Retirement Security

The Asset Building News Week is a weekly Friday feature on the The Ladder, the Asset Building Program blog, designed to help readers keep up with news and developments in the asset building field. This week's topics include housing, inequality, banking options, welfare, and jobs.

Matt Unrath is the Director of the National Family Economic Security Program at Wider Opportunities for Women.

In the aftermath of the Great Recession, the United States may be afflicted by high levels of unemployment for years to come. Compounding the challenge to public policy is the fact that many jobs in many sectors will never be restored, either because they depended on debt-enabled demand during the bubble economy years, like many jobs in finance, real estate, and construction, or because they are vulnerable in the long term to offshoring or automation.

The Asset Building News Week is a weekly Friday feature on the The Ladder, the Asset Building Program blog, designed to help readers keep up with news and developments in the asset building field. This week's topics include savings products and financial behavior, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, income inequality, and housing. 

The Asset Building News Week is a weekly Friday feature on the The Ladder, the Asset Building Program blog, designed to help readers keep up with news and developments in the asset building field. This week's topics include jobs, income inequality, housing, the unbanked, retirement security, personal finance, and economic mobility. Stay tuned for next week, which will likely be dominated by the release of the President's FY 2013 budget proposal on Monday, which tends to send Washington, DC into a budget-centric tizzy.

Way back in 2011, we conducted a survey of readers that told us a number of things: importantly, we learned that many of you look to us for timely news from the asset building field and that a regular round-up of articles would be a welcome addition to our other content. In keeping with the spirit of 2012 and resolutions and all that good stuff, the Asset Building Program is introducing a new weekly blog feature: a Friday news round-up. We hope this will help you (and us, for that matter) keep up with developments in the field, note-worthy news, and learn about partner organizations working around the U.S. on asset building, economic security, anti-poverty policy, and accessible financial services for low- and middle-income Americans. Topics will vary week-to-week (and depending on the news!) but we’ll aim to provide a diverse overview of the things we’re keeping an eye on that we think you’ll find interesting too.

The George Washington University School of Business and the Federal Reserve Board host a Financial Literacy Seminar Series  which bring together academics, policy makers, practitioners, and other experts interested in research on financial education and capability building.  Tuesday’s session featured Brigitte Madrian from the Harvard Kennedy School whose research is a cornerstone for our understanding of household saving and investment behavior,

On December 13, 2011 the Asset Building Program hosted Professor Sheldon Garon, author of Beyond Our Means: Why America Spends While the World Saves. While economists often claim people save according to universally rational calculations — saving the most in their middle years as they plan for retirement and saving the least in welfare states — there are substantial differences in savings rates across high income countries. For example, Europeans save at relatively high rates despite generous welfare programs, while Americans save little, despite weaker social safety nets. The assumption that generous social benefits will provide a disincentive to save doesn’t hold up.

On December 13^th, the Asset Building Program is pleased to welcome author and professor Sheldon Garon to speak about his new book, Beyond Our Means: Why America Spends While the World Saves. You can join us in person at 4:00 p.m. on the 13^th or online for the live webcast (registration is not required for the online webcast).

(originally published at Fox & Hounds Daily)
The current pension reform debate – with proposals from the governor and now from a team of Republicans via ballot initiative – is drawing considerable media attention.

It’s hard to understand why.

The debate has almost nothing to do with the broader public.

The pension changes being talked about won’t change all that much or save much money for other public programs. And the plans being offered don’t respond to the real problem in matters of retirement savings.