The employment of older workers into their mid-60s will be critical to their ability to ensure a secure retirement. One of the risks threatening the ability to work to older ages is being “displaced,” with displacement defined as the elimination of the worker’s job due to a shift in the...

This paper estimates how much people actually receive in retirement relative to earnings before retirement when all sources of income, including income generated by homeownership, are combined. Previous studies find that middle class people need between 70 and 75 percent of their pre-retirement...

The authors explore whether equities could help solve the woes facing the U.S. retirement system in general, and the Social Security shortfall in particular.

The share of workers who participate in employer-sponsored tax-deferred plans has been growing, but is still only a minority of workers. Most workers do not contribute the maximum amount allowed by law to employer-sponsored plans. Maximum contributors are more prevalent among high-income...

We investigate whether heterogeneity can explain the differences in mortality between the United States and a more homogeneous country, i.e. Japan. The background of the analysis is the growing gap between life-expectancy in the United States and the world record leader since the 1980s. This...

This paper investigates two methods for improving participants’ asset allocations in their 401(k) plans: personalized online advice and managed account services. This paper uses a unique new dataset of individual-level administrative data from one 401(k) plan and recommendation data from an...

Because most workers receive health benefits from their employers, retirement often disrupts health insurance coverage. Some employers offer health insurance to retirees, but many firms are cutting retiree health benefits by passing more costs to retirees or eliminating benefits altogether. Few...

In recent years, many countries with mandatory defined benefit pay-as-you-go (“PAYG”) systems have modified their systems to include individual accounts for financing retirement pensions. In most of these countries, a portion of the mandatory pension system’s contribution rate has been...

A considerable literature examines the optimal decumulation of financial wealth in retirement. We extend this line of research to incorporate housing, which comprises the majority of most households’ non-pension wealth. We use VARs to estimate the relationship between the returns on housing,...

Opt-out pensions pose many difficult design and implementation issues. The U.K. experience suggests several valuable lessons for U.S. policymakers. First, complex interactions between public and opt-out pensions may create confusion among workers, leading to both discontent and demands for...