As their populations grow older, the industrial countries face steep increases in public pension costs. If countries change their pension systems in advance of sharply higher pension costs, it is possible to prepare for the added retirement costs by funding a portion of the future liabilities...

This paper uses data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) to explore the extent and causes of widening differences in life expectancy by socioeconomic status (SES) for older persons. We construct alternative measures of SES using educational attainment and average (career) earnings in the...

All observers agree that Social Security reform is needed restore the program's solvency. This paper examines the impact of alternative reforms on Social Security finances, on the wider U.S. economy, and on workers who contribute to and receive benefits from the program. In one reform we...

This paper examines the importance of annuity-like income as a share of total money income received by aged families. The analysis considers the aged (62) population as a whole as well as different parts of the aged families' income distribution during the period from the early 1980s through...

Recessions affect the timing of retirement through two channels, a weaker job market and losses in household wealth. The two phenomena have opposite effects. A weaker economy causes employers to increase permanent job separations and reduce new hires, accelerating retirements that would...

One way to assess the effectiveness of a nation's pension system is to measure its success in bringing the incomes of the aged close to those enjoyed by the nonaged. The comparability of income estimates for the aged and nonaged depends, however, on the relative accuracy of the income reports...

The Division of Policy Evaluation (DPE) at the Social Security Administration (SSA) is developing a model to evaluate the distributional effects of Social Security policy changes. The model is referred to as Modeling Income in the Near Term, or MINT, because the project sought to develop within...

The Great Recession had a large impact on unemployment rates and growth in wealthy industrial countries. When the recession began most rich countries were experiencing an increase in labor force participation rates after age 60. This paper examines whether the downturn slowed or reversed the...

This paper examines the trend in career earnings profiles and lifetime earnings inequality using a new data set that links micro-census information from a Census Bureau survey (the Survey of Income and Program Participation, or SIPP) with the summary earnings records (SER) maintained by the...

In December 2001 the President's Commission to Strengthen Social Security published a report describing plans to reform Social Security through the introduction of new, privately managed, defined-contribution pension accounts. The new accounts are to be financed by diverting a portion of payroll...