This paper examines the role of 40 1(k) plans in retirement saving by U.S. households. It charts the rapid growth of these plans during the 1980s; more than 15 million workers now participate in 401(k)s. Data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation are used to calculate 401(k)...

In 1996 a political trade-off in the New Jersey legislature led to a six-month program that provided up to 13 additional weeks of exhausted their regular benefit entitlement. We use this unique episode to provide new evidence on the effect of changes in the duration of unemployment insurance...

Personal retirement accounts are becoming an increasingly important form of retirement saving. Using data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation, the paper considers the effect of this change on the assets of recent retirees and persons who are approaching retirement. Much of the...

Standard models suggest that adverse labor demand shocks will lead to bigger employment losses if institutional factors like minimum wages and trade unions prevent downward wage adjustments. Some economists have argued that this insight explains the contrast between the United States, where real...

Although the college-high school wage gap for younger men has doubled over the past 30 years, the gap for older men has remained nearly constant. We argue that these shifts reflect changes in the relative supply of highly-educated workers across age groups. Cohorts born in the first half of the...

The Self-Sufficiency Project (SSP) is a large scale social experiment being conducted in Canada to evaluate the effects of an earnings supplement (or subsidy) for long-term welfare recipients who find a full-time job and leave income assistance. The supplement is available to single parents who...

Tax-deferred savings are potentially an important component of savings for retirement and could represent a very substantial increase in tax-free savings for many employees. IRAs may also have a substantial effect on national savings. Total IRA contributionsin 1982 were over 29 billion dollars....

Distingiishing "spot" versus "contract" views of the labor market is of critical importance to a host of economic issues ranging from wage flexibility over the business cycle to firm financial valuation. The structural features of U.S. private pension plans permit surprisingly strong inferences...