retirement readiness - The New School SCEPA
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. Low-income older workers are more than three times as likely as high-income workers to claim early, indicating a reliance on Social Security payments to supplement low wages. Those who claim before the full retirement age (also known as the Normal Retirement Age) will receive reduced benefits throughout their lives, leaving them financially vulnerable once they stop working. Because so many older workers collect reduced Social Security benefits, raising the retirement age will have little effect on getting people to work longer and will simply reduce benefits further. Instead, reforms should focus on policies like creating an Older Workers Bureau to support work at older ages, and bolstering Social Security benefits for those who risk falling into poverty in retirement.
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.
Older workers are increasingly trapped in crummy jobs and unable to ever retire
Brief— Working longer is often proposed as the solution to the retirement crisis caused by older workers’ lack of retirement assets, but new research from SCEPA's ReLab shows this assumption doesn't match older workers' real experiences in the labor market.
Research note— new research shows regardless of the data source, retirement plan participation is low and stagnating.
Brief—Status of Older Workers Report
Brief—Status of Older Workers Report
Research note— New research shows that even before the COVID-19 recession, only 36% of workers ages 25-64 were participating in a retirement plan at work, a five percentage point decrease from five years prior.
Working paper— Contrary to the predictions of theoretical models, working longer does not significantly increase the share of older workers who are financially prepared for retirement.
Brief— ReLab's chartbook documenting retirement insecurity and the decline in older workers' bargaining power is a resource for workers, employers, media, policymakers, scholars, and the broader public to answer questions about the state of older working America and retirement income security.
A retirement crisis looms as the labor market becomes less friendly to older workers when they are most numerous and least able to retire.
Policy makers need to strengthen older workers’ fallback positions.
A realistic look at the disempowered status of America’s older workers and their rocky path to a secure retirement.
Brief— Workers at all earnings levels would benefit from expanding Social Security. SCEPA proposes defaulting workers into “Catch-Up” contributions, where— starting at age 50— they would contribute an additional 3.1% of their salary. 
Brief— Social Security benefits are progressive and reduce the unequal distribution of retirement wealth generated by a broken employer-based retirement systemSocial Security benefits are progressive and reduce the unequal distribution of retirement wealth generated by a broken employer-based retirement system.
Reset Retirement, a new podcast from our Retirement Equity Lab, tells the real stories of retirement.
Workers in low-wage households are more likely to experience economic shocks and to withdraw from their retirement accounts, exacerbating pre-existing inequalities in the retirement savings system.
This report demonstrates how low and decreasing retirement plan coverage rates and the shift from traditional defined benefit pension plans to 401(k)-type plans are threatening New Yorkers’ financial readiness for retirement.
SCEPA’s Retirement Equity Lab (ReLab) released a report that is the first to quantify the real effect of the retirement crisis - poverty.
This report documents the consequences of declining employer-sponsored plans in New York City.
Workers across the country face a retirement crisis. However, workers in Philadelphia are faring worse than average.
This report finds that employer sponsorship of retirement plans is declining in Maryland.
This study utilizes data from the Current Population Survey (CPS) to compute sponsorship trends in North Carolina.
On June 15, 2016, ReLab Research Director Tony Webb presented a report on Philadelphia's retirement crisis to the City's Council Committee on Labor and Civil Service.
