Brookings Institution
To develop and justify specific, actionable policy reforms to encourage increased saving and enable longer working lives, as well as to identify policy reforms to enable consumers to have greater access to and understanding of retirement products in the private market
This grant provides partial funding for a project led by Martin Baily of the Brookings Institution to develop a new paradigm for work and retirement that incorporates working longer as an essential tool for increasing retirement security. Baily aims to develop the case for specific, actionable policy reforms that will encourage increased saving and enable longer working lives, as well as identifying policy reforms to enable consumers to have greater access to and understanding of retirement products in the private market. First, Baily will commission a series of detailed policy proposals that will be then presented in public forums—three public forums with three papers presented at each—directed at educating federal and (where appropriate) state policymakers. Each of the nine papers commissioned for the policy series will offer practical recommendations grounded in research that can be adopted by policymakers and private-sector actors. Suggested topics include how to make jobs more flexible, training for older workers, reducing the tax penalty for working longer, age discrimination, annuities, reverse mortgages, and long-term care insurance. After the briefings, Baily (with co-principal investigator Benjamin Harris) will then author a report that will lay out a comprehensive new vision for retirement. This will include three complementary components: reform of labor market policies to accommodate longer lives; creation of more robust private insurance markets and better products; and changes to the saving landscape, particularly for the growing population without access to traditional retirement accounts (for instance, freelance workers).