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Larry Polivka

Larry Polivka serves as Scholar in Residence of the Claude Pepper Foundation at Florida State University, focusing his efforts on issues relating to long-term care and retirement security.

He has spent over 30 years informing students, researchers, policy makers and the public about critical aging issues including long-term care, affordable health care, and economic security for America’s older adults. Dr. Polivka served as Associate Director and Associate Professor in the School of Aging Studies, College of Arts and Sciences at the University of South Florida from 2003 to 2009 and as Director of the Florida Policy Center on Aging from 1992 to 2009.

Contributions

What do the presidential candidates know about the retirement security crisis, and what do they plan to do about it?
ASK THIS | March 05, 2012
A scholar at the Claude Pepper Foundation writes that the presidential candidates should be required to clearly and fully articulate their policies. And journalists then have an obligation to assess the extent to which these proposed policies respond to the objective facts about the economic realities of old age.

The long-term care challenge isn't just a fiscal problem, it's a test of our nation's character
COMMENTARY | January 09, 2012
When it comes to caring for the elderly and the disabled, fiscal austerity and moral imperatives come into direct conflict. So as the baby boomers enter their twilight years, a scholar at the Claude Pepper Foundation writes, the nation will have a stark choice between communal values or neoliberal ones.

The U.S. is facing a retirement security crisis -- and Washington wants to make it worse
COMMENTARY | December 08, 2011
More and more older people will be living in poverty as it is, writes a scholar at the Claude Pepper Foundation. So why are even Democrats talking about cutting their lifelines?

Washington is making the real Medicare problem worse
COMMENTARY | July 21, 2011
Increasing out of pocket health care costs already threaten to turn Medicare into a class-based health-care rationing system, writes a scholar at the Claude Pepper Foundation. Meanwhile, deficit-obsessed politicians, outside of public view, are arguing over further cuts to this cherished program.

Reporting without context on the nation's greatest policy achievement ever
COMMENTARY | June 27, 2011
A scholar at the Claude Pepper Foundation argues that despite the talk in Washington, Social Security remains a bulwark of society and the evidence is clear that it needs to be built up, not watered down.