RELAB POLICY NOTE |The Social Security benefit structure penalizes people who claim before age 70. Yet over one-fifth of eligible people claim before their full retirement age (age 67 for those born in 1960), and over 90 percent claim before the maximum age of 70, resulting in reduced monthly benefits.

RELAB WORKING PAPER | Since 1992 wealth for the bottom 90% of households nearing retirement has fallen. Using SCF and HRS data over 20 years, we find the bulk of working-class wealth is government social insurance.

ARTICLE | This paper assesses economics research and teaching frameworks in the United States by examining how knowledge is produced and ranked, the flaws and strengths of heterodox economic theory; and how students are trained, especially for careers in economic policy. 

RELAB POLICY NOTE | Challenging the widespread assumption that people claim their retirement benefits only when they retire, more than one-fifth of older workers in the United States start claiming Social Security benefits as soon as they are eligible, even while working for pay.

BOOK | This book explores the myriad challenges of climate change and in reaching a low-carbon economy. It develops a framework for dynamic macroeconomic modeling for the climate-economy interaction, presents empirical trends in carbon-emitting resource use, and discusses policy strategies for sustainable growth under global climate change constraints.

RELAB WORKING PAPER | This article documents risks and disparities among older workers in the labor force and in retirement preparedness and explores the links between labor market challenges facing older workers and retirement insecurity.

RELAB POLICY NOTE | In the United States, high overall rates of home ownership among households aged 55–64 obscure a vital reality. Many low-income older households risk financial fragility because they are renters and high rent burdens inhibit their ability to save for emergencies.

RELAB POLICY NOTE | Unpaid care work — the vast majority of such work in the United States — is primarily shouldered by economically vulnerable people.

RELAB POLICY NOTE | The slow return to normalcy after the Covid-19 pandemic has brought back a perennial risk to older workers’ wellbeing: financial fragility.

RELAB REPORT | Unfriendly Labor Markets for Older Workers Require Bold Moves for Retirement Savings: Analysis of Labor Force Engagement of Older People in Selected States

ARTICLE |  Over the last few years, economists have focused on the long-run effects of persistent shocks on economic output. 

RELAB POLICY NOTE | Social Security is the most essential and well-functioning part of the U.S. retirement system. Any reforms to federal retirement policy—while necessary and long overdue—must be built on the foundation of a protected and strengthened Social Security system.

RELAB POLICY NOTE | Up to 40 percent of middle-income workers are at risk of downward mobility into poverty or near-poverty in retirement because of an inefficient retirement system that disproportionately benefits those with high incomes.

ARTICLE | Recent controversies over the impact of an energy embargo on Russia triggered by Russia’s war in Ukraine have focused on reducing dependence on fossil fuels and reorganizing energy supplies.

RELAB POLICY NOTE | Contrary to the hope that technology and machines have made work easier for most, more than 25 percent of older white workers and over 40 percent of older Black and Hispanic workers toil in physically demanding jobs.

ARTICLE | This paper models economic output jointly with health outcomes as they pertain to the COVID pandemic, finding that a continuously varying control (i.e. the lockdown intensity) fares better than sporadically taken discrete-time decisions with lockdown intensity staying constant over some time intervals.

ARTICLE | This paper proposes a new type of tax to help finance (and accelerate) the green transition.

WORKING PAPER | A report by SCEPA researcher Bridget Fisher and co-author Flávia Leite analyzes New York State’s proposal to redevelop Penn Station using a version of value capture financing.

RELAB REPORT | With inflation now a top concern among the U.S. public, workers face a race between wage gains and price increases. Older workers, despite receiving better raises than they have in many years, are losing that race.

ARTICLE | Value capture schemes sound simple in theory – future revenues pay debt issued to cover upfront costs. But in practice, these financing mechanisms are highly complex and, as a result, can have unintended consequences on municipal finances.