401(k) plans – the main retirement savings vehicle for millions of workers – allow participants to save on a tax-deferred basis. This tax incentive is more valu­able to workers in high-income families than work­ers in low-income families because they face higher marginal income tax rates....

The choice of retirement age is the most important portfolio choice most workers will make. Drawing on the Urban Institute's Dynamic Simulation of Income model (DYNASIM3), this report examines how delaying retirement for nondisabled workers would affect individual retiree benefits, the solvency...

The long-term shift in coverage from defined benefit (DB) pensions to defined contribution (DC) plans may accelerate rapidly as more large companies freeze their DB pensions and replace them with new or enhanced DC plans. This paper uses the Model of Income in the Near Term to simulate the...

This paper simulates the impact of the 2008 stock market crash on future retirement savings under alternative scenarios. If stocks remain depressed as after the 1974 crash, 20 percent of pre-boomers born 1941-45 and 22 percent of late boomers born 1961-65 would see their retirement incomes drop...

Some Social Security reforms would provide guarantees that individuals would not receive less under a reformed system than would be provided by current law. However, the “current law” benefit formula increases benefits when wages rise. Any reform successfully adding to economic growth,...

The choice of retirement age is the most important portfolio choice most workers will make. Drawing on the Urban Institute's Dynamic Simulation of Income model (DYNASIM3), this report examines how delaying retirement for nondisabled workers would affect individual retiree benefits, the solvency...

Income tax provisions affect the buildup of retirement assets during workers’ careers and after-tax income following retirement. This paper uses the Urban Institute’s DYNASIM model to simulate how potential changes in the tax treatment of retirement saving, Social Security benefits, and...

This article analyses the extent to which the EU acts cohesively and effectively within the UN General Assembly Third Committee and the Commission on Human Rights. There is considerable evidence of increasing EU 'output' at the UN since the early 1990s, but there are serious limits to EU unity...