June 2022
21Jun

US. Senate Version of SECURE 2.0 Set to Move Forward

The Senate version of SECURE 2.0, titled the “Enhancing American Retirement Now (EARN) Act,” is scheduled for mark up Wednesday morning. The news comes two weeks after Senators Patty Murray, D-Wash., and Richard Burr, R-N.C., introduced a SECURE 2.0-like bill titled the “Retirement Improvement and Savings Enhancement to Supplement Healthy Investments for the Nest Egg (RISE & SHINE) Act.” “Americans deserve dignified retirements after decades of hard work, and our bill is an important step forward,” Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron...

June 21, 2022
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21Jun

UK. LCP launches state pension NICs calculation tool

Consultants LCP have launched a tool to help the public calculate if they can benefit from topping up the new state pension by paying voluntary national insurance contributions. The amount of state pension an individual receives depends on their record of NICs and for those who reached pension age after April 5, 2016, the full flat rate pension is currently £185.15. However, for various reasons some people may receive less than this amount, and, in some cases, they may be able to...

June 21, 2022
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21Jun

US. PennPSERS commits $350 million to alts

Pennsylvania Public School Employees' Retirement System, Harrisburg, approved two new alternative commitments totaling up to $350 million. The $75.9 billion pension fund's board at its June 17 meeting approved commitments totaling up to $250 million to GCM U.S. Partnership Opportunities, a private infrastructure fund managed by GCM Grosvenor, and up to $100 million to venture capital fund Greenoaks Capital Opportunities Fund V, spokeswoman Evelyn M. Williams said in an email. Penn PSERS previously committed up to $100 million to Greenoaks Capital...

June 21, 2022
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21Jun

Are You Setting Yourself Up For Unhealthy Aging?

Health experts anywhere, including those in the Federal government tell us we need to move more, sit less and eat a healthy diet, especially as we age. Yet, the majority of adults over 65 aren’t following these guidelines. What’s stopping ordinary folks from following this advice? Over half of American seniors are not getting the recommended 150 minutes a week of aerobic exercise. 150 minutes can mean walking briskly for 30 minutes five days a week. One can cut...

June 21, 2022
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20Jun

UK. State pension age increase doubles poverty rate among pensioners

Nearly 100,000 65-year-olds fell into poverty as the state pension age rose from 65 to 66, depriving them of an income of £142 per week as the government saved £4.9bn. According to research by the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) the latest increase in state pension age from 65 to 66 meant that the absolute income poverty rate for 65-year-olds rose by 14 percentage points, or nearly 100,000 people, to reach 24% by late 2020. The higher state pension age also...

June 20, 2022
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20Jun

U.S. high yield takes a fall

By Larry Rothman With high inflation persisting, the Federal Reserve recently raised short-term interest rates by 75 basis points, the largest one-time increase since 1994. As the Fed continues hiking rates, this raises the risk that the central bank will go too far in combating inflation and tip the U.S. economy into a recession. As a result, high-yield spreads could widen further than they already have this year since cash flow would come under pressure, raising the risk of financial...

June 20, 2022
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20Jun

Gustavo Petro and Francia Márquez: A new era for Colombia

"What is coming here is real change, real change," Colombia's new President-elect, Gustavo Petro, promised his cheering supporters at his victory speech on Sunday night. As the country's first-ever left-wing leader - with a running mate, Francia Márquez, who will become the first black vice-president - Mr Petro's belief that Colombia has voted for change is hard to deny. Even before his victory, the country had voted for a departure from the status quo, with the outgoing president's nominated candidate failing...

June 20, 2022
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17Jun

Would the Securing a Strong Retirement Act Secure More Retirement Equity?

By Albert Feuer On March 29, 2022 the House approved H.R. 2954 that is titled the Securing a Strong Retirement Act of 2022 (the SECURE Act 2.0) by a vote of 414-5. On May 26, 2022, a discussion draft of the Retirement Improvement and Savings Enhancement to Supplement Healthy Investments for the Nest Egg (RISE & SHINE) Act of 2022 was released by the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee Chair Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), and Ranking Member Senator Richard...

June 17, 2022
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17Jun

LGBT CEOs and stock returns: Diagnosing rainbow ceilings and cliffs

By Savva Shanaev, Arina Skorochodova & Mikhail Vasenin This study is the first to investigate the implications of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender chief executive officers (LGBT CEOs) for stock performance, using an exhaustive sample of 26 LGBT publicly listed company CEOs since 2000 to document statistically and economically significant financial outperformance of LGBT-led firms. Stocks of companies with openly LGBT CEOs generate a monthly alpha of 0.69%-1.08%, robust to portfolio weighting schemes, estimation frequency, multi-factor asset-pricing models, factor multicollinearity,...

June 17, 2022
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17Jun

Do Retirees Want to Consume More, Less or the Same as they Age?

By Anqi Chen & Alicia H. Munnell Whether households prefer a constant, increasing, or decreasing path of consumption in retirement has important implications for our understanding of retirement adequacy. Financial planners and researchers often assume that retirees would like to maintain a constant standard of living. Similarly, Social Security benefits are based on the premise that people want steady inflation-adjusted benefits. However, several studies suggest that retired households actually decrease their consumption over time. This brief, which reports the results of...

June 17, 2022
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