Social Security Works

Nancy Altman- Co-director

Nancy Altman Co-director of Social Security Works

Nancy Altman has a thirty-year background in the areas of Social Security and private pensions. She is the author of The Battle for Social Security: From FDR’s Vision to Bush’s Gamble (John Wiley & Sons, 2005). She is the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Pension Rights Center, a nonprofit organization dedicated to the protection of beneficiary rights. She is also on the Board of Directors of the Foundation of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, as well as the Board of the National Academy of Social Insurance, a membership organization of over 800 of the nation’s leading experts on social insurance.

From 1983 to 1989, Altman was on the faculty of Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and taught courses on private pensions and Social Security at the Harvard Law School. In 1982, she was Alan Greenspan’s assistant in his position as chairman of the bipartisan commission that developed the 1983 Social Security amendments. From 1977 to 1981, she was a legislative assistant to Senator John C. Danforth (R-Mo,), and advised the Senator with respect to Social Security issues. From 1974 to 1977, she was a tax lawyer with Covington & Burling, where she handled a variety of private pension and other tax matters.

Altman was on the organizing committee and the first board of directors of the National Academy of Social Insurance. She has a B.A. from Harvard University (Radcliffe College) and a J.D. from the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where she served as an editor of the Law Review.

Eric Kingson- Co-director

Eric Kingson Co-director of Social Security Works

Eric Kingson, professor of social work at Syracuse University’s School of Social Work, is also a Senior Research Associate in the Maxwell School’s Center for Policy Research.

Kingson served as policy advisor to two presidential commissions — the 1982-3 National Commission on Social Security Reform and the 1994 Bipartisan Commission on Entitlement and Tax Reform. Previously on the social work faculties of Boston College and the University of Maryland, he directed the Emerging Issues in Aging Program of the Gerontological Society of America (1984-5). He received his doctorate in 1979 from Brandeis University’s Florence Heller School for Social Policy and Management; his M.P.A. in 1976 from Northeastern University.

A founding board member of the National Academy of Social Insurance (NASI), he is a past-chair of the Social Research, Policy and Practice section of the Gerontological Society of America, a member of the board of directors of the Foundation of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, and chairs a NASI advisory committee to its program, “Innovative Projects to Strengthen Social Security for Vulnerable Populations.” His scholarship examines the politics and economics of population aging, Social Security, and the public and private exchanges across generations. He is primary author of Ties That Bind: The Interdependence of Generations (Seven Locks Press, 1986) and Social Security and Medicare: A Policy Primer; author of The Diversity of the Baby Boom (Washington, DC: AARP, 1992) and co-editor of Social Security in the 21st Century (Oxford University Press, 1997). He also authored Lessons From Joan: Living and Loving with Cancer, A Husband’s Story (Syracuse University Press, November 2005), and In Their Own Voices (Center for Spiritual Care, SUNY Upstate Medical University, May 2009), a small book that presents the experiences and advice of 14 children and youth who face life-threatening illness.

Alex Lawson- Communications Director

Alex Lawson comes to Social Security Works from the Campaign for America’s Future, where he worked on the Health Care for America Now campaign. While at the Campaign for America’s Future, Lawson worked as a health care researcher and policy analyst as well as on grassroots advocacy, web development and communications. alawson@socialsecurity-works.org