In a speech delivered today at the National Press Club, AARP CEO A. Barry Rand outlined AARP’s work to strengthen the 50+ middle class. Watch a recording of the event using the above module, or read a transcript of the speech.

Rand's address builds on eight new research papers included in the AARP Public Policy Institute’s “Middle Class Security Project,” a major initiative that has focused on the economic challenges facing America’s middle class and the prospects for a financially secure retirement.

The prosperity of the middle class has been the basis for the American way of life for the past 60 years. A middle-class standard of living in the United States has come to mean having a secure job, a safe and stable home, access to healthcare, retirement security, access to a good education, including college education for our children.

But today these middle class fundamentals are threatened, straining our ability to fund health and retirement programs, weakening our ability to maintain a safety net for the most vulnerable and thwarting our investment in the future.

At the event, AARP Executive Vice Presidents Nancy LeaMond and Debra Whitman offered insights into PPI's research and more about what we need to do as a nation to restore prosperity to the middle class and keep the American Dream alive.