How would you make Social Security stronger?
That was the challenge AARP issued to policy researchers last year. Two of the five ideas recently selected as the best in a flood of responses came from a professor at the McCormack Graduate School at the University of Massachusetts Boston and two gerontology scholars who received their PhD degrees from the school.
AARP recognized a proposal by Christian Weller, a McCormack professor of public policy, to expand qualifying credit options for Social Security benefits. It also selected a proposal by Kimberly J. Johnson and Elizabeth Johns to revise minimum benefits to better meet adequacy and equity standards in Social Security. Johnson, now an assistant professor at the Indiana School of Social Work, received her UMass Boston degree in 2013. Johns, an independent scholar in Orono, Maine, was awarded her degree last year. Read more.