Bridget Fisher is a researcher and communications specialist with a background in government and public affairs. Before joining SCEPA, she was a senior press officer in The New School’s communications department working with social science departments across the university. She came to higher education from government. In New York, she served as chief of staff for a member of the New York City Council and director of communications for the Working Families Party. On Capitol Hill, she served as press secretary and legislative assistant for a member of the U.S. Congress. Bridget graduated from American University in Washington, D.C., with a bachelor's degree in public communication and women’s studies. She received her master's degree in public administration with a focus on urban economic development from CUNY's Baruch College.
Near-Retirees at All Incomes Are Almost 1/3 Short of Target Retirement Savings
August 2017 Unemployment Report for Workers Over 55
Inadequate Retirement Savings for Workers Nearing Retirement
One-third of older workers have neither retirement savings through a 401(k) or IRA, nor a defined benefit (DB) pension.
Financing the Transition to a Low-Carbon Economy
Climate change demands change - technological, economic, social. As we face these transitions, the question remains, how do we pay for it?
Nebojsa Nakicenovic, Deputy Director General of the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), joined SCEPA and the Fordham School of Law to discuss how to finance the pathway to global sustainability. His slideshow from the presentation is available.
As an international leader on economic development in response to climate change, Nakicenovic contributed to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), authored over 300 scientific publications, and has degrees from Princeton University, the University of Vienna, and the Russian Academy of Sciences.
The talk was followed by a panel discussion on the economic, legal and financial consequences of climate change mitigation and adaptation with Fordham Law School's Clinical Professor of Law Paolo Galizzi, director of the Sustainable Development Legal Initiative and The New School's Economics Professor Willi Semmler, director of SCEPA's Economics of Climate Change project. Welcoming remarks were provided by Linda Sugin, Fordham School of Law's Associate Dean of Academic Affairs and Professor of Law.
The event was sponsored by SCEPA's Economics of Climate Change project and the Fordham University Fordham Law School. The event was generously supported by the Fritz Thyssen Foundation, The New School's Tishman Center for Environment and Design (TEDC), and the Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET).
Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis (SCEPA) works to bring reality into conventional economics. An economic policy think tank within the department of economics at The New School, we provide scholars, non-profits, and government officials with research on key policy issues.
The Sustainable Development Legal Initiative (SDLI) promotes the use of law to foster environmentally sound development and poverty eradication. Within Fordham Law School and its Leitner Center, SDLI serves as a focal point for activities in the field of international sustainable development.
1 in 4 Older Workers Lack On-the-Job Health Insurance
July 2017 Unemployment Report for Workers Over 55
The Retirement Wealth Inequality Machine
What is the “retirement wealth inequality machine?”
Boomers' Larger Birth Cohort Lowers Wages
Inadequate retirement savings will force millions of older Americans to seek work at older ages.
Many who delay retirement will find work, but no study has looked at the effect on wages. ReLab's new policy brief, "Larger Birth Cohort Lowers Wages," shows that being a member of a super-sized birth cohort has depressed Boomers’ wages throughout their careers.
Labor market crowding caused by Boomers delaying retirement will continue to reduce their wages in old age relative to what would have happened had their share of the labor force declined at the same rate as prior generations.
The reduction in wages resulting from the increase in older workers provides a cautionary note to those advocating delayed retirement as a solution to the retirement savings crisis.
Key Findings:
- Boomers’ (born 1948 to 1964) real wages adjusted for in ation grew less than other generations. Boomers’ wages grew an average of 3.9% a year when they were young and 0.7% when they were prime-aged, compared to 5.0% and 0.9% for the Silent Generation (born 1925 to 1947) and 6.3% and 1.3% for Generation X (born 1965 to 1982).
- Boomers are staying in the labor force longer than prior generations. Boomers’ share of the labor force has declined 27 percentage points in the three decades after the cohort reached their highest share of the labor force, whereas the Silent Generation’s share declined 31 percentage points in the three decades after their peak, and the Greatest Generation’s share declined by 46 percentage points.
- If Boomers’ share of the labor force declined at the same rate as that of the Silent Generation, high school-educated Boomers would have earned $800 more in 2015, Boomers with some college-level education would have earned $1,500 more, and Boomers with a college degree would have earned $1,700 more.
Read more about this research in a feature story in the Chicago Tribune by Gail MarksJervis titled, "Baby Boomers, planning to work past retirement?? Here's why that idea could be a bust."
Figure 1 Source: Authors’ calculations using data from the Annual Social and Economic Supplement of the Current Population Survey (CPS ASEC), 1964- 2015.
Note: Annual average growth in real median earnings of full-time high-school educated males. We lack data for Greatest Generation, ages 22-34.
What Older Workers in the Rust Belt Need From Trump
June 2017 Unemployment Report for Workers Over 55
Racial Mortality Gap Still High: More Blacks Than Whites Will Die Before Retiring
May 2017 Unemployment Report for Workers Over 55
Senate Vote to Deny Retirement Coverage Condemns Workers to Work Longer
April Unemployment Report for Workers Over 55
Policies to Reverse Inequality
Only a power and resource shift from capital to labor can reverse the entrenched trends of inequality.
