This presentation, given at the RAISE Florida Network 2013 First Quarter Regional Meeting, gives information on organizing meetings and talking points for successful asset-building discussions with state legislators.

This presentation, given at RAISE Florida Network's 2013 First Quarter Annual Meeting, discusses strategies for identifying and engaging legislators in order to promote an asset-building agenda.

During the economic doldrums that have followed The Great Recession, employees in the education sector (administrators, staff, and teachers or faculty at both the K-12 level and the post-secondary level) are confident about both their retirement savings behavior and their likely retirement outcomes. African American and white American employees in the education sector are more optimistic about their retirement planning and prospects than are U.S. workers overall. Further examination of the high degree of retirement confidence among employees in the education sector, however, yields conflicting insights. This report, produced jointly by TIAA-CREF and the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, examines the retirement goals, fears, and confidence of African American and white workers in the education sector.

Dr. Wilhelmina Leigh spoke on the whys and hows of Social Security modernization at the National Academy of Social Insurance's 25th Annual Policy Research Conference on January 31, 2013.

More presentations, videos, and other conference materials can be found on the NASI website.

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.

This publication can be downloaded by clicking the icon below.

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.

This publication is available for download by clicking the icon below.