Minister or pauper, 90-years-old or 30-years-old, each of us goes to bed at night in the same manner — alone with our thoughts, alone with the memories, the faces, the regrets, and the joys that define our lives.

As I watched the film, I immediately thought of my grandparents Robert and Judy, of the “movie” they must experience as they look back on 60 years of marriage, and 90 and 88 respective years of life. What memories stand out most to them? Most importantly, what have they learned — what lessons could they share?

It’s easy for those of us living in big cities to forget that the greatest lessons available to us often lie within the memories of grandparents, parents, aunts, and uncles — the people that we forget to call as we bury our noses in books, music or the internet to find meaning and direction.

This week, I took that realization to heart and called my grandparents — not simply to ask about their day, but to ask about their lives.  They are members of what is known as “The Greatest Generation” — children of the Great Depression and the Americans who won World War II.  Will our generation carry the baton?

Editor’s Note: To read full text of this heartwarming interview, click here. Some of our favorite nuggets of wisdom included:

Robert (on falling in love with Judy): I wanted to go steady with your Grandma because we laughed and had fun wherever we went. It didn’t hurt that she was a good looking, sexy gal, too!

Robert (on optimism, having children after WWII): I don’t remember the bombs – I remember the baseball games, or the songs, or laughs on the ship. The good memories always rise to the surface if you let them.

Judy (on what she would do if she was 30 again for just one day): I always loved when your grandfather and I would go to our local club and go dancing. I would like to go dancing again.

Robert (on remembering his own mother): You’ll find, at some point, there comes a time when you end up taking care of the person who always took care of you. And you shouldn’t fear that day – you should appreciate it and look forward to it.

Judy (on Gen X and Gen Y always worrying about life): Life is fun. Be yourself, enjoy life, enjoy your friends — enjoy the moment.

Be sure to check out the rest of Scott’s interview with his grandparents – their advice on life, love, war, money and more is truly timeless.

Mike Wallace was an institution in the news industry. He interviewed presidents, singers, mobsters and civil rights heroes. He needled them with a sophisticated coolness that only Wallace could. He infuriated some, charmed others and educated us all when we watched his interviews.

CBS News’ eulogy for Wallace points out that “when Wallace was born in 1918 there wasn’t even a radio in most American homes, much less a TV.” For 65 years of being in front of the camera, 40 with 60 Minutes, Wallace helped create what the evening news looked like. Some could call him a pioneer, while others may say he simply did the job he was born to do – with extraordinary passion and tenacity.

Either way, we’ll miss you on TV, Mike Wallace. It simply won’t be the same.

Photo Credit: Yahoo Images