One oft-cited reason to support immigration reform is to help Social Security's finances by introducing young workers into an aging system. Official figures bear out this presumption, but these figures are based on models that assume that legal immigrants are effectively identical to workers already in the U.S. But they are not.

Pension underfunding has dominated the media and created significant concerns for state lawmakers as they struggle to bring their fiscal houses in order.

The Great Recession's employment crisis is notable for two reasons. First, the number of long-term unemployed has been much higher than in prior recessions. Second, those over the age of 55 were particularly hard hit by unemployment.

What Republicans need, in other words, is a compelling vision for Social Security reform -- one that is consistent with principles of limited government and individual responsibility. 

The strong link between health insurance and employment in the US may cause workers to delay retirement until they become eligible for Medicare at age 65. We investigate the impact of retiree health insurance on early retirement using employee-level data from 54 diverse firms. We find that retiree health coverage has its strongest effects at ages 62 through 64.

At this event, panelists will address pension reform challenges by presenting the results of three research papers commissioned by AEI through a generous grant from the Smith Richardson Foundation.

With graduation season nearly finished, another cohort of young workers is set to enter the labor force. Members of this cohort confront an immense challenge in planning for retirement: There is a great deal of uncertainty about the Social Security taxes and benefits they will face.

Those who follow the debate over fair-market valuation of public pension liabilities are aware that economists argue for using lower discount rates to value public pension liabilities but often are unaware of why economists believe what they do. This paper aims to better articulate those beliefs.

For a wide variety of reasons, many states and municipalities are turning a critical eye toward their employee retirement plans. As various parties debate the merits of different reform measures, it is important to keep in mind that in many states, the law limits potential reform options.

Current public pension valuation practice provides information on the expected costs associated with funding future benefits, which is relevant to policymakers and taxpayers. This paper argues that current practice is a better approach to measuring pension liability than is a theoretical market-based method.