How to fix the solvency issues of the Old Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) and Disability Insurance (DI) trust funds, often referred to as the Social Security trust funds (OASDI), continues to concern policymakers and voters alike. As a pay-as-you-go…
While research often focuses on the retirement bound individual or couple, few people live their lives with no outside influences. A parent’s desire to lighten a child’s burden could have a negative impact on the parent’s retirement security, and such…
In September, Michigan Retirement Research Center (MRRC) was awarded its fifth five-year cooperative agreement renewal from the Social Security Administration. MRRC Director and Principle Investigator John Laitner explained that as part of the grant proposal, MRRC agreed to include disability…
Despite the growing number of studies and the increasing availability of detailed data, researchers haven’t developed a consensus on how health affects employment. This is partly explained by the wide variety in datasets (how they are collected, how they measure…
As the U.S. population ages, often in better health than our parents and grandparents, the notion of retirement is starting to evolve, and retirement paths have become as variable as ice cream flavors: One person may partake of the traditional…
June 26 marks the third anniversary of nationwide, legal same-sex marriage. The estimated 4 percent of the U.S. population that is lesbian, gay, or bisexual (LGB) can now benefit from the same legal status as married heterosexuals with all that…
Previous research has found that young people entering the job market during a weak economy face lingering negative effects, earning less than workers who joined the labor market during, for example, a period of low unemployment. Such effects can last…
The Michigan Retirement Research Center held its annual researcher workshop on March 23 and 24, 2018. As in recent years, we used space at the Ross School of Business, at the University of Michigan. This workshop has only plenary sessions…
Reprise for Tax Day: Labor supply and payroll taxes With policymakers proposing payroll tax reform with a view to promote the solvency of Social Security and Medicare, the research community has turned to examining whether changes to payroll taxes alone…
The 2018 Winter Newsletter includes brief summaries of findings from a dozen new MRRC working papers. The projects illustrate two principal themes of our research effort: They make in-depth use of up-to-date data sources to test and quantify our understanding…