In 2019, few could have predicted that state and local pension funds would be faced with a pandemic that would slash state and local tax revenues and harm investment returns. Nevertheless, fund managers should have spent the past decade preparing for an inevitable market downturn. Instead, just...

This paper first describes how public employee pensions currently measure their financial health; then describes the strong consensus from economists that current accounting rules significantly understate pension liabilities and overstate pension funding levels; and finally, describes how...

In this Outlook, I use a detailed microsimulation model of the population to estimate the effects of increasing the Social Security Earliest Eligibility Age (EEA) from sixty-two to sixty-five on Social Security's finances, retirement income, and the economy. Increasing the EEA would extend the...