He filters politics out of economics of aging

The things that have long occupied Robert L. Clark's mind are on everyone's minds these days.

Clark, 59, an internationally recognized economist at N.C. State University, teaches and studies the economics of aging and pension and retirement policies. He's been on this case a long time, having written papers on the economics of aging since the 1970s.

"I've been very lucky," Clark said in his office at Nelson Hall at NCSU. "I started out my professional career in an area that has gotten more and more attention."

A Mississippi native, Clark has taught at NCSU since 1975. He travels all over the United States -- and to destinations including Australia and Japan --to confer with universities, businesses and governments. The questions Clark has explored are increasingly taking center stage in the debate about governments' ability to manage tax dollars:

How will the U.S. pay for the multitrillion-dollar obligations to people on Social Security and Medicare as the baby boomers age? Closer to home, how will North Carolina meet the $24 billion cost of health care for state retirees?

"The first thing is for the politicians to get together and think seriously about how we are going to solve these problems," Clark told a session at the N.C. Conference on Aging in Greenville on Tuesday.

"I would like to address Social Security and get it off the table, so we can move forward and address Medicare."

Hikes in Wyoming

After childhood and college years in small-town Mississippi, Clark chose Duke for graduate studies and has made his home in North Carolina ever since. Colleagues say he's private, serious-minded and famously efficient. But he has outside interests such as fine Scotch and, Wolfpack ties notwithstanding, the Duke Blue Devils basketball team.

"I enjoy hiking," he said at his office. "I have a house in Wyoming at the base of the Tetons. You can go up one canyon and across to another canyon. That's a spectacular day."

Even while spotting deer, elk and moose on his treks, Clark may use part of the day to mentally sort through problems in economics.

"The university is my life," he said. "I get here at 6:30 in the morning and stay pretty late."

Through alliances in academia, government and businesses, Clark has built a reputation for laying out information and choices instead of dogma.

"I tend not to say too outrageous things," he said.

Art Padilla, who heads NCSU's management, innovation and entrepreneurship department, said Clark's lack of partisanship stems from meticulous research, not excess caution.

"That's what good, careful scholars with international reputations tend to do," he said.

Social Security options

The N.C. Conference on Aging, organized by the UNC Institute on Aging, attracts a diverse group, from college students to social-work professionals and retirees. All appeared rapt as Clark laid out the choices ahead for individuals and for society. The one-time chairman of a national technical panel on Social Security's financial obligations said the program's future options are plain.

"You either raise taxes or you cut benefits," Clark said. "There are lots of ways to do both."

The comment is classic Clark, colleagues say, going behind heated talk to uncover the details of economic policies that closely affect people's lives.

"He is all substance and very little fluff," Padilla said. "He does everything with a lot of grace and a lot of timeliness."

Clark said he's troubled that both sides in this political season have seemed to play fast and loose with the facts in his areas of expertise.