Commentators constantly cite an increase in labor mobility as a major reason for the shift in the private sector from defined benefit to defined contribution plans. But while most casual observers accept such a phenomenon, economists have been hard pressed to find any significant change over...

Employer defined benefit pension plans have long been an important component of the U.S. retirement system. Although these plans are disappearing in the private sector – replaced by 401(k)s – they remain the prevalent retirement plan arrangement in the public sector. But these public sector...

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...

Accessing home equity will become increasingly important in a world where retirement needs are expanding – people are living longer and face rapidly rising health care costs – and the retirement system is contracting – Social Security replacement rates are declining and employer-provided...

The conventional wisdom says that older workers are less likely to be displaced than younger workers. While true in the past, the conventional wisdom is no longer true today; the advantage that older workers had has disappeared. This loss of relative job security is troubling. Once displaced,...

With the economy sliding ever deeper into recession, questions arise about how older workers are faring and how their fate relative to younger workers compares to the past. The answer to these questions turns out to be a little complicated. Two forces are at work. On the one hand, labor force...

With a contracting retirement income system and increased life expectancy, working longer has emerged as perhaps the most effective lever for improving retirement income security. More work at older ages should be entirely feasible for the bulk of the population, given that today’s workers are...

Today men on average retire at 63 and women at 62, and they can expect to spend 20 years in retirement. But if Americans continue to retire as early as they do today, many will not have adequate income once they stop working. Social Security will provide less relative to pre-retirement earnings...

Today, the average retirement age is 63. If people continue to retire at 63, they are going to face a severe decline in living standards at retirement for a number of reasons. First, at any given retirement age, Social Security benefits will replace less of pre-retirement earnings as the Normal...

In July and August 2009, the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College (CRR) conducted a survey to gauge three things: 1) how people were responding to the loss of their retirement assets due to the financial crisis; 2) who was responding by increasing their expected working life; and 3)...