AN NBER PUBLICATION
ISSUE: No. 1, April 2022
The Bulletin on Retirement and Disability
A free digital quarterly summarizing research in the NBER's Retirement and Disability Research Center
Chronic pain is a leading cause of work disability and a primary reason for receipt of SSDI benefits. Prescription opioids are frequently prescribed for chronic pain, but their use has been scrutinized in recent years due to concerns about addiction and overdose. Understanding how common prescription opioid use is among SSDI beneficiaries and how opioid use affects employment and SSDI applications is critical to the SSDI program.
Researchers Nicole Maestas, Tisamarie...
Article
The decisions that prospective retirees make about when to stop working and when to claim Social Security benefits can have profound impacts on their financial well-being in retirement. Yet many older workers have an incomplete understanding of relevant Social Security policies, including the Retirement Earnings Test (RET).
Under the RET, retirees who claim before the Full Retirement Age (FRA) and have earnings above a specified (relatively low) threshold receive...
Article
Population aging in the US and other developed countries presents a challenge for future economic growth and the sustainability of public programs. Yet tax revenues and government expenditures depend not only on the age composition of the population but also on the size of the labor force. Rising labor market participation rates may compensate for a smaller working-age population. Projections of labor force participation are therefore crucial for the assessment of future...
Article
The NBER Retirement and Disability Research Center (RDRC) has two competitive training programs for junior scholars. The RDRC is funded by a cooperative agreement with the Social Security Administration through its Retirement and Disability Research Consortium.
In a typical year, the programs provide training and education for two or three pre-doctoral scholars and two post-doctoral fellows who are engaged in research focused on topics related to Social Security's Old-Age,...
The Bulletin on Retirement and Disability summarizes selected recent Working Papers. It is distributed digitally to economists and other interested persons for informational and discussion purposes. The Bulletin is not copyrighted and may be reproduced freely with attribution of source.
Working Papers produced as part of the NBER's research program are distributed to make preliminary research results available to economists in the hope of encouraging discussion and suggestions for revision before final publication. Neither Working Papers nor issues of the Bulletin on Retirement and Disability are reviewed by the Board of Directors of the NBER.
The Bulletin on Retirement and Disability is edited by Courtney Coile.