This paper describes how public employee pensions currently measure their financial health; discusses the consensus among economists that current accounting rules significantly understate pension liabilities and overstate pension funding levels; and describes how pension financing would appear...

This year, Social Security benefits received no Cost- of-Living Adjustment (COLA) for the first time since automatic adjustments were adopted in 1975. While current beneficiaries perceive themselves to be harmed, they were compensated by receiving a higher-than-normal 5.8-percent COLA payment in...

Due to falling prices, Social Security will make no cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) to retirement benefits in 2010. Retirees, who feel their benefits are too low and believe the prices they pay are rising, are up in arms. Newspaper headlines announce, "Millions face shrinking Social Security...

This year, one in four new retirees will discover that their largest retirement income source falls 28 percent or more below their expectations. But that asset is not a recession-battered 401(k) account. It is Social Security. To understand why, answer quickly: How much do you think your Social...

Although the Social Security program is progressive - meaning that the replacement rate of preretirement earnings offered by Social Security tends to rise as lifetime earnings decline - this relationship is erratic. While individuals with lower lifetime earnings receive better treatment on...

As a group, retirees are more financially insulated from the economic effects of the COVID-19 pandemic than are most other demographic groups in the United States. Yet due to how the Social Security benefit formula interacts with the sharp economic downturn due to the Coronavirus, some groups of...

Most seniors view the Social Security earnings test as a quot;taxquot; that reduces their Social Security benefits by fifty cents for each dollar they earn above a modest limit. In fact, the earnings test is not a tax at all: at a person's full retirement age, Social Security increases benefits...

More than half of U.S. states are working to establish programs what would automatically enrollment in Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs) workers who are not offered a retirement plan by their employer. These programs are designed to address a perceived shortfall of retirement saving,...

Financial advisors commonly use earnings replacement rates to assist workers in their retirement planning. Policymakers and analysts use them to gauge the adequacy of Social Security benefits and other retirement income in allowing retirees to maintain preretirement living standards. In recent...

This report uses two new data sources to provide insights on the evolution of retirement savings over the past three decades and how future retirees may fare. First, the Federal Reserve's Survey of Consumer Finances and Distributional Financial Accounts (DFA) provide estimates of both household...