Compared with prime-age workers, older workers face an easier path out of the labor force if they lose their jobs during a recession. However, premature job exits or earnings losses in the years leading up to retirement may be particularly devastating to retirement savings. The authors analyze...

The ability to retire at an age and in a manner of one's choosing depends on one's ability to retain or find employment at older ages, which depends in turn on local labor market conditions. We investigate how local labor markets affect retirement transitions. We match households from the Health...

Researchers have devoted considerable attention to analyzing the impact of Social Security on retirement, with mixed findings. However, Old Age Assistance (OAA), a means-tested program established at the same time, dwarfed Social Security until the 1950s and coincided with the early decline in...

This paper investigates the impact on labor supply of changes in the Social Security earnings test in 1996 and 2000. We highlight how the persistence of labor supply choices influences both responses to policy changes and the estimation of such responses. We do this in two ways. First, we use...