Research
A Universal Retirement Plan can Reduce Inequality and Prevent Downward Mobility
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. Universal retirement accounts and providing workers with more equitable and better targeted tax incentives are among the best methods to supplement Social Security and prevent downward mobility in retirement.
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. Universal retirement accounts and providing workers with more equitable and better targeted tax incentives are among the best methods to supplement Social Security and prevent downward mobility in retirement.
Working Paper—Lack of meaningful action to mitigate climate change will disproportionally impact the vulnerable, including children who are being sent into the labor force to make ends meet for poor households hit by climate shocks.
Brief— SCEPA's research finds nearly 1.5 million low-income older workers would benefit from an expansion of the popular Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) program. The report—released by our Retirement Equity Lab (ReLab)—finds without expanding the EITC, the program actually lowers wages among non-educated workers, especially those over 55.
Working Paper—A group of professors, graduate students, and fellows at The New School for Social Research's Department of Economics assess economic research and teaching in the United States and identify three major barriers to the successful adoption of alternative economic theories in academia and the public discourse.
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.
In a forthcoming book about cities and inequality, SCEPA Senior Fellow Rick McGahey examines how economists think about cities, what they typically leave out, and what this tells us about the future for urban hubs such as New York City.
