Retirement Security / Pensions and Savings

Featured Fellow

Vice President Greg Anrig

Greg Anrig, is Vice President for Programs who writes on employment and retiree benefits; Social Security solvency and reform; economic security; and tax reform.

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• In The News: Why Target Date Funds?
  Board of Trustee Member Alicia Munnell's Financial Security Project just released this booklet. Download the PDF.
  Feb 21, 2012
• Person: Greg Anrig
  Greg Anrig, is Vice President for Programs who writes on employment and retiree benefits; Social Security solvency and reform; economic security; and tax reform.
  Jul 21, 2010
• Event: The Longevity Revolution
  With our current recession deepening amid rising costs of healthcare, plunging 401k portfolios, and the collapse of the housing market, there is growing evidence that retirement security for today's seniors is unstable, at best. According to a recent Demos report, 78% of senior households are financially vulnerable, or lack the resources necessary to sustain themselves through the rest of their lives. With the baby boomer generation approaching retirement age, the future for older Americans is more uncertain than ever.
  Mar 18, 2009
• Commentary: Blaming the Boomers
  The current Social Security debate is filled with ideologically derived premises that seem to make little economic or factual sense but are great political slogans. One of my favorites is that, with the retirement of the huge Baby Boomer generation, we just won't be able to afford the program any more. History tells us, however, that we used to a quite different ideas about what was possible in America.
  Jul 15, 2007
• Commentary: Potholes in the Road to Meeting Public Employee Pension Obligations
  The reason every week seems to bring more stories about the alarming shortfalls facing one or another of our nation's state and municipal public employee pension plans is the new accounting standards that will take effect in 2008. These new disclosure rules, which were set by the Government Accounting Standards Board in 2004, will force government accounting of pension liabilities to adhere to the same rules in place for the corporate world.
  Nov 30, 2006
• Publication: Aging Gracefully
  Aging Gracefully gathers a collection of essays that highlight policy ideas for promoting greater retirement savings among Americans. The essays were written as part of the Retirement Security Project, which is dedicated to promoting common sense solutions to improve the retirement income prospects of millions of American workers. The project is supported by The Pew Charitable Trusts, in partnership with Georgetown University’s Public Policy Institute and the Brookings Institution.
  Aug 14, 2006
• Commentary: Privatization Revived in 2007 Budget
  While this year’s State of the Union looked to many like final proof of the death of Social Security privatization, you wouldn’t know it from reading the FY 2007 budget released last week.
  Feb 15, 2006
• Commentary: Whatever Happened to Private Pensions?
  To the Depression-era generation entering the workforce after World War II, one of the secrets of the good life was to catch on with “a big company with a pension.” Although fewer than half of private sector workers ever had a defined benefit pension, it was one of the trademark features of the American dream—a defined benefit pension, promising a set monthly payment for the rest of your life, and usually your spouse’s life, so long as you put in the service time.
  Feb 9, 2006
• Book: Apart at the Seams: The Collapse of Private Pension and Health Care Protections
  An exploration of how the collapse of prhttp://tcf.abstractedge.com:8080/publications/2006/2/pb553#fieldsetlegend-categorizationivate sector retirement and health benefits came about and how it has affected the landscape of American social insurance.
  Feb 8, 2006
• Commentary: The Bottom Line on Privatization
  As Congress heads off to an August recess, privatization advocates have been renewing their vows to return to private accounts in September, possibly as part of a broader legislative package dealing with private pensions and other retirement issues.
  Jul 27, 2005
• Commentary: Privatization Everywhere...and Nowhere
  In an attempt to get some kind of momentum going on a Social Security overhaul, private account proponents in the House and Senate have released details about new proposals to use the trust fund surplus to fund modest private accounts.
  Jun 22, 2005
• Commentary: The Role of Congress in Pension Defaults
  Many members of Congress reacted with outrage when a federal bankruptcy court ruled earlier this year that United Airlines could default on its $6.6 billion in pension obligations to 120,000 employees and retirees. Realizing that United's default probably is just the start of a trend among struggling companies—including most of the older airline companies and even General Motors—many legislators are crying foul and are calling for reform. Yet, if Congress were to look at its own voting record over the last several years, the recent turn of events should come as no surprise at all.
  Jun 14, 2005
• Commentary: Disaster Ahead! The Breathless World Of The New Dismal Scientists
  Thomas Carlyle coined the expression "the dismal science" to describe the young field of economics (then known as political economy). In truth, the economic and demographic projections by the great thinkers of the early industrial revolution were pretty gloomy, and it turned out, almost entirely wrong. Yet some of today's economists with dire warnings about the future appear destined to repeat the hysteria (and track record) of their predecessors.
  May 24, 2005
• Commentary: Public Opinion Watch
  Public Opinion Watch is a weekly feature covering newly-released polls, as well as key newspaper and magazine articles that make use of polling data. Written by Senior Fellow Ruy Teixeira, each week’s edition will combine noteworthy findings and trends from the latest polling data with analysis of the misinterpretations and misrepresentations to which polling data are so often subject.
  May 24, 2005
• Commentary: Confronting New Realities on Pensions
  Last week United Airlines dumped most of its pension obligations into the lap of the taxpayer. With union-contracted health care benefits under siege at General Motors, and the unionized segment of the retail industry giving way to non-unionized employers from Whole Food to Wal-Mart, the entire array of fringe benefits that were a standard part of contracts of the post-World War II decades appears to be crumbling away.
  May 15, 2005
• Commentary: Chile Con Economy?
  In the early days of the U.S. debate about Social Security privatization, advocates would regularly trot out Latin America, Chile in particular, as the region that did it right, the model that the United States should learn from. Recently, though, this dog and pony have remained backstage, in spite of the Bush administration’s current tour to promote private accounts.
  May 9, 2005
• Commentary: Public Hostile to Privatization
  ICR surveys of 1,236 and 1,231 adults for Washington Post/Kaiser Family Foundation/Harvard University, released February 10, 2005 (conducted February 3-6 and February 4 6, 2005) On February 6, Nick Confessore argued in the New York Times that Going for Broke May Break Bush and the next day Ron Brownstein commented that Bush s Social Security Equation Comes Up Short on Money, Trust.
  Feb 16, 2005
• Commentary: Arnold’s Own Risky Privatization Plan
  Last year, Governor Schwarzenegger signed legislation that would expand gambling in California, rivaling Las Vegas with an almost unlimited number of slot machines. Apparently, this was not enough, and now the governor wants to gamble again, this time with state employees' pensions. But Governor Schwarzenegger's plan to privatize the state's pension plan comes up lemons any way you spin it.
  Feb 16, 2005
• Book: In Search of Retirement Security: The Changing Mix of Social Insurance, Employee Benefits, and Individual Responsibility
  Thirteen experts consider the changing face of retirement in America.
  Jan 30, 2005
• Commentary: We’re All in This Together
  Savings are low, debt is mounting, the dollar is weak, and the economy is projected to grow more slowly in this century than the last. But that s not the half of it. What we really have to worry about, according to a chorus of prophets, is the prospect of Americans living too long.
  Jan 13, 2005