As life expectancy increases and the retirement income system contracts, households face an enormous challenge in ensuring a secure retirement. Working longer is often hailed as the best way to increase retirement incomes. But some suggest that more work by older persons reduces the job...

The stock market hovers around pre-crisis peaks, tax revenues have rebounded, and plan sponsors have raised employee contributions for all workers and/ or reduced benefits for new workers, yet the funded status of state and local pension plans have once again slipped. This result reflects slow...

The brief’s key findings are: Older people have lower labor force participation rates than younger adults, so aging baby boomers are pushing down overall participation. This aging effect accounts for more than 40 percent of the decline since the onset of the Great Recession. An aging...

Financial planners devote considerable energy to advising Americans how to invest their retirement savings. Of course, wise investment of one’s hard-earned money is important. But the fact is that many Americans have saved very little – the typical house-hold approaching retirement has less...

The brief’s key findings are: The brief’s key findings are: *Since the financial crisis, 17 states have reduced, suspended, or eliminated cost-of-living-adjustments (COLAs) for public employee pensions. *This response was surprising as current employees and retirees tend to be legally...

Public sector defined benefit pension plans are based on final earnings, so those with long careers receive substantial benefits and those who leave early receive little. This pattern of back-loading could reflect an optimal design whereby plan sponsors want to attract and retain workers who...

The brief’s key findings are: *Private sector multiemployer pension plans, which are negotiated by a union with a group of employers, have become a focus of congressional interest. *Multiemployer plans have been hurt by an expansion of benefits during the 1990s and the twin financial crises...

The 2013 Trustees Report – unlike last year – contains no surprises. Last year’s report showed a big jump in the program’s 75-year deficit in the wake of the slow recovery from the recession and rising disability rolls. This year’s report shows essentially no change in the deficit –...

One issue that comes up in discussions of compensation of state/local workers is their job security relative to that of workers in the private sector. Several questions arise in this regard. How much more secure are public sector jobs? Has their relative security declined in the Great Recession?...

Pension discussions in the last few years have focused primarily on the financial health of state/local plans or on the shift from defined benefit to 401(k) plans in the private sector. Often forgotten is that while coverage at the state/local level is virtually universal, only 42 percent of...