Reframing Social Security

Chris Farrell, economics editor for Marketplace Money and a Daily Circuit regular, is back to talk about how to restructure America's Social Security system.

The federal government's largest program could be the center of a generational war, according to a recent piece on Next Avenue.

"America's young adults (the Millennials) will be saddled with an unsustainable burden paying for the boomers' retirement, according to [Paul] Taylor, 65, executive vice president of special projects at the Pew Research Center," Richard Chin wrote.

More from Next Avenue:

He profiles the boomer generation, which came of age in economic boom times, yet seems downbeat, and compares them to the Millennials, who might become the first generation in U.S. history to have a lower standard of living than their parents but who remain stubbornly optimistic about their future.

Other paradoxes: The country is both more polarized and more tolerant, according to Taylor. The nuclear family is losing its dominance, yet there's been a dramatic rise in multigenerational households.

Loming over these future changes, according to Taylor, is one big question: "How do we keep our promises to the old without bankrupting the young and starving the future?"

Farrell joins The Daily Circuit to talk about possible solutions to Social Security, politics aside.