A majority of women receive most of their Social Security benefits based upon their husbands' earnings history, but previous research has shown that husbands' benefit claiming is inconsistent with maximizing lifetime benefits for the couple. However, that research assumes husbands choose their...

The boom and bust of the housing market has been a prominent feature of the household financial landscape in recent years. The exact magnitude of the house price swings depends on whether you ask homeowners how much their houses are worth at two points in time or use the change in a...

Social Security wealth (SSW) is the present value of future benefits an individual will receive less the present value of future taxes they will pay. When an individual enters the labor force, they generally face a lifetime of taxes to pay before they will receive any benefits and, thus, their...

In this note, we first present trends in participation in employment-related retirement plans, and then provide analysis for one birth cohort, nearing retirement age, of the impact of Social Security on retirement wealth

The share of wealth owned by top wealth-holders in the U.S. has been rising over the past few decades, though there is some debate about exactly how concentrated wealth is, and how fast those top wealth shares are rising

Between 2000 and 2010, U.S. public postsecondary schools experienced widespread decreases in appropriations funding. We document that every 10 percent cut in appropriations statewide increased for-profit attendance by 2 percent, owing to students who otherwise would have attended public...

Web-based surveys have become increasingly common in economic, marketing, and other social science research. However, questions exist about the comparability of data gathered using a web interview and data gathered using more traditional survey modes, particularly for surveys on household...

American women tend to be less financially literate than men, which is consistent with a household division of labor in which men manage finances. However, women also tend to outlive their husbands, so they will eventually need to take over this task. Using a new survey of older couples, I find...

The cognitive ability needed to manage finances is a form of human capital. Dementias cause progressive declines in cognition. We analyze how information about decline affects the choice of the household financial decision maker using longitudinal data on older couples. We find that as the...

The authors investigate recent trends in the financial circumstances of young adults using data from the triennial Survey of Consumer Finances (SCF) from 2001 to 2013. They examine trends in young adults’ net worth, break down the composition into specific assets and liabilities, and describe...