This slide show discusses how Social Security benefits truly help those who receive them. Presented at a National Academy of Social Insurance 2012 Summer Academy session entitled Demystifying Social Security on July 11, 2012.

The glass ceiling will shatter when the practices that support it have been eliminated from labor market hiring, firing and promotion decisions. Since women’s lack of educational credentials is seldom a part of this, the increased pursuit of higher education by young women in this dour economy is unlikely — by itself — to shatter the ceiling.

Young women and young men are both responding rationally to the current economic environment in which being previously unemployed puts one out of the running for many available jobs. Being enrolled in school is not considered being unemployed, so young women are right to think they may have better job prospects by the time they finish school and when the economy has improved.

Read more at The New York Times.

In its deliberations to develop a plan to reduce the federal deficit by more than a trillion dollars over the next decade, the Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction considered a proposal to calculate cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs) in all government programs using the Chained Consumer Price Index-Urban (C-CPI-U), rather than the Consumer Price Index (CPI-U).

Implementing this proposal would dramatically reduce Social Security benefits for recipients. Although reducing federal program benefits by changing the COLA computation is indeed one way to reduce the deficit, reducing benefits is not the only way to eliminate the 75-year projected shortfall (of 2.2 percent of taxable payroll) for the Social Security system.

The shortfall can be closed by holding benefit levels harmless and, instead, increasing revenue directed to the system. A recent report of the Commission to Modernize Social Security Plan for A New Future: The Impact of Social Security Reform on People of Color offers recommendations for doing just that.

Read more at GlobalPolicy.tv and the Joint Center Blog.

African Americans and white Americans differ in the type and magnitude of their asset holdings. Perhaps as a result of these differences, the two groups also have differing perspectives on and responses to the 2008-2009 economic downturn. Similarities of perspective exist between the groups as well. For example, both African Americans and whites report similar levels of confidence in the nation’s financial institutions and sector.

These findings are from a survey of 850 African Americans and 850 members of the general U.S. population (including 721 white Americans) that was conducted for the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies by Research America between May 21 and June 9, 2009. The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies National Opinion Poll about Social Security, Retirement Savings and the Economic Downturn found many striking differences between African Americans and whites on these topics.

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African Americans are more likely than whites to expect that Social Security will be their major source of income during retirement. Th is was true in both 1998 (35 percent of African Americans versus 17 percent of whites) and 2009 (37 percent of African Americans versus 27 percent of whites). African Americans also are more likely than whites to support the Social Security system as currently structured and to believe that the system should continue to provide the same type and level of benefits. A range of views, however, is held by African Americans and whites on selected proposals for reforming the Social Security system to ensure its solvency.

These findings are from a survey of 850 African Americans and 850 members of the general U.S. population (including 721 white Americans) that was conducted for the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies by Research America between May 21 and June 9, 2009. The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies National Opinion Poll about Social Security, Retirement Savings and the Economic Downturn found many striking differences between African Americans and whites on these topics.

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The U.S. fiscal and economic challenges today stem from a basic problem: too many companies and assets are owned solely for profit. It boils down to what I will call an ownership crisis.

Because mortgages were owned by investors all over the world, when the U.S. housing market collapsed, the pain was global, as homeowners and financial institutions went into a downward economic spiral.

Now, the debates surrounding the growing federal debt raise related concerns: Who owns America? Will foreign nations continue to buy Treasury securities and invest in U.S. businesses? The past three years show us why it is time to consider a different approach to ownership: cooperatives. If more assets and businesses were owned and controlled by the people who use them, our economy could be more stable.

Read more at The New York Times.

For today’s working adults, retirement is more likely to be based on the safety-net level of benefits from Social Security, supplemented with personal savings and investment.

The catch is, however, that too many African-Americans are saving too little for retirement.  The fact that 70 percent of African-American workers had saved less than $25,000 for retirement, according to a 2007 survey by the Employment Benefit Research Institute, suggests there will be little "gold" in our golden years.
 

Read more at The Florida Courier, The Washington Informer, and The Madison Times.

A presentation on Obstacles to Saving for Retirement was given by Dr. Wilhelmina Leigh for the National Press Foundation's Retirement Issues 2011 forum on June 14, 2011. This presentation is available for download below. More presentations and information from this forum can be found at the National Press Foundation website.

The racial/ethnic wealth gap in this country is both huge and persistent. The ratio between the median net worth of white households and African American households is nearly 7:1, while the white-Hispanic ratio is nearly 5:1 (Bucks, Kennickell, and Moore 2006). Despite increased awareness of these gaps, clear consensus has yet to emerge about the steps needed to narrow them. Some of this lack of consensus relates to a lack of understanding of the causes of this disparity.

This report explores the determinants of wealth and of the racial/ethnic disparities in asset and wealth accumulation. The narrative provides an overview of past research1 that has addressed this issue and highlights the most relevant findings. Its goal is to shed light on the causes of the racial/ethnic wealth gap and to provide answers to the question, “What’s race got to do with it?”

Available in PDF format only.

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