To assess the distributional effects of social security reform proposals, it is essential to have good information on real-world workers’ lifetime earnings trajectories. Until recently, however, policymakers have relied on hypothetical earnings profiles for policy analysis. We use actual...

The past few decades have witnessed a global move towards private provision for retirement through individual defined contribution pensions at the expense of publicly provided and employer-sponsored defined benefit pensions. As a consequence, workers and retirees are becoming increasingly...

This paper evaluates potential responses to reductions in early Social Security retirement benefits. Using the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) linked to administrative records, we find that Social Security coverage is quite uneven in the older population: one-quarter of respondents in their...

This paper explores how earnings variability is related to retirement wealth. Past research has demonstrated that the average American household on the verge of retirement would need to save substantially more, in order to preserve consumption flows in old age. While several socioeconomic...