During the negotiations over raising the debt ceiling, President Obama proposed cutting the annual cost of living adjustment for Social Security by switching to an index that would show a lower measured rate of inflation. This alternative index, the chained consumer price index (CCPI-U), shows...

Millions of American workers are poorly compensated for the work they do. This is not because they do not work hard or deserve adequate compensation. Rather, it is due to a political failure to ensure that increases in economic growth and productivity over the last several decades have been...

There have been a number of proposals in policy circles that involve raising the Social Security retirement age. This is viewed as both a way to reduce or eliminate the projected shortfall in the program and also a response to projected increases in longevity. This paper examines the impact of...

There is enormous public confusion (much of it deliberately cultivated) about the extent of Social Security’s projected shortfall. Many policymakers and analysts point out that projections from the Congressional Budget Office and the Social Security Trustees show the program to be out of...

Many lawmakers, policymakers, and economic commentators do not appear to recognize the depth of the current labor-market recession. Between December 2007 – the official first month of the recession – and December 2009, the U.S. economy lost more than eight million jobs. Even if the economy...

Disability is both a fundamental cause and consequence of income poverty. The income-poverty rate for persons with disabilities is between two to three times the rate for persons without disabilities. Yet, contemporary policy debate and research about income poverty in the United States is...

Employment in physically demanding jobs or in jobs with difficult working conditions is a major cause of early labor-market exit among older workers. Raising the retirement age is particularly concerning for near-retirement age workers with such jobs. Despite the fact that the retirement age...

There has been a serious push in policy circles to cut Social Security benefits for near- and/or current retirees. The argument for such cuts has been based on the deficits in the federal budget; the finances of the Social Security program have been at most a secondary consideration. However,...

This report details how the dominant framework for understanding and measuring poverty in the United States has become a conservative one. The current U.S. approach to measuring poverty views poverty only in terms of having an extremely low level of annual income, and utilizes poverty thresholds...

Unlike a century ago, people expect their children to live past the age of retirement. This fact has important implications for how workers save for retirement, but has no specific implications for the retirement portion of Social Security. In addition, the increase in life expectancy is not...