1 million people were evacuated tray. and rebels are accusing the syrian government using starvation as a weapon of war. those are the headlines. i'm tony harris. inside story is up next on al jazeera america. >> it was another month of steady if not spectacular job growth. we'll talk about unemployment and take a look at the president's new retirement savings vehicle myra on "inside story." hello, i'm ray suarez. after americans were moved from the era of company managed

pensions to the age of figuring it out on your own some people have profited richly from tax advantage accounts and the enormous run up in the stock market. but millions haven't. americans don't save enough. too many people in their later work years have extremely small retirement accounts that won't allow them to live as well as they had hoped in their 70's and 80's. too many younger workers are not saving any money. in response the obama administration has unveiled the new myra plan, myra will be our focus later in the program, but we're going to start with a look at the latest jobs numbers, which were lower than economists had been forecasting. the labor department reported friday employers added 113,000 jobs in january. by comparison last year the economy created an average 194,000 jobs each month. more people began looking for

work and found a job in january so the overall unemployment rate now stands at 6.6%, the lowest level since october 28, during the last months of the bush administration. for more on the jobs' picture and the state of the economy, we turn to the chairman of the economic advisers, jason, thank you for joining us. what were economic forecasters seeing that caused them to give such an encouraging number, and what happened in reality to pull the job number back to earth. >> these numbers bounce around from month to month. i've been watching them for a long time and they never surprise me when they're above what you think or below what you think. over all the picture is the same. the economy has added 2.3 million private sector jobs at a pace of 170,000 a month.

sometimes you did better, sometimes you do worse, but that unemployment rate comes down and now 6.6%. >> a lot of people are talking about last month's weather as a contributing factor. what does bad weather do that pulls down economic activity? we have winter every year. >> well, ray, it depends on how the winter compares to previous years. i think the weather is affecting economic activity. you saw it in a manufacturing index that came out on monday. we'll see it in other data. i think we probably didn't see it in the jobs numbers. that's because the weeks they did the survey was slightly warmer than average for winter. you know, i think what you just saw as your normal bouncing around a little bit but continuing to make that progress, continue to go add jobs and continuing to get the unemployment rate down. >> the labor force participation

remains low, and the long term unemployment remains uncomfor uncomfortbly high. are we seeing a shift in the economy to a large number of adults who are permanently out of the labor force? >> well, ray i think long term unemployment you have a good news bad news story. the bad news it's unacceptbly high. it's more than twice as high as it was in the last economic expansion, and we need to do everything we can to get it down. that's why the president last week had ceos over at the white house to talk about what they could do in terms of best practices. that's why we're trying to extend the unemployment insurance. the good news, this is a solvable problem. we have gotten it down. it has been coming down steadily, and i think if we stay at it we really can fully recover. >> ideally you want a monthly job creation number that provides jobs for new entrance for the workforce, and pulls people who were idle off the

sidelines. what's it going to take to get that kind of creation month after month to set up a virtuous cycle? >> right, in january we did see the participation rate go up as we not just added jobs in the household survey but had more people coming back and looking for those jobs. so that was good news all around. and we'd like to see more of that. i think 2014 we have a great opportunity. we got a budget deal. if we handle the debt limit properly, if congress handles it properly, then we have a stage for greater certainty and greater ability for the private sector to move ahead and drive our economy. >> is there a change in the provisions? >> yes, we saw positive revision force november and december. and in particular october and november were both very strong months for job growth. december and january were lower, and it all, you know, roughly

averages out to that same pace of 190,000 private sector jobs a month. >> jason fuhman thank you for joining us. >> thanks for having me, ray. >> we'll take a short break and when we come back we'll look at the retirement picture facing the country. there is a new program called myra designed to get americans to save more. this is inside story.

>> al jazeera america is a straight-forward news channel. >> its the most exciting thing to happen to american journalism in decades. >> we believe in digging deep. >> its unbiased, fact-based, in-depth journalism. >> you give them the facts, dispense with the fluff and get straight to the point. >> i'm on the ground every day finding stories that matter to you. >> in new orleans... >> seattle bureau... >> washington... >> detroit... >> chicago... >> nashville... >> los angeles... >> san francisco... >> al jazeera america, take a new look at news. >> welcome back to "inside story." i'm ray suarez. we begin our program with the new jobs numbers and state of the economy as the u.s. continues to dig out from the great recession. now we want to play the story forward and look at america's retirement picture. a good job helps you today but what about tomorrow? the baby boom generation is retiring. we're living longer, but young or old, we're not saving enough.

>> let's do more to help americans save for retirement. today more workers don't have a pension. social security check often isn't enough on its own. while the stock market is doubled over the last five years that doesn't help folks who don't have 401ks. >> reporter: funding america's retirement made it on to president obama's list of pledges in last month's state of the union. >> i will direct the treasury to create a new way for working americans to create their own retirement savings. myra. it's a new savings bond that encourages folks to build a nest egg. >> reporter: established through executive action the president introduced myra for workers in the u.s. who aren't offered a plan at work.

