NBER Retirement and Disability Research Center Winds Down Operations
This is the final issue of the Bulletin on Retirement and Disability, coinciding with the closure of the NBER Retirement and Disability Research Center (RDRC). The RDRC was a vibrant hub of research activity from 2003 to 2025 and had a significant impact on stimulating analytic work on Social Security and the wellbeing of Social Security beneficiaries across a wide community of investigators at universities across the United States.
Over 22 years, from the launch of the NBER Retirement Research Center in 2003, through the addition of the NBER Disability Research Center in 2012 and their consolidation into the NBER Retirement and Disability Research Center in 2019, to the closing of the Centers program this year, the RDRC supported more than 400 research projects.
The RDRC was funded by the Social Security Administration (SSA) through a cooperative agreement with the NBER with the goal of providing research and analysis that could inform Social Security policy.
Origins and Early Development
After the SSA became an independent agency in 1995, Commissioner Kenneth S. Apfel established a strategic plan that emphasized policy development, research, and program evaluation, specifically highlighting the value of involving universities and research centers through extramural funding.
In 1998, the SSA launched the Retirement Research Center (RRC) program, initially awarding funding to university-based centers at Boston College and the University of Michigan. The primary goal was to generate objective, policy-relevant research on retirement issues by fostering collaboration between the academic and policy communities.
In 2003, when the RRC program was recompeted, the NBER was selected as a new consortium member. Professor David Wise of Harvard University, the area director for Health and Aging Programs at the NBER, served as the inaugural director of the NBER RRC. Much of the focus of the Center’s first phase was on the financial uncertainties and challenges facing the Social Security system and how various policy reforms might affect Social Security sustainability.
One set of studies produced during these early years focused on the drivers of demographic trends, notably fertility and mortality rates, and how they influence long-term Social Security finances. Another looked at how various approaches to Social Security reform would affect its financial sustainability as the uncertainties regarding future demographic and economic outcomes resolved over the decades. Yet another analyzed how Social Security, when combined with other retirement policies, affects work and retirement decisions, saving, and asset accumulation. This research also considered how Social Security interacts with other sources of later-life support, such as savings accumulated in IRAs and 401(k) plans, traditional pension plans, home equity, and continued work at older ages. Another set of studies focused on resource needs in retirement and on the wellbeing of Social Security beneficiaries.
Wise and Richard Woodbury, a program administrator for the NBER Program on Aging who played a key role in the Center’s strategic direction, reviewed the core research findings from the first five years of the NBER RRC.1
RRC Program Evolution
As the RRC evolved through subsequent phases, an organizing theme was analysis of Social Security policy in the context of a changing landscape of retirement in the United States. Some aspects of the changing environment include long-term trends, such as population aging, improving health and longevity, increased saving in 401(k)-type retirement plans, and rising healthcare costs. Others are unexpected and consequential shocks such as volatility in financial and housing markets, the Great Recession in 2008, and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Although the core functions of Social Security remain largely unchanged, the dynamic evolution of these societal influences makes monitoring and evaluating Social Security policy and its implications an important focus of ongoing research. As a result, RRC research has analyzed the changing demographic environment, the changing private resources that are combined with Social Security to support older people, the changing needs of older households, and the interactions between Social Security and other programs such as disability insurance, private and public health insurance, long-term care insurance, unemployment insurance, and state and local pension plans.
Many of the key findings from these subsequent phases of the RRC are summarized in an article by Jeffrey Brown, James Choi, Courtney Coile, and Woodbury.2 They include the discovery that Social Security policy and the way it is communicated to covered workers strongly influences work, retirement, and claiming behavior; a strong and persistent relationship between socioeconomic status, health, and financial wellbeing in retirement, which suggests that the three must be considered together to inform Social Security policy; and the finding that the extent to which people prepare for their financial needs in later life, beyond Social Security, is strongly influenced by the psychological paths of least resistance that powerfully influence saving and other decisions over the life course.
Expansion to Disability Studies
In the course of its reorganizing of extramural research activities in 2012, SSA expanded its engagement with the NBER by funding the NBER Disability Research Center (DRC), which was also directed by Wise. This Center supported research to inform policy related to the Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) programs. SSDI provides income protection to workers with qualifying work histories (and their dependents) should they develop a severe disability. SSI provides payments to lower-income adults and children with disabilities regardless of work history as well as to lower-income people aged 65 or older.
Among the research objectives of the DRC investigators were disentangling the health, economic, and other factors influencing SSDI and SSI program enrollment trends over time; understanding the wellbeing of SSDI and SSI beneficiaries; and analyzing how SSDI policies, such as applicant requirements and screening criteria, affect application and approval rates. Substantial analyses were also conducted on work by individuals with disabilities; return-to-work decisions by those receiving SSDI or SSI benefits; and how the structure of Social Security policy, other public and private policies, reimbursement systems, and workplace accommodations can facilitate work by people with disabilities. David Autor, Nicole Maestas, and Woodbury synthesized some of the key findings of the early stage of DRC research.3
Leadership Change and Program Integration
Wise stepped down from RRC and DRC leadership in 2016. Brown succeeded him as director of the RRC, with Choi and Coile as codirectors, through 2019. Autor and Maestas succeeded Wise as codirectors of the DRC, also through 2019.
In 2019, the SSA consolidated the RRC and DRC programs, thereby combining the research on retirement and disability policy under one organizational umbrella, the Retirement and Disability Research Center, or RDRC. Maestas, a faculty member at Harvard Medical School, became director of the RDRC with Brown and Coile as codirectors and Autor, Choi, and Jeffrey Liebman as scientific advisors. Choi replaced Brown as codirector in 2020 and served until 2024. From 2024 until its closure, the Center was directed by Maestas, while Angelino Viceisza served as codirector.
Most RDRC research for the last six years has been organized around five key themes. The first is the economic and demographic determinants of enrollment trends. For example, investigators have studied disability incidence in the population, which is a key driver of SSDI and SSI enrollment. They have also analyzed the impact on enrollment of both the opioid epidemic and the COVID-19 pandemic. The second theme is Social Security and disability policy effects on labor force participation, changes in work patterns and retirement choices, and the subsequent impacts on the modern economy.
The third area of emphasis is on aspects of wellbeing of Social Security beneficiaries, including income, financial savings, and health. The fourth is on Social Security program operations including financial projections; SSA communication with beneficiaries through statements, online access, and field offices; and the SSDI application review process. The fifth theme is how Social Security works with other programs and policies, such as employer pension plans, retirement saving plans, and means-based benefit programs, to deliver retirement security. Center studies can be found at the RDRC webpages and in prior issues of the NBER Bulletin on Retirement and Disability.
1. “Social Security in a Changing Environment: Findings from the Retirement Research Center at the National Bureau of Economic Research.” Wise D, Woodbury R. Social Security Bulletin 69(4), December 2009, pp. 65–81.
2. “Social Security and Financial Security at Older Ages.” Brown J, Choi J, Coile C, Woodbury R. Social Security Bulletin 80(1), February 2020, pp. 31–40.
3. “Disability Policy, Program Enrollment, Work, and Well-Being Among People with Disabilities.” Autor D, Maestas N, Woodbury R. Social Security Bulletin 80(1), February 2020, pp. 57–68.
