August 2021
19Aug

Pensions, Income Taxes and Homeownership: A Cross-Country Analysis

By Hans Fehr, Maurice Hofmann & George Kudrna This paper studies the role of pensions and income taxes in determining homeownership and household wealth. It provides a cross-country analysis, using tax and pension policy designs in Germany, the US and Australia. These developed nations have similar incomes per capita but very different homeownership rates, with the US and Australia having much higher homeownership compared to Germany. The question is to what extent the observed differences in homeownership are induced by...

August 19, 2021
Articles, Pension design, Regulation, , , ,
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17Aug

The World’s Best Countries for Pensions in 2021

By Blacktower Hard-working retirees have put in decades of time and effort as part of their working life. As they prepare to relax in retirement, they’re counting on a pension to help maintain a comfortable life – but the quality of state pensions available varies drastically based on where you live. We ranked countries across the globe on key pension factors to find out the best country in the world.     Get the book here

August 17, 2021
Adequacy, Books, Pension design, Reports, ,
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16Aug

Financial Resilience in America August 2021

By Martha Deevy, Jialu Liu Streetern, Andrea Hasler & Annamaria Lusardi Data collected right before COVID-19 hit the United States in 2020 indicated deeply rooted financial insecurity: one in three American families wasn’t ready to cope with a mid-sized financial shock; about 27% couldn’t come up with $2,000 within a month if an unexpected need were to arise; and 33% found it difficult to make ends meet in a typical month (2020 TIAA Institute-GFLEC Personal Finance Index [P-Fin Index], Yakoboski...

August 16, 2021
Aging, Books, Pension design, Reports, ,
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16Aug

3 Ugly Truths About Retirement in Canada

Saving for retirement has never been easy. In the days when private and public sector employers offered generous defined benefit (DB) pensions, that didn’t matter as much. But today, with private sector DB pensions all but extinct, you really have to save if you want to retire comfortably. If you’re a government worker with a very generous pension plan, then perhaps that doesn’t apply to you. But if you’re like most Canadians, you’re really going to need some savings to...

August 16, 2021
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16Aug

US. 3 Unexpected Sources of Retirement Income

When we think of retirement, most of us think of accumulating a large sum of money and then spending it down gradually. One of the best insurance policies to prevent spending all of your money is to have numerous sources of income in retirement. As you'll see, even small amounts of retirement income can go an incredibly long way in making sure you have enough to last you the rest of your life. Here, we'll look at three unexpected sources...

August 16, 2021
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12Aug

Social Security Wealth, Inequality, and Life-cycle Saving: An Update

By John Sabelhaus, & Alice Henriques Volz Social Security wealth (SSW) is the present value of future benefits an individual will receive less the present value of future taxes they will pay. When an individual enters the labor force, they generally face a lifetime of taxes to pay before they will receive any benefits and, thus, their initial SSW is generally low or negative. As an individual works and pays into the system their SSW grows and generally peaks somewhere...

August 12, 2021
Articles, Pension design, , ,
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11Aug

US. Pandemic Puts Secure Retirement at Greater Risk for Many

The COVID-19 pandemic has had an outsize effect on people 50 and older: Not only did it impact older adults’ health more severely than younger ones, but it also forced many into early retirement and prompted others to take withdrawals from their savings earlier than they had planned. "The prospects of a secure retirement for millions of workers will be even more precarious following the pandemic, and more Americans of all ages will need to rely even more on Social...

August 11, 2021
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10Aug

Access, participation and income: The state of retirement plan coverage in the U.S.

A study from The Inclusive Wealth Building Initiative starkly illustrates the gulf between those employees with access to an employer-sponsored retirement plan and those who participate—and, perhaps unsurprisingly, much of that participation depends on income levels. The Initiative, a project of The Economic Innovation Group, derived its data from various surveys, including the Census Bureau’s Survey of Income and Program Participation and the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ National Compensation Survey. The study also used the 2019 Current Population Survey’s Annual...

August 10, 2021
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July 2021
16Jul

Reverse Mortgages

By Consumer Financial Protection Bureau A reverse mortgage is a special type of home loan for older homeowners that requires no monthly mortgage payments. Borrowers are still responsible for property taxes and homeowner’s insurance. Reverse mortgages allow seniors to access the equity they have built up in their homes now, and defer payment of the loan until they die, sell, or move out of the home. Because there are no required mortgage payments on a reverse mortgage, the interest is...

July 16, 2021
Books, Pension design, ,
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13Jul

UK. Women expected to be hit hardest if triple lock scrapped

Women will be hit the hardest if the government scraps the triple lock on the state pension, as they are almost twice as likely to rely on the benefit, according to Barnett Waddingham (BW). Research from the firm showed that 30 per cent of women do not have any private or workplace pensions, and were therefore likely receive a state pension only at retirement, while 17 per cent of men were in the same position. BW’s survey results showed that this...

July 13, 2021
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