>> myra guarantees a decent return. and if congress wants to help, work with me to fix an upside down tax code that gives big tax breaks to help the wealthy save but does little or nothing for middle class americans. offer every american access to an automatic ira on the job so they can save at work just like everybody in this chamber can. >> reporter: will act like an individual retirement account commonly known as an ira. but the myra offers a few extra perks for first-time savings. including a minimum of only $25 to start savings and a minimum $5 per month contribution there after. this makes opening an account.

there is a catch. the account caps at $15,000. so once you've saved that much your money must really over to an ira on the private market. also there is no penalty for pulling money out early like with an ira. this could be a disincentive to save until one's requirement. the myra is not supposed to be the sole super hero of retirement income. it should look a bit like three-legged stool with income flowing from social security, pensions and savings. but each leg of the stool comes with issues. the social security act, a ban date put in affect during the great depression is slowly outspending itself. today's retirees are funded by payroll taxes pulled out every paycheck in the country. you've probably seen the money held for fica on your pay stuf .

but there is a crucial change since the mandate's birth in the 1930s. americans are living much longer today. in 1935 the average life expectancy in the u.s. is 62. today it's 79. now the program is paying out more than it's taking in, and the social security board of trustees said the operating deficit will amount to more than $800 billion over the next decade. money built up in a trust fund. pensions and personal savings are also feeling growing pains. when the market crashed in 2008 many families lost big churche f their savings overnight and a blow to many underfunded plans. today a third of americans, 34%, have no retirement savings, and a quarter of americans some 28%

only have about $1,000 in savings over all. excluding the value of their house. now the security of the retirement stool is caught in thinthe divisive politics of our time. >> it is incredibly important that we strength social security. people cannot live and they don't have to see how the stock market is doing to see what their retirement benefits are going to be. it's critically important that we preserve that. people have to be dependent upon themselves and less dependent on government, but two of invent wo incentivize saving. >> 10,000 baby boomers turn 65 every day for the next two decades.

>> the gap between what american households have and what they need to retire in dignity is larger than it's been in generations. president obama's manufacture plan may help some americans save, but few believe the policy is large enough to solve the problem on its own. joining us now to discuss the president's myra proposal are david madelin, he directs the american worker project. in new york hell lane olin, a columnist who writes about personal finance. she's author of "pound foolish: exposing the dark side of the finance industry" and aaron curier, lead author of the 2013 report.

helane, hal almost half of workg age households have no retirement at all. many are saving insufficiently to be able to support themselves in retirement. does the myra at least chip away at this huge problem? >> it's a very, very small step that isn't even going to come close to solving this issue. the issue is not just that americans lack the ways to save, but that they can't afford to save. what we've been dealing with for the past several decades are salaries that are stagnating and falling for most americans except for the top 10% while at the same time the cost of everything from education to healthcare and housing has gone up at rates well beyond that of inflation for the same period of time. so as a result people can't afford to put the money aside. myra might help a little bit in getting people who are out of the habit to put some money in, but it's not going to solve the

essential problem, which is they can't keep the money in their 401k or any retirement saving vehicle. >> using the phrase "out of the habit" which caught my ear. could this be a kick start for people who have not systematically participated in a savings plan to get them on the road, to see those gradually rising balances and so on? >> one of the good things about this proposal is just what you said. it is a way to encourage more people to save. once you're in the habit of saving you're much more likely to accumulate something at the end of your life. that said just like helaine mentioned it's just a small start to tackle the retirement crisis. we need to do much more. we have an income problem but we also have a savings problem. our retirement system is broken. social security has some minor problems that we can fix whereas the private system is fundamentally broken so it is

very hard for somebody to get to a secure requirement with the system we have. we have high fees in most ira and 401k plans that over a person's lifetime can take away 20% to 30% of all of their savings for nothing adding no value just making it much harder for them to get to the amount of money that they need. >> well, is there something to like about this thing? if people are talking about the smallness of it, but for instance the fact that it's key to bonds rather than the s&p. for people who are just getting started, for people who have very small balances you're not going to those fees. you're not going to have the same eating away of the equity that swings in the stock market can provide. >> yes, this is a good start but it's a small start. it's a good start for the habit as we discussed earlier. there won't be any fees. all of the money that people put in will go to their assets. they'll build up over time. but it also--this proposal

indicates the limits of what the president can do on his own. the president did this because congress has not acted. we have a dysfunctional congress that is not doing the kinds of things that we need to do to create the secure retirement system in. >> erin, as the country has moved away from defined benefits, moved away from savings plans that were in effect managed for the worker and then just turned over at retirement, did we really put ourselves in a little bit of a trap, sort of an upper middle class solution to a working class problem? >> when you look at the data about generational differences and requirement preparedness, a clear picture begins to emerge about the differences between this generation and the previous generation. gen-xers are the least prepared for retirement and the first generation having to face the

