March 1, 2022

When workers develop disabilities on the job, it often has some connection to where they live.

Musculoskeletal conditions like arthritis and tendinitis can happen anywhere but are especially prevalent in a swath surrounding the Kentucky-West Virginia border and running south to Alabama. Intellectual disabilities and mood disorders like autism and depression are common in Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island.

The hot spots, described in new research, represent areas that fall in the top 10 percent of all the areas with awards for the specific condition in many of the years studied, 2005 through 2018.

New Hampshire is a dramatic example: all 10 designated areas of the state were identified as hot spots for awards based on mental disorders in all 14 years.

In addition to mental and musculoskeletal conditions, the researchers from Mathematica found a third major hot spot for circulatory and respiratory disorders like heart disease and asthma. These disorders are prevalent in an area that starts in Indiana and Illinois and flows down the Mississippi River to Mississippi.

The explanations for the hot spots are myriad and complex. Musculoskeletal disabilities constitute the largest single type of benefit award – a third of the U.S. total – and hot spots in the Southeast, where coal mining, agriculture and manufacturing are dominant, tend to have older, less educated populations and more veterans. …Learn More

August 26, 2021

Retirement experts encourage baby boomers to hang on to their jobs as long as possible to boost their monthly Social Security checks and add to their retirement savings. If they can delay retirement to age 70, they have good odds of maintaining their standard of living.

That isn’t always possible, however, for the baby boomers confronting disabling physical impairments or health problems. Add to that the generally declining health of the older population over the past 20 years.

But a new study has revealed a deep socioeconomic divide. More-educated older workers are actually able to work longer than they did 15 years ago, while less-educated older workers – and Black men in particular – are mostly losing ground.

To estimate the changes in working life expectancy for various groups of older workers, Laura Quinby and Gal Wettstein at the Center for Retirement Research considered three factors: life expectancy overall, how long the workers can expect to remain free of a disability, and the rates of institutionalization in prisons and long-term care facilities. The incarceration rate is relevant, because the young adult men who received the longer prison sentences that started being imposed a couple of decades ago are now in their 50s and 60s.

Between 2006 and 2018, working life expectancy increased by about one year for older Black and white workers in the top half of the educational ranking. This makes sense because more educated people tend to be healthier and have seen stronger gains in their longevity.

But working life expectancy declined in the bottom half of the educational ranking for Black men and for white men and women. The exception is less-educated Black women – they have seen a small increase in working life expectancy, along with a more substantial increase in longevity.

The researchers also estimated the share of each group who, at age 62, could feasibly work until age 67, which would lock in their full retirement age benefit every month from Social Security, and until 70, which would provide them with their maximum monthly benefit.

A comparison of two extremes – more-educated white men and less-educated Black men – dramatizes the divide. …Learn More

October 10, 2019

The decline in U.S. life expectancy is unlike anything we’ve seen  

Bombshell headlines like this popped up in major news outlets last November after the government reported that life expectancy in 2017 fell for the third year in a row.

This is a troubling break from the steady improvements in lifespans since 1900, which were powered by a combination of medical breakthroughs and healthcare policy. Early in the 20^th century, antibiotics dramatically increased infant lifespans. Later, new treatments like statins and stents, as well as expanded access to healthcare through Medicare and Medicaid, increased life expectancy across the age range.

But there’s another story behind this story: life expectancy very much depends on where one falls on the economic ladder.

Between 1979 and 2011 – prior to the very recent fall in longevity – the increase in lifespans was much larger for more educated, higher-earning Americans than the gains for people with less education and lower incomes, according to a study by the Center for Retirement Research (CRR).

Smoking is an important factor in this socioeconomic divide. The decline in smoking and cardiovascular disease greatly contributed to rising longevity in the latter half of the 20^th century. But while all Americans are smoking less today, those in lower socioeconomic groups still smoke much more. Today, one in four of them is a smoker, compared with just one smoker for every 10 people who attended college, the CRR found.

Looking ahead, education will remain a clear dividing line, and life expectancy will continue to depend crucially on the future prevalence and impact of smoking, as well as obesity, CRR predicted. …Learn More

Research

July 16, 2019

Topics for this year’s Retirement and Disability Research Consortium meeting include the opioid crisis, retirement wealth inequality over several decades, trends in Social Security’s disability program, and the impacts of payday loans, college debt, and mortgages on household finances.

Researchers from around the country will present their findings at the annual meeting in Washington, D.C. Anyone with an interest in retirement and disability policy is welcome. Registration will be open through Monday, July 29. For those unable to attend, the event will be live-streamed. The agenda lists all of the studies.

Here are a few:

• Why are 401(k)/IRA Balances Substantially Below Potential?
• The Impacts of Payday Loan Use on the Financial Well-being of OASDI and SSI Beneficiaries
• The Causes and Consequences of State Variation in Healthcare Spending for Individuals with Disabilities
• Forecasting Survival by Socioeconomic Status and Implications for Social Security Benefits
• What is the Extent of Opioid Use among Disability Applicants? …

Learn More