The primary concern of Congress in enacting the Railroad Retirement and Survivor’s Improvement Act of 2001 was the risk of political influence on investment decisions. A secondary concern was the financial performance of the redesigned program. The experience to date supports the notion that...

The experience of the reformed Railroad Retirement program has lessons for initiatives that would invest Social Security assets in equities: * To address the risk in equity investment, Congress would likely require an automatic adjustment mechanism to keep the program “on track.” * The...

The United Kingdom is rolling out a broad retirement savings initiative with an objective similar to Presi­dent Obama’s recently announced “myRA” program. Both aim to encourage retirement saving among workers who do not currently participate in employer plans, typically those with average...

The stock market crash of 2008 significantly dimmed the retirement prospects of workers approaching retirement. These workers are heavily dependent on 401(k) plans, as opposed to traditional defined benefit pensions, as a source of retirement income. During the economic downturn, these plans...

A key challenge many households entering retire-ment face is how to use their savings as a source of income. As 401(k)s replace traditional defined benefit pensions and as Social Security replaces a smaller share of household pre-retirement earnings, draw-ing an income from savings becomes...

Investing Social Security Trust Fund assets in equi­ties has long been a controversial proposal. Equities have higher expected returns than government bonds, which are the only asset the Trust Fund currently holds. So investing a portion of these assets in stocks could reduce the program’s...

Defined contribution plans are now the nation’s primary private retirement income program and repository of retirement savings. About two thirds of the assets held in such plans are invested in equities, as is the case in the defined benefit plans they largely replaced. Equities can...

Employers have long had a significant impact on workers’ retirement prospects. Aside from Social Security, employer retirement income plans are the most important source of income for the great majority of retirees. How long workers can stay employed also largely depends on employer hiring and...

When to claim Social Security is one of the most important decisions Americans face when approaching retirement. Recently, several unconventional claiming strategies have come to light ('Free Loan,' 'Claim and Suspend,' and 'Claim Now, Claim More Later') that have the potential to pay higher...

Most married men claim Social Security benefits at age 62 or 63, well short of the age that maximizes the expected present value of the average household’s benefits. That many married men “leave money on the table” is surprising. It is also problematic. It results in much lower benefits...