prospect of downward mobility. when we look at wealth as a picture, that debt piece is a big part of the puzzle. >> what is in the gen-x debt ledger if it's not homeownership. >> immediately, student loans. we have a growing incidents of college cost rising at the at the same time that college degree is critical for upward mobility. as families take on additional debt for human compan capital de road, that's on the balance sheet. >> helaine, you said that people cannot afford to save. would getting back on track economically help fix some of these problems? >> it would definitely help, but the essential issue is we've been living under this

retirement system now for about--for more than 30 years. if it was going to work we would kind of know by now. the fact is unless you're fairly upper income it just hadn't worked for most people. they can't afford to save or they don't save or the fees eat away at what they've put away or they invest in the pros things. people are not naturally good investors so they tend to put money in the stock market when it's up at 15,000 to 16,000, and they pull the money out when it starts following which is exactly what you're not supposed to do. so we really quite do it ourselves. the issue with myra is that it's still pre-supposing that we can. when in fact, we need more help at this point. >> we'll talk more about savings and nothing that we're going to say in this program is meant to dissuade you from saving. it's never too late to get started. but we're going to take a short break and when we come back

we'll talk about the way forward and saving ourselves out of this mess. this is inside story.

>> welcome back to "inside story." i'm ray suarez. on this edition of our program we're focusing on retirement security. the early baby boomers are in the best shape, and the younger you are, the worst it looks. we need to start saving more. we're talking about how to make that happen. and one feature of the myra that caught my eye because so many people have already raided their 401k plans during their working lives is that they can get the money out easily again. >> research that we've done and how families in particular dealt with the struggle and financial shack of unemployment during the recession shows that when families are hit with an

unexpected financial emergency the first thing that they do is go to the asset that is they've built up whether that's home equity or 401k or other savings mechanism while that isn't their intended purpose sometimes rely on that money prevents a further downward slide while families have a chance to get back on their feet. having flexibility for families at the bottom of the income distribution could be a really critical component of encouraging them to save. they're not scared they're going to tie up their money in a way they can't access an unexpected emergency happens. >> from a boil design standpoint, david, that must an tough call. you don't want to tell somebody who is 40 years old sorry you can't touch this money, but human nature means it's unlikely they're going to be able to top up again by the time they end their working lives. >> ultimately what you want to get is recreate what we had, this idea of a three legged

stool, social security providing a base. private savings, and private savings is something that you can use to support you when you have a hard time. and then you also need a true color that is true money for retirement, that is in effect locked up for a longer period. and so we can create a system like that if we build both legs again up, the savings side which the myra proposal i think is good on a savings side but we need a true new kind of pension plan. you see the state of california, for example, is starting to create this kind of a plan, blends some of the best features of the 401k, the best features of employers, professional money management and lifetime payouts so you can't outlive it. we're seeing where states are bound by a dysfunctional congress they're starting to think creative ways of dealing with this problem.

>> helaine, we did a lot of terrible things in the last ten years, you can pushed there by family crisis in many cases but pushed there nonetheless. during the run up of the crisis we used our homes as piggy banks so people in their 60's and 70's will still be paying mortgages. did we learn our lesson? >> people were scrambling to keep up during those years and returning to their houses as a way to get by. something that was very deliberately marketed as that. that being said the issue is this the problem or not? is the problem that americans won't save or is it that they can't save? it's probably some combination of both. what we do know about the 401k and other parts of our voluntary retirement system, the debt levels are fairly high, they're

even high for people on the verge of retirement. the majority of people over the agtheage of 50 in a 401k are kns debt savers. they have more debt than savings in their 401ks. some of that is probably good debt in form of housing, but a lot of it is credit card debt, student loans for themselves and their children, auto loans and other such things. >> you're a personal finance writer, if you're in that boat and somebody watching at home says, oh, no, she's talking about me, would it make sense to empty that savings account and use it to pay off your debt? >> no, it really doesn't. you don't want to do that because that's your money for retirement. what we tell people in debt who are trying to get out of debt, if they're still--that they should still save for retirement is to at least contribute up to the match that your company is giving you. most companies give 3% match.

you should always contribute at least that amount, and turn the rest to wha of your salary to pg down your debt. >> erin, i don't want to sound alarmist, and i don't want to end this show on a disastrous note, but given the situation that we're in today are there working americans who are simply going to be poor when they're elderly? >> our analysts finds that gen-x who are late 30's, early 40's are on track to potentially be the first generation to have less wealth than the generation that came before them. and that they're facing the real possibility of downward mobility and retirement. rate now at the median, gen-xer is only able to replace 50% of their pre-retirement income. >> remind us the gen-examiner

is? >> late 30's and early 40's. now is the time for them to make a change in their savings rates and wealth accumulation. >> to my guests, thanks a lot. that brings us to the end of this edition of "inside story." thanks for being with us. the program may be over but the conversations continues? we want to hear what you think about this and any day's show. you can log on to our facebook page or send us your thoughts on twitter. or you can reach me directly @ray suarez news. we will a he see you at the next edition of "inside story." in washington, i'm ray suarez.

be very important matters. >> i would say it is the most secretive white house that i have ever been involved in covering. >> during the run-up to the iraq war, abramson was the d.c.