AN NBER PUBLICATION
ISSUE: No. 3, October 2023
The Bulletin on Retirement and Disability
A free digital quarterly summarizing research in the NBER's Retirement and Disability Research Center
The Social Security Administration (SSA) convened its 2023 Retirement and Disability Research Consortium (RDRC) Meeting virtually on August 3–4. The meeting featured research funded through the NBER RDRC as well as through other RDRC centers based at Boston College, the University of Michigan, and the University of Wisconsin.
Kilolo Kijakazi, Acting Commissioner of the SSA, provided welcoming remarks. She began by remembering Dr. William Spriggs, chair of the Department...
Article
The COVID-19 pandemic and its associated health and economic burdens have unfolded quite differently across states in the US. These differences are due to a variety of factors, including population density, socioeconomic status, health, and state policies. Variation across states in the timing and magnitude of the pandemic as well as in state characteristics and policies may have affected the dynamics of federal disability applications during this period.
In Inter-State...
Article
The need for long-term, nonacute caregiving is projected to rise significantly in coming decades. The number of Americans ages 65 and older is expected to double by 2050 and approximately one-third of adults in this age range report multiple functional limitations. Much of the growing demand for long-term care is met by unpaid family caregivers, more than half of whom are also formally employed. Caregiving demands may lead some caregivers to exit the labor force or work at...
Article
The 2023 NBER Summer Institute’s Economics of Social Security meeting featured a panel discussion examining the long-term dynamics of the employment-to-population ratio (EPOP).
Karen Glenn, Deputy Chief Actuary of the Social Security Administration (SSA), began by providing an overview of the relevance of employment for social security projections. She outlined two key reasons: first, a higher EPOP leads to more workers contributing payroll taxes, increasing revenue...
The Bulletin on Retirement and Disability summarizes selected recent Working Papers. It is distributed digitally to economists and other interested persons for informational and discussion purposes. The Bulletin may be reproduced freely with attribution of source.
Working Papers produced as part of the NBER's research program are distributed to make preliminary research results available to economists in the hope of encouraging discussion and suggestions for revision before final publication. Neither Working Papers nor issues of the Bulletin on Retirement and Disability are reviewed by the Board of Directors of the NBER.
The Bulletin on Retirement and Disability is edited by Courtney Coile.