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...

The 2020 Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES) awarded $200 billion in federal aid to the states to support spending for core areas including general relief, education, and mass transit. As revenue pressures mount in the coming months Congress may provide further aid to...

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...

In this study, we consider the case of New Jersey, which operates five defined benefit pension plans for state employees. The New Jersey Senate unanimously passed legislation in February 2010 that would put a question on the November ballot to constitutionally require the state to begin to make...

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...