Susan Barnes

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To Roth or not to Roth: Taxing retirement plan contributions instead of payouts

Tax-deferred retirement savings plans include independent retirement accounts (IRAs) and employer-sponsored 401(k), 457, and 403(b) plans. These “save now, pay taxes later” plans mean a saver won’t pay income taxes on their contributions. Instead, they pay income taxes when they…

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Data sets make MRDRC workshop debuts

The MRDRC presented its 2021 workshop virtually on March 11 and 12. Historically, the MRDRC has had an interest in data development, dating from its founding association with the then-new Health and Retirement Survey (HRS). This year’s workshop continued that…

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News from MRDRC researchers: Winter 2021

Journal publications JAMA Internal Medicine published Lauren Nicholas, Ken Langa, Julie Bynum, and Joanne Hsu’s article, “Financial Presentation of Alzheimer Disease and Related Dementias,” online in November. The work is based on Nicholas and Hsu’s 2018 MRRC project, “Adverse Financial…

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Winter 2020 Newsletter: MRDRC releases key findings from 2019 papers

MRDRC published eight working papers in 2019 on topics such as totalization agreements, global interest rate trends, and retirement inequality. Informing projections Interest Rate Trends in a Global Context Dmitriy Stolyarov and Linda Tesar WP 2019-402; UM19-05 Two methodologies are…

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Winter 2020 Newsletter: Panel offers a tune up for SSA trustees’ report

Every year the Social Security Administration’s Board of Trustees and the Office of the Chief Actuary (OCACT) produce a report on the health of the Old Age and Survivors Insurance and Disability Insurance (OASDI) trust funds. OCACT’s projections rest on…

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Winter 2020 newsletter: Director’s corner

John Laitner The Social Security Bulletin, Vol. 80, No. 1 (February 2020), was devoted to review articles on activities over the fiscal years 2008 to 2017 of the three retirement and two disability research centers sponsored by the Social Security…

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Money isn’t everything—at least for older workers

In 2015, Nicole Maestas, Kathleen J. Mullen, David Powell, Jeffrey Wenger, and Till von Wachtner fielded two surveys. One asked respondents about their working conditions; the second asked about their preferences for certain job characteristics. The nine working conditions were…

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Wealthy, educated retirees benefit from tax-advantaged retirement savings

Tax-advantaged savings plans—such as IRAs, Keogh, 401ks—have a significant tax cost. Understanding their roles and effectiveness in retirement funding is crucial to assessing whether their benefits outweigh their price. Until fairly recently, measuring these accounts’ economic impact was difficult because…

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Tracking the elusive irregular IRA withdrawal

If Michael Hurd, Erik Meijer, Philip Pantoja, and Susann Rohwedder’s “Addition to the RAND HRS Longitudinal Files: IRA Withdrawals in the HRS, 2000-2014” were a home improvement project, the researchers would have put up spacious bookshelves in the Health and…

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How are older workers’ employment prospects affected when there are fewer younger workers?

“This [project] is prompted by a question I’ve been asked by many reporters, which is ‘With larger, older cohorts and relatively scarce younger workers, will employers shift to employing more older workers for one reason or another?’” investigator David Neumark…

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