The President's Commission to Strengthen Social Security proposed three plans for reforming Social Security. All of them would create individual accounts financed by diverting funds from the Social Security Trust Fund. One of the three Commission proposals (Model 1) would not restore long-term...

This paper analyzes the effects of a large randomized field experiment carried out with H&R Block, offering matching incentives for IRA contributions at the time of tax preparation. About 14,000 H&R Block clients, across 60 offices in predominantly low- and middle-income neighborhoods in St....

All of the provisions of the landmark tax cuts enacted in 2001 and 2003 are scheduled to expire by the end of 2010. This paper analyzes the economic effects of making the tax cuts permanent. We describe the recent tax cuts and the proposals to make them permanent, and explore the consequences of...

This paper analyzes the effects of a large randomized field experiment carried out with H&R Block, offering matching incentives for IRA contributions at the time of tax preparation. About 14,000 H&R Block clients, across 60 offices in predominantly low and middle-income neighbourhoods in St....

We analyze a randomized experiment in which 14,000 tax filers in H&R Block offices in St. Louis received matches of zero, 20 percent, or 50 percent of IRA contributions. Take-up rates were 3 percent, 8 percent, and 14 percent, respectively. Among contributors, contributions, excluding the match,...

Transforming Social Security's delayed retirement credit into a lump-sum payment rather than an increased monthly payment would likely encourage more workers to defer retirement and benefit claiming. The idea is thus worthy of further exploration. Several important design issues, however, must...

When the poor succeed in building up a few assets, they often find themselves disqualified from badly needed government programs. Confusing rules about IRAs and 401(k)s plus conflicting state regulations make retirement saving particularly challenging.