The National Retirement Risk Index (NRRI) measures the share of working-age households who are “at risk” of being unable to maintain their pre-retirement standard of living in retirement. The Index is calculated by comparing households’ projected replacement rates – retirement income as...

Social Security was designed to replace income once people could no longer work. In the 1930s, the retirement age was set at 65, which coincided with the age used by many private and public pension plans. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Congress changed the law to enable workers to claim...

Americans’ retirement security increasingly depends on how much they save during their working years. One impediment to making good saving decisions may be a lack of knowledge on how saving translates into income in retirement. To address this issue, the U.S. Congress has considered whether to...

The prospect of paying for nursing home care represents a significant financial risk for older Americans. Despite this risk, few individuals buy long-term care insurance and, since many lack the resources to pay out of pocket, they often turn to the means-tested Medicaid program. Concerned about...

Most of the attention in the wake of the financial crisis and ensuing recession has focused on state-administered pension plans. But cities often administer their own plans, and stories circulate about the perils facing Chicago, Philadelphia, Providence, and others. To assess the status of...

This 2012 update on the funded status of state/local pensions will be one of the last two based on the Governmental Accounting Standards Board’s(GASB) old provisions, under which assets are reported on an actuarially smoothed basis, the discount rate is the long-run expected rate of return,...

When job opportunities decline due to a weak economy, application rates for Social Security Disability Insurance (DI) typically rise. At the same time, prior research has found that allowance rates – the percent of applicants who are awarded benefits – tend to fall, perhaps because more of...

Stories in the popular press suggest – particularly in the wake of the bankruptcy of Detroit – that pensions are the major expense of American cities and will lead to their widespread collapse.1 Thus, it is important to know the burden of pensions on cities. This burden can be measured in...

As 401(k) plans have largely replaced traditional pensions, baby boomers have become the first generation that must decide how much of their savings to spend each year in retirement. Boomers must find a strategy that best balances the risk of outliving their wealth against the cost of...

The option to claim Social Security benefits earlier than the program’s Full Retirement Age, in exchange for receiving an actuarially reduced benefit, is a key feature of the nation’s Social Security program. This principle remained in place when Congress increased the Full Retirement Age...