It’s hard to see how you could actually implement that without pretty dramatic cuts to Social Security.

Turning to Hillary Clinton, how does the idea of expanding Social Security fit in with what she’s already proposed?

She’s made sensible proposals but not dramatic efforts in this area. Which is fine. It hasn’t been that much a part of the conversation yet. She certainly hasn’t proposed my exact plan.

Can we afford this? We already have a Social Security financing shortfall when the baby boomers are fully retired.

I think the shortfall we have is manageable. You’d rather not have it, but there are perfectly straightforward ways to address it. If the question is, “Can we afford more generous Social Security benefits?” the right way to think about it is, we’re asking people to afford lots of private retirement savings in addition to Social Security. It doesn’t make it any less affordable to move it into the Social Security system rather than outside of it. And, again, Social Security offers you a much more robust benefit. The goal should be telling people not to save quite so much in their 401(k) or their IRAs, because Social Security is doing it for them.

Is one of the goals here to make clear to people that Social Security is going to be around when they’re older?

I guess the right way to phrase it is, if they want it to be there, it will be there. If the American people all conclude we don’t want it anymore, then it will go away. But every poll I’ve seen says people really value it and don’t want it to go away. And there’s no reason why it needs to.

There’s pretty broad-based consensus that we shouldn’t be cutting Social Security. We should be moving that conversation forward. We should be figuring out ways to make Social Security do more—because it can, and we need it. 

You’re talking about raising taxes to pay for more generous benefits, which would help baby boomers and other retirees who didn't pay this higher amount into the system to begin with.

There are ways to structure this so you raise the taxes ahead of when you pay the higher benefits. I don’t think that’s a great idea. I don’t think we should be raising taxes now and saving them for 30 years. But you could do that if you want to. Every generation of workers works very hard and deserves a secure retirement.