The Social Security Trustees project that the Social Security program faces longterm financing difficulties. Several proposals that have been offered to shore-up the finances of the Social Security program would create individual retirement accounts funded with part of the payroll tax. The authors of many of these proposals claim that future…

Purpose: This article investigates how older Americans leave their career jobs and estimates the extent of intermediate labor force activity (bridge jobs) between full-time work on a career job and complete labor-force withdrawal. Design and Methods: Using data from the Health and Retirement Study, we explored the work histories and retirement…

These authors argue that estimates of the net economic cost of suicide should go beyond accounting for direct medical costs and indirect costs from loss of earnings by those who commit suicide. There are potential savings from (a) not having to treat the depressive and other psychiatric disorders of those who kill themselves; (b) avoidance of…

Countries with mature social security systems have declining rates of labor force participation of the aged. The experience of nine countries (United States, Canada, Belgium, France, Federal Republic of Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Sweden, United Kingdom) over the last two decades provided the statistical data presented and analyzed in the…

Many states are struggling to finance under-funded teacher pension systems as well as recruit and retain a high-quality teaching workforce. This paper compares Maryland's former (prior to Spring, 2006) teacher pension system to those in Pennsylvania and several other states. On the basis of simple replacement rates, the former Maryland state plan…

A study examined principal cost and benefit issues to be resolved in designing a new retirement system for Federal workers covered by Social Security. The new Federal system would be built on the base of Social Security and would take into account the Social Security program's taxes and benefits. The current Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS)…

This document's seven papers examine compensation and employment risk in the United States and Canada. "Introduction" (John A. Turner) discusses compensation risk bearing in labor markets. "Wage and Job Risk for Workers" (John A. Turner) explores the problems of macroeconomic instability, job turnover, job and earnings…