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Retirement and Older Americans

Retired CoupleOur extensive work on retirement policy covers the many ways the aging of America will trigger changes in how we work, retire, and spend federal resources.

The number of Americans age 65 and over will rise from about 13 percent in 2008 to 20 percent by 2040. The recession dealt a heavy blow to retirement accounts, leaving many older adults worried about their retirement security. Read more.

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Policy Options to Improve the Performance of Low Income Subsidy Programs for Medicare Beneficiaries (Research Report)
Stephen Zuckerman, Baoping Shang, Timothy Waidmann

Low-income Medicare beneficiaries are eligible for subsidies to help them pay premiums and cost sharing. However, these subsidies fall short of those contained in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) that help low-income families afford adequate health coverage. In this report we consider policy options to reform Medicare's low-income subsidies to better align with ACA provisions. We estimate that a significant simplification in low-income protection and cost-sharing rules could greatly reduce burdens on the poorest and sickest beneficiaries. Depending on how they are implemented, these reforms could either reduce or only modestly increase total public spending.

Posted to Web: February 02, 2012Publication Date: January 31, 2012

Modeling Income in the Near Term Version 6 (Research Report)
Karen E. Smith, Melissa M. Favreault, Barbara Butrica, Philip Issa

This report describes the work the Urban Institute performed to generate the Model of Income in the Near Term, Version 6 (MINT6). MINT is a tool developed for the Social Security Administration (SSA) to analyze the distributional consequences of Social Security reform proposals. MINT is a micro-level data file of individuals born between 1926 and 2075. It starts with a rich set of income and demographic characteristics from the 2001 and 2004 Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) data linked to SSA data on earnings and benefits. MINT then projects these characteristics until death or the year 2099.

Posted to Web: January 12, 2012Publication Date: January 06, 2012

Unemployment Statistics on Older Americans: Updated January 6, 2012 (Fact Sheet / Data at a Glance)
Richard W. Johnson, Corina Mommaerts, Janice Park

The recession has increased joblessness among older Americans. These graphs and tables report unemployment rates and how they have varied by age, sex, race, and education since 2007.

Posted to Web: January 10, 2012Publication Date: January 06, 2012

Retirement Account Balances (Updated 1/12) (Fact Sheet / Data at a Glance)
Barbara Butrica, Philip Issa

The retirement savings of American households took a big hit when the stock market crashed in 2008. Recently, however, a good portion of these losses has been reversed. This fact sheet follows trends in retirement account balances since the beginning of 2005.

Posted to Web: January 05, 2012Publication Date: January 05, 2012

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