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Evan Vucci / AP What Is This ‘Wage Insurance’ Obama’s Talking About?
During his State of the Union speech, the president mentioned a labor protection with a long history.
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Kevin Lamarque / Reuters How the Government Underestimated the Extent of Income Inequality
Social Security is underfunded today because policymakers didn’t foresee just how rich today’s rich would be.
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Mario Anzuoni / Reuters By 2050, There Could Be as Many as 25 Million Poor Elderly Americans
As the Boomers age, there are going to be a lot more people living in poverty.
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Graeme Maclean / Flickr The Welfare State: A Terrible Name for an Essential System
All developed countries are welfare states—and there are good reasons for that.
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Heinz-Peter Bader / Reuters A Missed Business Opportunity: Senior Centers That Are Actually Fun
"These are adults and they want serious activities."
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Richard Carson / Reuters What Happens When Low-Wage Workers Are Given a Stake in Their Own Company?
HEB, a Texas grocery chain, is divvying up 15 percent of the company's stock among 55,000 of its employees.
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Reuters How to Help the Middle Class Retire Comfortably at No Extra Cost
The U.S. government is spending a lot to subsidize the 401(k)s and IRAs of Americans who don't need the boost.
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Toby Melville / Reuters Farewell to America's Middle Class: Unions Are Basically Dead
The U.S. is one of the only rich countries that has reached the (incorrect) conclusion that organizing workers is counterproductive.
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Nir Elias / Reuters Why It's Misleading to Swear to Protect the Poor's Social-Security Benefits
Any plan that maintains one group’s payouts while diminishing others’ risks deflating support for the program as a whole.
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Mike Blake / Reuters When It Comes to Retirement Savings, Most Workers Are on Their Own
It’s nice that some companies are nudging employees toward putting aside more for 401(k)s, but those firms are solidly in the minority.
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Youssef Boudlal / Reuters The Recession Hurt Americans' Retirement Accounts More Than Anybody Knew
Most people think IRAs and 401(k)s have pretty much recovered from deep losses in 2008. They haven’t.
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Kim Kyung Hoon / Reuters Why It’s So Hard to Know How Much Retirement Savings Is Enough
Most online tools recommend having 10 times one’s salary on hand before retiring. Is that too much or just right?
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Kim Hong-Ji / Reuters At What Age Do Workers Stop Getting Raises?
A plateau of peak earnings may sound fine, but in the long run it’ll mean a person’s income falls due to inflation.
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Benoit Tessier / Reuters The Real Reason People Don't Save Enough for Retirement
Trying to educate the undisciplined shifts the blame from where it should be: on America's lousy savings plans.
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Luke MacGregor / Reuters Leisure Inequality: What the Rich-Poor Longevity Gap Will Do to Retirement
In American society, those who live the longest get to enjoy years of relaxation, but those with the shortest life expectancies tend to work into their final years.
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Aaron Josefczyk / Reuters Finding the Silver Lining in a Potential Interest-Rate Hike
The Fed shouldn’t raise rates tomorrow. But if it does, maybe pension funds, insurance companies, and private investors will be more hesitant to put money into overvalued assets.
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Mike Blake / Reuters Where Not to Be Old and Jobless
Hidden by the steady, optimistic jobs reports in recent months is the fact that unemployment rates for Americans 55 and older have been increasing.
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Ina Fassbender / Reuters What Effect Will Migration Have on European Wages?
Mass influxes shape labor markets in complicated and conflicting ways, but one thing is certain: Racial tension doesn't help things.
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J. Scott Applewhite / AP Raising the Retirement Age: A Sneaky Way to Reduce Social Security Benefits
Some Republican candidates are promoting a policy change that would hurt workers by disguising it with a pleasant-sounding phrase.
