“Can you have a good life if you don’t have a good job?” That was the provocative headline on a Sunday Review piece in Sunday’s New York Times by author Michael Lind.

We’re in the midst of another presidential election cycle in which candidates are vowing to take steps to ensure the growth of good-paying jobs, presumed to often come with generous employee benefits. Policy thinkers on both sides of the partisan divide, however, have a decidedly different view of things. Their take is not nearly as rosy, which means it’s probably considerably more grounded in reality than campaign platitudes politicians are peddling to voters.

Lind says there is bipartisan understanding among many policy types that broad access to the kinds of stable, benefit-rich jobs that dominated the economy in the 1950s and 1960s is not about to return to the 21st century economy. With more and more people employed in the lower-paid service sector, and many patching together income through the new “gig” economy, Lind says we need to figure out ways to ensure a basic quality of life for workers that don’t necessarily depend on a quality job.

The dirty secret, Lind says, is that our policymaking has already begun to recognize this.

“For several decades, this consensus has been reflected in what legislators have actually been doing,” writes Lind. “Slowly, incrementally, Americans have been moving away from a system in which a good job with a generous employer was the key to having a good life to a new system in which even people with low-wage jobs can have access to the basic goods and services that define a decent life in a modern society.”

He points to the Earned Income Tax Credit and the Affordable Care Act as two examples. He says private “social spending” combined with public expenditures now total 20.8 percent of US GDP, only slightly less than the figure for the 21 European Union members.

Lind’s piece dovetailed with a Sunday Globe editorial on the dire state of retirement planning in the country, where almost half of all working-age families have no retirement savings. The steep dropoff in defined-benefit pensions has combined with increased life expectancy to create a yawning gap in financial security for older Americans. It’s a looming crisis that the country ignores at its peril.

With Congress all but useless for solving big problems these days, the editorial says addressing the retirement savings crisis has increasingly fallen to the states.

The Globe points to California as an example of a state taking steps that Washington won’t. Earlier this year, California approved a plan that will automatically enroll nearly 7 million workers without retirement coverage into individual retirement accounts. The move will apply to all employees at firms with five or more workers. Employees can opt-out if they choose, but the burden is on them to declare they don’t want to be part of the nest-egg building. The editorial says seven other states have begun similar efforts.

“Unless you automatically enroll people in it, nothing is going to happen,” Alicia Munnell, of Boston College’s Center for Retirement Research, tells the Globe. The idea of pushing people into decisions which they have to take action to reverse — sometimes branded the “new paternalism” — has been popularized by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein, authors of  Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness.

While defined-benefit pensions have been disappearing fast, even the defined-contribution 401(k) plans that have taken their place are not universally available. More than 55 million Americans lack access to any work-based retirement plan. In Massachusetts, that applies to 1.5 million workers, or about half the state’s private sector workforce.

Efforts on Beacon Hill to get a state-sponsored retirement plan for private sector workers have failed to gain traction. Secretary of State Bill Galvin, who has offered one proposal, warns that it “isn’t simply a nice thing to do or a good thing to do — it’s a necessary thing to do.” He points out that those without the means to support themselves in retirement will become a burden on public budgets.

Lind includes Massachusetts among the handful of states that have launched state-run retirement plans, but this appears to be a reference to a narrowly-defined program only available to non-profit organizations with fewer than 20 employees. The Globe editorial urges state leaders to take action to make that an option for many more.

–MICHAEL JONAS

BEACON HILL

Hillary Chabot says Beacon Hill Democrats are giving the state’s popular governor a pass on patronage hiring, the very thing Republicans have torn into Democrats on for years. (Boston Herald)

Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito said over the weekend that the former Worcester State Hospital will be redeveloped into biomanufacturing space. (Masslive)

Gov. Charlie Baker, once a skeptic on climate change, on Friday signed an order requiring the state to mitigate and to prepare for rising greenhouse gas emissions. (CommonWealth).

