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A common refrain among retirement researchers is that longer careers are the best way to ensure an adequate retirement.  This refrain is often directed at the workers themselves – “you need to work longer!”  And that message seems to have been getting through.  Since the 1990s, the labor force participation rates of older individuals hav…

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The release of the Federal Reserve’s 2022 Survey of Consumer Finances offers an opportunity to reassess Americans’ retirement preparedness as measured by the National Retirement Risk Index (NRRI).  The NRRI estimates the share of American households that are at risk of being unable to maintain their pre-retirement standard of living in retirement…

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The conventional wisdom for older workers heading into retirement is that owning a house is a good thing. The property...

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New experiment finds progress more elusive than expected. Our recent study about debt holdings of older Americans focused our attention...

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Social Security helps Black individuals and those with low educational attainment – and therefore low earnings – through its progressive benefit structure.  On the other hand, the nature of Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) as a life annuity inherently increases expected lifetime benefits for individuals who tend to live longer.  Regardless of how these factors…

Since fiscal year 2019, financial markets have been jostled by a series of unusual events: 1) the onset of COVID; 2) the subsequent COVID stimulus; 3) declining interest rates; 4) rising inflation; and then 5) rising interest rates.  Despite the volatility of asset values over this period, the 2023 funded status of state and loca…

The headlines from the 2023 Medicare Trustees Re­port were that the Hospital Insurance (HI) program faces a long-term deficit and will deplete its trust fund reserves in 2031 and that the rest of the Medicare program will require increasing amounts of general revenues. While true, the outlook for program costs is considerably more favorable than…

CRR IN THE NEWS

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Eight states have automatically enrolled hundreds of thousands of workers in retirement savings accounts, all but compelling them to deduct money from their paychecks to spend in their golden years.

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THE ATLANTIC

IBM’s new pension program may not change the game for workers. But it raises big questions about what companies owe their employees, and how existing retirement structures could better serve them.