How do low-income households think about saving? What motivations do they identify for saving, and what obstacles to meeting their goals? We use data from qualitative interviews with 51 households in Detroit to shed light on these questions. We find that they wish they could save - primarily for...

How do low-income households think about retirement? Do they think about retirement? If so, when do they think they will retire, and what is it they plan to live on? In this paper, we present evidence on these questions based on 51 qualitative interviews with low-income families in the Detroit...

We study the factors that affect the utilization of health care services administered by the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) and its racial differences. Due to data limitation, previous research in this regard mostly only focuses on veterans who are VA users or at least eligible for VA...

Are early Social Security claimers too sick to work? We linked Health and Retirement Study data to Medicare claims to study health care utilization at ages 65 and 70. We find that Social Security Disability Insurance recipients use more health care on average than those who never received DI. At...

This paper presents evidence of the dynamics of health insurance coverage between 2008 and 2014 among early retirees, defined as individuals ages 55 to 64 who are not in the labor force. We focus on three questions. First, how did insurance coverage change among early retirees in 2014, when the...

How do low-income households think about retirement? Do they think about retirement? If so, when do they think they will retire, and what is it they plan to live on? In this paper, we present evidence on these questions based on 51 qualitative interviews with low-income families in the Detroit...

I use data from the 2006 Health and Retirement Study to analyze the determinants of material hardship among individuals ages 65 and older. Ten percent of the elderly report hardship - defined here as cutting back on food or medications because of cost - in 2006. Although hardship is more likely...

We analyze newly available data from the Health and Retirement Study on senior citizens' take-up of Medicare Part D and the associated SSA Low-Income Subsidy. We find that economic factors - specifically, demand for prescription drugs - drove the decision to enroll in Part D. For the most part,...