RetireSecure Blog

The Pension Research Council’s curated blog features insights from the industry’s leading professionals.
Views of our Guest Bloggers are theirs alone, and not of the Pension Research Council, the Wharton School, or the University of Pennsylvania.

A Peek Into America’s Pocketbook Reveals Finances Are Improving Slowly, But Surely

Today’s release of the latest National Financial Capability Study shows that we’re doing better protecting ourselves against financial emergencies than in the past. We’re also doing a better job cutting our high-interest debt than previously. Yet our personal finances, particularly the amount of debt we’re taking on, is still troubling.…Read More

Retirement Income Calculators: Not Much Better Than Counting On Your Fingers?

When average Americans confront the complicated problem of how much to save for retirement, they often use so-called “rules of thumb,” or greatly-simplified approaches, to figure out how much to save and how to invest. It turns out that many of the computer programs created to help with retirement income planning do exactly the same thing: use rules of thumb.…Read More

Here’s How to Get More People to Delay Claiming Social Security

By: Olivia S. Mitchell Olivia S. Mitchell (@OS_Mitchell) is a professor of business economics/policy and insurance/risk management at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, where she focuses on pensions, household finance, retirement, and risk management.  Global aging paired with pension shortfalls have led many governments to raise retirement…Read More

Is Social Security Really Running Short?

Social Security is a pay-as-you-go system, since payroll taxes collected from today’s workers mostly go to pay today’s retirees. But as the U.S. population ages, fewer young workers are paying into the system relative to rising numbers of ever-longer-lived retirees drawing benefits, according to this opinion piece by Olivia S. Mitchell, a Wharton professor of business economics and public policy, and also insurance and risk management.…Read More

Alpha Opportunities In A Sluggish Return Environment

The global economic environment presents new challenges for investors across the board. Public and private pension plans, consultants, Wall Street strategists, and money managers have all ratcheted down their forward-looking views on asset returns, meaning that defined contribution plan participants will be hurting if the financial community’s morose predictions bear fruit.…Read More

Improving Women’s Retirement Security

Older women confront many retirement security challenges. For one thing, women live longer than do men, so their money must stretch farther. For another, many average fewer years in the paid workforce and, when they do work, their average pay is often lower. Additionally, they are more likely to work part-time, for a lower salary. These factors all translate into lower retirement accumulations, smaller retirement payouts, and higher poverty rates in old age, as reported in a recent Society of Actuaries 2014 study “Impact of Retirement Risk on Women.”…Read More