January 2022
12Jan

Wages and pensions fall in Uruguay due to economic policy

Wage drops and pension losses foreshadowed today a 2022 of economic restrictions in Uruguay, according to data provided by representatives of the Social Security Bank (PBS for its acronym in Spanish). The year before closed as the second consecutive year of the current right-wing coalition government, in which the adjustment of the salary of the workers was lower than inflation, which also means that retired people will receive a pension below the level of consumer prices. Ramón Ruiz, director of the...

January 12, 2022
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10Jan

Malaysia. Tweak pension fund to benefit low- income workers

In our published paper nearly a decade ago, we wrote that “... scant attention is given to the plight of low-income workers in a situation of rising inequality caused by widening pay-gaps or differences in actual wages”, and “low average savings balances raise the question of retirement adequacy at desired income replacement rates” (Hamid and Chai, 2013). We stated that, “Since either expanding the accumulation phase or setting a minimum sum balance would result in unpopular delayed pay-outs, other solutions must...

January 10, 2022
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06Jan

Racial Inequality in Unemployment Insurance Receipt and Take-Up

By Elira Kuka & Bryan A. Stuart This paper studies differences in receipt and take-up of unemployment insurance (UI) benefits among white and Black individuals. We combine state-level UI regulations with data containing detailed information on individuals’ work history and UI receipt. Black individuals who separate from a job are 24% less likely to receive UI than whites. The UI receipt gap stems primarily from lower take-up of UI benefits among likely eligible individuals, as opposed to differences in benefit...

January 6, 2022
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06Jan

Did Pandemic Unemployment Benefits Reduce Employment? Evidence from Early State-Level Expirations in June 2021

By Harry J. Holzer, R. Glenn Hubbard & Michael R. Strain The generosity of Unemployment Insurance (UI) benefits was expanded during the pandemic (FPUC), along with the groups of workers eligible for benefits (PUA). These two programs were set to expire in September 2021, but 18 states opted out of both in June 2021. Using Current Population Survey data, we present difference-in-difference and event study estimates that the flow of unemployed workers into employment increased by around two-thirds following early...

January 6, 2022
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December 2021
23Dec

The impact of non-contributory cash transfers on poverty in Latin America

By Simone Cecchini, Pablo Villatoro & Xavier Mancero This article assesses the impact of conditional cash transfers, social pensions and other non-contributory transfers on different indicators of poverty and extreme poverty in Latin America, based on an analysis of household surveys from 15 countries in the region between 2014 and 2017. It is found that in 2017, the combined effect of non-contributory social protection programmes reduced simple regional averages for poverty by 2.0 percentage points and for extreme poverty by...

December 23, 2021
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03Dec

Elderly Poverty and its Measurement

By Yoko Niimi & Charles Yuji Horioka This paper examines various aspects of elderly poverty and its measurement. It first discusses some of the most important issues relating to measuring elderly poverty. It then reviews recent trends in elderly poverty, which show considerable heterogeneity in the extent of elderly poverty even among developed countries. Such cross-country differences are due at least partly to differences in the generosity of public old-age pensions and other social safety nets for the elderly. Empirical...

December 3, 2021
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03Dec

Old-Age Pensions and Female Labour Supply in India

By Vidhya of Unnikrishnan & Kunal Sen Whether cash transfers have unintended behavioural effects on the recipient household’s labour supply is of considerable policy interest. We examine the impact’ of the Indira Gandhi National Old-Age Pension Scheme (IGNOAPS) on prime-age women’s labour supply decisions in India, where female labour force participation continues to decline over time. We use propensity score matching (PSM) to make households with IGNOAPS recipients comparable with program non-recipients. Further, we use individual fixed effects (FE) to...

December 3, 2021
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November 2021
29Nov

Spain. Inflation At 5.6% Forces Pensions Up By 2.5%

Inflation rose by 5.6% in November compared to last year, two tenths of a percentage point higher than in October, and its highest level since September 1992. The preliminary data, published on Monday by the National Statistics Institute (INE), mark new annual highs for inflation in Spain, which has risen without interruption since March. The agency blames the rise on increases in food prices and, to a lesser extent, in fuel and lubricants for vehicles. On a more positive...

November 29, 2021
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26Nov

Retirement Confidence Survey

By Employee Benefit Research Institute & Greenwald Research   The RCS is the longest-running survey of its kind, measuring worker and retiree confidence about retirement, and is conducted by the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) and Greenwald Research. The 2021 survey of 3,017 Americans was conducted online January 5 through January 25, 2021. All respondents were ages 25 or older. The survey included 1,507 workers and 1,510 retirees — which includes an oversample of roughly 500 completed surveys among Black Americans (252 workers and 253 retirees) and roughly...

November 26, 2021
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26Nov

Population Aging and Worklife Duration: Myths and Realities in the Canadian Context

By Gilbert M., Yves Carrière & Marcel Mérette Population ageing is raising concerns about labour shortage and public finance sustainability, on the assumption that increased age-based dependency ratio is a synonym of shrinking working lifespan for financing expanding lifespan consumption. However, such assumptions usually omit an appropriate account of changing labour force participation and hours worked (behavioural components) which could be playing toward or against the tides of populating ageing (structural components). This paper estimates worklife duration in Canada between...

November 26, 2021
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