Explores the potential benefits of a government-independent, democratized Social Security system to support dependents suffering from the reduction of other government benefits.

The 2019 edition of Pensions at a Glance highlights the pension reforms undertaken by OECD countries over the last two years. Moreover, two special chapters focus on non-standard work and pensions in OECD countries, take stock of different approaches to organising pensions for non-standard workers in the OECD, discuss why non-standard work raises pension issues and suggest how pension settings could be improved.

American cities continue to experience profound fiscal crises. Falling revenues cannot keep pace with the increased costs of vital public services, infrastructure development and improvement, and adequately funded pensions. Chicago presents an especially vivid example of these issues, as the state of Illinois's rocky fiscal condition compounds the city's daunting budget challenges. In The People's Money, Michael A. Pagano curates a group of essays that emerged from discussions at the 2018 UIC Urban Forum. The contributors explore fundamental questions related to measuring the fiscal health of cities, including how cities can raise revenue, the accountability of today's officials for the future financial position of a city, the legal and practical obstacles to pension reform and a balanced budget, and whether political collaboration offers an alternative to the competition that often undermines regional governance.Contributors: Jered B. Carr, Rebecca Hendrick, Martin J. Luby, David Merriman, Michael A. Pagano, David Saustad, Casey Sebetto, Michael D. Siciliano, James E. Spiotto, Gary Strong, Shu Wang, and Yonghong Wu

In the wake of the financial crisis and Great Recession, the health of state and local pension plans has emerged as a front burner policy issue. Elected officials, academic experts, and the media alike have pointed to funding shortfalls with alarm, expressing concern that pension promises are unsustainable or will squeeze out other pressing government priorities. A few local governments have even filed for bankruptcy, with pensions cited as a major cause. Alicia H. Munnell draws on both her practical experience and her research to provide a broad perspective on the challenge of state and local pensions. She shows that the story is big and complicated and cannot be viewed through a narrow prism such as accounting methods or the role of unions. By examining the diversity of the public plan universe, Munnell debunks the notion that all plans are in trouble. In fact, she finds that while a few plans are basket cases, many are functioning reasonably well. Munnell's analysis concludes that the plans in serious trouble need a major overhaul. But even the relatively healthy plans face three challenges ahead: an excessive concentration of plan assets in equities; the risk that steep benefit cuts for new hires will harm workforce quality; and the constraints plans face in adjusting future benefits for current employees. Here, Munnell proposes solutions that preserve the main strengths of state and local pensions while promoting needed reforms.

As defined contribution pensions become prevalent, retirees are increasingly responsible for managing their own pension assets and thus their own financial literacy becomes crucial. Based on empirical evidence and new research, the book examines how financial literacy enhances retirement decision-making in ever more complex financial markets.

This book presents a careful analysis of pension data collected by the Health and Retirement Study, a unique survey of people over the age of fifty conducted by the University of Michigan for the National Institute on Aging. The authors studied pensions as they evolve over individuals’ work lives and into retirement: how pension coverage and plans change over a lifetime, how many pensions workers have by the time they retire and what these pensions are worth, what pensions contribute to individual retirement incomes, and how trends and policy changes affect retirement plans. The book focuses on the major features of pensions, including plan type and participation, ages of eligibility for retirement, values of different pension types, how pension values are influenced by retirement age, how plans are settled when a worker leaves a firm, how well people understand their pensions, the importance of pensions in retirement saving and as a share of household wealth, and the vulnerability of the retirement age population to the current financial crisis. This book provides readers with an invaluable look at the crucial but ever-changing role of pensions in supporting retirees.

The 2021 edition of Pensions at a Glance highlights the pension reforms undertaken by OECD countries over the past two years. Moreover, the special chapter focuses on automatic adjustment mechanisms in pensions systems in OECD countries, discusses the usefulness and limitations of these policy instruments, and suggests ways to improve them in order to enhance the capacity of pension systems to fulfil their objectives.