Income & Benefits Policy Center

woman sketching a chart The Income & Benefits Policy Center studies how public policy influences the behavior and economic well-being of families, particularly the disabled, the elderly, and those with low incomes. Scholars look at income support, social insurance, tax, child-support, and employee-benefit programs.

Work and Retirement Patterns for the G.I. Generation, Silent Generation, and Early Boomers: Thirty Years of Change

This study comparing retirement patterns over the past 30 years finds that older adults are now working longer and taking more complex routes out of the labor force. More than 40 percent of men born 1943 to 1947 did not retire by age 65, compared with only 20 percent of those born 1933 to 1937. Men and women born 1933 to 1937 were much more likely than those born 20 years earlier to move to part-time work at older ages and return to work after retiring instead of following the traditional route of retiring only once directly from full-time employment.

Measuring Poverty at the State Level

This study implements the modern poverty measure for Minnesota using the American Community Survey (ACS) and simulates the potential effects of alternative safety net policies on poverty. The alternative simulations apply new program rules and behavioral assumptions to recalculate family resources and poverty. The results show the importance of the modern poverty measure for analyzing state policies.

Risk and Recovery: Understanding the Changing Risks to Family Incomes

More than 13 percent of nonelderly adults in families with children will see their incomes fall by half at some point over the course of a year, and about 40 percent fully recover within a year. This paper examines the characteristics and circumstances of families vulnerable to sharp income drops and those most likely to recover financially.