and president of the chicago history museum and with us today is our guest, alison owings. her latest book is "indian voices" listening to native americans. in a w her book, we meet a wide array ofhem native people and we hear them discussing their own lives, so alison please begin the conversation. litfest. i'm really happy to be here. i think that i wrote this book initially because i was so appalled by the ignorance of nonnative people about native people including myself. and i, therefore, set out what i could to destereotype what i find is really a bad bob. it's been a bad problem for centuries and it continues today. and initially my idea was, well, i will just talk to a few native people and find out what they had about their own lives and the book became stronger, stronger, far-reaching and i ended up interviewing the indians of maybe mccain to the last chapters of a hawaiian chanter. and my object at the time was to destereotype thinking it would be helpful because native americans, in my opinion, are still harmed by the stereotypes about them. and -- but on the ot

reported that social security can pay out every benefit owed to every eligible american for the next 27 years. >> so what's the truth here really? our alison kosik joins me now. always good to see you. so what about some truth here? if nobody touches the program, leaves it alone, how long can it last under its current system? >> reporter: and t.j., i'm glad you're sitting because you pay into this. every hard-working american pays into this. guess what, the social security administration says social security is going to run dry in 25 years. in the year 2036. do you know what the number-one problem is? our aging population. remember, social security, it's a self-supporting program. workers pay for it through p payroll taxes. as baby-boomers get older, payouts will soar. since baby-boomers had smaller families, there won't be as many active workers to pay into the program. the social security administration breaks down the numbers like this -- take a look. right now about 42 older americans are out there. and in 2036, that will almost double 78 million. also, there's a fund that the social security administration can tap into, and it does. i