Professor Olivia S. Mitchell contends that deferred lifetime annuities encouraged by the SECURE Act will protect retirees from longevity risk: see here at the Philadelphia Inquirer and our paper here.
SECURE Act Update
News and Media
The Problem With Bonds in a Retirement Portfolio
Nobody knows how long they’ll live, which makes bonds a more risky prospect for retirees’ long term planning. Benjamin Harris cites work by Vanya Horneff, Raimond Maurer and Wharton’s Olivia S. Mitchell showing the advantage of putting 10% of 401(k) wealth into deferred annuities instead.…Read More
Multiemployer Pension Bailout Plan is Fatally Flawed
Multiemployer pension plans in the United States are in dire financial straits. It’s estimated that the retirement plans of workers and retirees covered by these plans in the mining, retail trade, construction, transportation and other such sectors face a $54 billion shortfall today.…Read More
New International Pension Research Association Announced
July 2019: Some of the leading names in pensions research have come together to create a new international association which aims to promote and advance high-quality social science research on pensions, aging, and retirement. The International Pension Research Association (IPRA) was formally announced earlier this month at the OECD. Led…Read More
TIAA Institute and Boettner/PRC Call for Proposals: Financial Wellness, Behavioral Insurance, and Retirement Planning
The TIAA Institute & Boettner/Pension Research Council (PRC) Partnership Call for Proposals: Financial Wellness, Behavioral Insurance, and Retirement Planning Proposals due July 15, 2019, 5:00 p.m. EST The TIAA Institute is again partnering with the Wharton School’s Boettner Center/Pension Research Council at the University of Pennsylvania to fund innovative research…Read More
Interview: Treasury Department Rescinds Obama-Era Rules on Lump-Sum Pension Payments
Olivia S. Mitchell and Elizabeth Kennedy discuss implications of the treasury department’s decision to allow employers to pay out retirees’ pensions with a one-time lump sum payment, thus reversing Obama-era guidance that had banned this practice. Listen to the full piece above. Interview begins at 3:35. This segment originally aired…Read More
Wharton’s Pension Research Council Celebrates its 65th Anniversary
The Pension Research Council is pleased to celebrate its 65th year of research and debate on key policy issues affecting pensions, social security, and other benefit plans. The PRC is known internationally for its interdisciplinary research on private pension and social security programs as well as related benefit plans in the United States and abroad. …Read More
Prof. Olivia S. Mitchell Discusses Work on Social Security Claiming
In an interview with NBER, Prof. Olivia S. Mitchell discusses her work (abstract below) done with Prof. Raimond Maurer of Goethe University Frankfurt on older peoples’ willingness to delay social security claiming.…Read More
The Growing Pension Black Hole is Pulling Us All In
Public and private pension sinkholes are showing up all over the country, and we’re tumbling in. In Pittsburgh earlier this month, benefit cuts of 30 percent were announced for 21,000 retirees from UPS and other shipping companies.…Read More
Book Review: “Financial Decision-Making and Retirement Security in an Aging World”
Retirees face a declining defined benefit system (DB), at the same time as the average age of the U.S. population is rising, and many people are financially illiterate. Mitchell et al. (2017) focuses on a critical topic that does not receive enough consideration when advisors develop and implement financial planning paradigms. The book recognizes the interaction of capabilities, context, and tolls and discusses the aging brain, the use of advice, and other options for achieving goals and policy.…Read More