Actor Mark Wahlberg gives up his bid for a pardon for assaults he committed 28 years ago, saying he was pushed into seeking the pardon and doesn’t want to relive the whole issue. (Masslive)

MUNICIPAL MATTERS

Neighborhood mitigation payments are a time-honored way for developers to grease the skids and avoid opposition to Boston building projects, but the practice sometimes looks more like a shady pay-to-play operation, the Sunday Globe reports. Adrian Walker says civic groups should not be able to accept payments from developers looking for their support. (Boston Globe)

Worcester police made more than 100 arrests last week in the Main South neighborhood. (Masslive)

The Stoughton firefighters’ union says the department is “dangerously understaffed,” with the town having to increasingly rely on mutual aid for ambulance calls that add minutes to emergency responses. (The Enterprise)

WASHINGTON/NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL

New York City police name a person of interest in the Chelsea pressure cooker bombing, as incidents in New Jersey and Minnesota create unease. (Washington Post) Five people were taken into custody by the FBI for questioning. (New York Times) Gov. Andrew Cuomo said this morning that the bombing appears to be an act of terrorism with foreign connections. (Associated Press)

A Washington Post editorial comes out against a pardon for Edward Snowden, who leaked secret intelligence information on US spying to a series of news outlets, including the Post.

ELECTIONS

Pundits start handicapping next week’s first presidential debate. (Boston Herald) Democrats, including President Obama, are dialing up their support for Hillary Clinton in the face of her falling poll numbers. (Boston Globe)

Ohio Gov. John Kasich rules out voting for Hillary Clinton, but says he is also no closer to voting for Donald Trump. (Politico)

New Hampshire voters tend to lean Democratic in presidential election years and Republican in midterm elections, which could mean trouble for first-term Republican US Sen. Kelly Ayotte, who is facing a strong challenge from Gov. Maggie Hassan. (Boston Globe)

Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito played loose with the facts last week when she said state aid to cities and towns could go down if the marijuana legalization ballot question passes because the measure won’t bring in enough revenue to offset regulatory costs. (CommonWealth)

The tax on marijuana proposed in the November ballot question legalizing pot is significantly lower than in other states, a level the proponents say is necessary to cut off the black market but which others say won’t bring in enough revenue to fund the regulatory costs of legalization. (Boston Herald)

No surprise here. Lawrence Mayor Dan Rivera said over the weekend he plans to run for reelection. (Eagle-Tribune)

While supporters of a ballot question to ban inhumane confinement of farm animals have more than $1 million at their disposal, the handful of opponents of the measure have yet to even register a campaign committee with the state. (Politico)

BUSINESS/ECONOMY

Lots of undocumented immigrant workers are getting exploited in the regional building boom. (Boston Globe)

Don Chiofaro says he’s willing to dramatically scale back the size of a new tower on the site of the Harbor Garage on Boston’s waterfront. (Boston Globe)

EDUCATION

A Herald editorial says Jim Peyser, the state education secretary, was only delivering some uncomfortable truths last week in an address at UMass Boston that drew boos when he said public universities can’t continue to keep “marginal programs on life support” and try to be all things to all people.

The Salem State graduation rate tops 50 percent for the first time. (Gloucester Times)

HEALTH/HEALTH CARE

Preliminary results of a state audit show $23 million of overbilling of the state Medicaid program by home health care firms. (Boston Globe)

Drugmakers have adopted a national strategy of employing hundreds of lobbyists and spending millions of dollars to fight legislative restrictions on painkillers even as an opioid crisis rages. (Associated Press)

TRANSPORTATION

Former state transportation secretary James Aloisi and MBTA Chief Operating Officer Jeff Gonneville argued over the weekend about the cost of shutting down the T at night. First, Aloisi estimated the cost at $2.7 million to $3.8 million a year. Gonneville responded that the cost is $500,000. Then Aloisi stood by his estimate. (CommonWealth)

Registrar Erin Devaney said only 63 percent of would-be drivers pass the driving road test the first time out. (Keller@Large)

Applus Technologies has won a five-year $29 million contract to provide emission testing for the state’s automobile inspection system even though the company’s technology proved inaccurate when it was first used in Massachusetts more than a decade ago. (Boston Globe)

A Berkshire Eagle editorial urges state officials to give western Massachusetts users of the Turnpike a break on EZPass tolls just as some Boston residents pay less.

Environmental advocate Frederick Hewett backs replacing the gas tax with vehicle-miles-traveled and carbon fees. (WBUR)

ENERGY/ENVIRONMENT

Former state energy/environment official David Cash says Massachusetts is on the verge of a clean energy transformation. All it needs to finish the job is a carbon fee or an expansion of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. (CommonWealth)

CRIMINAL JUSTICE/COURTS

Residents gathered to mourn a triple shooting over the weekend in Dorchester that left one man dead and two wounded. (Boston Globe)

The Supreme Court is set to hear a case on racial bias among jurors. (New York Times)

MEDIA

The presence of old US media hands on Russia Today, the government-owned media arm, is raising eyebrows as the network looks to get a foothold in this country. (New York Times)