2018
The Decline in the U.S. Labor Force Participation Rate
WP 2018-385 , UM18-Q2
After peaking around the year 2000, the Labor Force Participation Rate (LFPR) of Americans declined substantially, falling faster after the financial crisis of 2007. Since 2015, the LFPR has remained at its lowest in four decades. In this paper, we…
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Addressing Social Security’s Solvency While Promoting High Labor Force Participation
WP 2018-386 , UM18-10
A number of proposals and options to address OASI trust-fund solvency have been suggested in recent years. The present work attempts to examine solvency-promoting reforms from the standpoint of economic efficiency — that is, from the perspective of their effect…
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Assessing Economic Resources in Retirement: The Role of Irregular Withdrawals from Tax-Advantaged Retirement Accounts
WP 2018-387 , UM18-Q4
Irregular withdrawals from IRAs and DC pensions are not included in standard measures of household income in the CPS or Health and Retirement Study. Yet, among retirees such withdrawals can supplement regular retirement income to finance consumption. It has been…
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Addition to the RAND HRS Longitudinal Files: IRA Withdrawals in the HRS, 2000 to 2014
WP 2018-388 , UM18-Q3
In support of research on the older population, we produced cleaned variables based on data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) to capture information on withdrawals from individual retirement accounts (IRAs). Where necessary, imputations for missing values have been…
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Local Economic Hardship and Its Role in Life Expectancy Trends
WP 2018-389 , UM18-07
Recent research has found, in some groups of Americans, dramatic increases in deaths due to drug overdose and suicide and an overall stagnation of trends toward increased longevity. This study examines the link between mortality of older working age (45…
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Relative Sizes of Age Cohorts and Labor Force Participation of Older Workers
WP 2018-390 , UM18-08
We study the effects of the size of older cohorts on labor force participation (LFP) and wages of older workers. In the standard relative supply framework usually applied to relative cohort size, we would expect larger older cohorts to experience…
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How Well Can Medicare Records Identify Seniors with Cognitive Impairment Needing Assistance with Financial Management?
WP 2018-391 , UM18-03
Aging countries should have an interest in policies to assist older beneficiaries in managing finances when there is a need. This project investigated the value of Medicare records as a guide to identifying persons with cognitive impairment in need of…
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Feasibility and Reliability of Automated Coding of Occupation in the Health and Retirement Study
WP 2018-392 , UM18-06
Due to advances in computing power and the increase in coverage of longitudinal datasets in the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) that provide information about detailed occupations, demand has increased among researchers for improved occupation and industry data. The detailed…
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Is the Affordable Care Act Affecting Retirement Yet?
WP 2018-393 , UM18-04
We analyze whether the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has affected labor supply of older Americans using data that span more than four years after the policy’s implementation in 2014. We find no changes in labor supply of older Americans either…
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Investigating the Difference in Mortality Estimates between the Social Security Administration Trustees’ Report and the Human Mortality Database
WP 2018-394 , UM18-01
This study’s goal was to determine whether differences in data or differences in methods explain the divergence between the mortality estimates at ages 65 and older of the Social Security Administration (SSA) and the Human Mortality Database (HMD). These differences,…
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