Squared Away Blog

Start early, invest boldly: two simple 401(k) habits that can help set new grads up for a lifetime of financial security.

The brief’s key findings are:

Understanding how long we might live can affect our retirement decisions, but many people underestimate their odds of living to older ages.

This study tested whether providing simple information could help improve people’s estimates of reaching older ages.

The intervention was quite effective for about a quarter of participants, specifically those who rely on experts to inform their thinking.

The brief’s key findings are:

When COVID hit, it sharply reduced employment rates for older workers, raising concerns that many might be forced into early retirement.

However, accounting for population aging, employment for workers ages 55+ has fully rebounded to match pre-COVID trends.

This return to normal, though, masks some surprising differences by demographic groups – those initially hit hardest by COVID have more than recovered.

The brief’s key findings are:

Headlines that focus on the exhaustion of Medicare’s Hospital Insurance trust fund miss the big picture.

The real problem is that Medicare, overall, costs a lot.  And, if constraints on its payments to hospitals and doctors are eased, it will cost even more.

One reason is that Medicare operates within the very expensive U.S. healthcare system, which costs twice as much as those in other countries.

Another reason is Medicare Advantage plans, which now cover more than half of beneficiaries, cost 20 percent more per recipient than traditional Medicare.

Medicare can’t fix the nation’s healthcare system, but reducing overpayments to Advantage plans should be high on its agenda.

The brief’s key findings are:

The 2025 Trustees Report shows a modest increase in Social Security’s 75-year deficit, while the depletion date for the retirement trust fund remains at 2033.

The prospect of a 23-percent benefit cut only 8 years away should focus our attention on restoring balance to the program.

It’s important to note that these current estimates are based on the Trustees’ intermediate assumptions, which are not a sure thing.

Indeed, the deficit could well end up higher if the fertility rate remains low, millions of immigrants are deported, and people live longer than expected.

Even in this case, though, many revenue and benefit options are available to close the gap.  All that is needed is the political will.

The brief’s key findings are:

Layoffs hurt all workers, but does the pain vary by race?

The analysis uses administrative data to see how the long-run earnings of displaced workers fared during three different recessions.

In the long run, Black and White displaced workers both have earnings roughly 30-40 percent lower than their same-race counterparts who were not laid off.

Though the impact of layoffs is similar, Black workers start with lower earnings, see slower earnings growth, and are more likely to lose a job in the first place.