Lawrence H. Thompson has spent his entire career dealing with education, income security and health issues. As Principal Deputy Commissioner of the U.S. Social Security Administration (1993-1995) was responsible for both program policy development and operational management of the nation's largest income security programs.
From 1989 through 1993, he was Assistant Comptroller General of the United States at the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) where he was responsible for oversight of all federal health, education, labor market and income security programs. He was Chief Economist of the GAO from 1983 to 1988. Prior experience included positions at the Department of Health and Human Services, the National Institute of Education, and the U.S. Office of Economic Opportunity.
As an Institute fellow at the Urban Institute, Dr. Thompson helps to analyze the distributional effects of U.S. Social Security policies. He also serves as a consultant to the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and the International Labor Office. He has worked recently in Russia, China, Azerbaijan, the Philippines, Mongolia, and Vietnam. His analysis of the economic issues involved in public pension design, which was undertaken for the International Social Security Association, was published in 1998 by the Urban Institute Press as Older and Wiser: The Economics of Public Pensions. Dr. Thompson was a founding member of the U.S. National Academy of Social Insurance and served as its president from 1999 to 2003.
Selected Publications
- Thompson, Lawrence. 2004. "Social Security Reform and Benefit Adequacy." Washington, DC: The Urban Institute. The Retirement Project Policy Brief No. 17.
- ———. 2002. "Can Individual Accounts Really Rescue Social Security?" Washington, DC: The Urban Institute. The Retirement Project Policy Brief No. 12.
- ———.. 2001. "Operation of Pension Systems: Public or Private?" In Social Protection in Asia and the Pacific, edited by Isabel Ortiz. Manila: Asian Development Bank.
- ———.. 2000. "Sharing the Pain of Social Security and Medicare Reform." Washington, DC: The Urban Institute. The Retirement Project Policy Brief No. 11.
- ———.. 1999. "The Implications of Social Security's Long-Range Financial Projections." Washington, DC: The Urban Institute. The Retirement Project Policy Brief No. 6.
- ———.. 1999. "Administering Individual Accounts in Social Security: The Role of Values and Objectives in Shaping Options," Washington, DC: The Urban Institute. The Retirement Project Occasional Paper No. 1.
- ———.. 1998. Older and Wiser: The Economics of Public Pensions. Washington, DC: Urban Institute Press.
- Thompson, Lawrence, and Adam Carasso. 2002. "Social Security and the Treatment of Families. How Does the United States Compare with Other Developed Countries." In Social Security and the Family, edited by Melissa M. Favreault, Frank Sammartino, and C. Eugene Steuerle. Washington, DC: Urban Institute Press.
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