November 2025

Japan’s welfare crackdown targets foreign residents over unpaid pensions, health insurance

As Japan’s social contract comes under strain, Sanae Takaichi is moving swiftly on a campaign promise to make foreign residents shoulder their fair share of the health and pensions burden. The proposed reforms, set in motion just weeks after Takaichi’s historic appointment as the country’s first female prime minister, aim to address mounting public concern about inequality and the sustainability of its ageing welfare state. At her first ministerial meeting dedicated to issues regarding foreign nationals, Takaichi on Tuesday directed cabinet...

October 2025

Koreans’ life expectancy has exceeded 83 years, but their retirement age is still in their mid to late 50s

Koreans' life expectancy has exceeded 83 years, but their retirement age is still in their mid to late 50s. As of 2025, the average monthly receipt of the national pension is only about 670,000 won. In other words, it is not enough to prepare the necessary funds for the retirement period, which lasts more than 20 years on average. In addition, if the national pension is not received early, it can be received from the age of 63 to 65,...

US. Public Pensions Are Closing Talent Gaps, Survey Reveals

After years of fierce competition for top talent, public pension funds are seeing positive momentum for recruitment and retention, even as salary growth stabilizes. The 2025 Public Pension Compensation Survey conducted by CBIZ and NCPERS reveals that 57% of public pension funds now report no issues attracting or retaining skilled staff, an increase of nearly 20% since 2022. “The public pension sector’s recent workforce stabilization suggests that intentional compensation planning, enhanced benefits, and flexible work models are proving just as powerful as...

August 2025

US. How 401(K)s Can Perpetuate Wealth Inequality

The 401(k) plan was never meant to become the backbone of U.S. retirement security. When it emerged in the late 1970s and early 1980s, it was pitched as a tax-deferred perk for executives and other white-collar workers.1 But four decades on, 401(k)s dominate private-sector retirement savings offerings, covering two-thirds of workers with access to a plan and holding $9 trillion in assets. Yet their benefits still tilt upward: Higher-income employees, who naturally rely less on their complete paycheck to get...

June 2025

LGBTQ+ Americans Face Retirement Inequities

By Pension Rights Center Pride Month is observed each June to mark the 1969 Stonewall Uprising that sparked the LGBTQ+  rights movement in the United States. Celebrations are centered around building community, recognizing the progress made towards equality, and honoring those who have made that progress possible. But Pride Month is also an opportunity to reflect on the work yet to be done, including the inequities that persist when it comes to the retirement income security of LGBTQ+ older adults. According...

Optimal Income Redistribution

By Pavel Brendler, Eva Carceles-Poveda & Arpad Abraham We study whether a redesign of the social security and income tax-and-transfer systems can deliver significant welfare gains. Our rich quantitative model features both realistic inequality over the life-cycle and the key main channels through which redistributive policies can distort aggregate allocations. We find that there are two distinct ways to achieve significant welfare gains with joint policy reforms. The first prioritizes reducing distortions through a regressive pension system, resulting in higher...

May 2025

Income and Wealth Inequality in the United States: An Update Including the 2022 Wave

By Moritz Kuhn & José-Victor Ríos-Rull We provide a comprehensive overview of earnings, income and wealth inequality based on the 2022 Survey of Consumer Finances from the United States. We document the current state of inequality and its evolution over the last three decades organizing the data along key demographic dimensions including age, education, and marital status. The 2022 data reveal that wealth remains highly concentrated, with the top 1% holding 35% of total wealth down from a peak of...

April 2025

Unequal Inflationary Effects of Tariffs across Socio-Demographic Groups

By Hakan Yilmazkuday This paper investigates the heterogeneous effects of U.S. tariffs on inflation across socio-demographic groups, utilizing a structural vector autoregression model that controls for oil prices, output growth, policy rates, and exchange rates. The aggregate tariff pass-through to inflation is estimated at 0.51, with tariffs accounting for approximately 17% of overall inflation volatility. Disaggregated analysis reveals significant variation, where tariff pass-through ranges from 0.38 to 0.55 across income percentiles, with higher income groups experiencing greater pass-through and a...

March 2025

The Macroeconomy After Tariffs

By Davide Furceri, Swarnali A Hannan, Jonathan D Ostry & Andrew K Rose What does the macroeconomy look like in the aftermath of tariff changes? This study estimates impulse response functions from local projections using a panel of annual data that spans 151 countries from 1963 to 2014. Tariff increases are associated with persistent, economically and statistically significant declines in domestic output and productivity, as well as higher unemployment and inequality, real exchange rate appreciation, and insignificant changes to the...

On International Women’s Day, let’s focus on the gender pension gap

By Ivana Zanardo   Women in the workforce have made significant strides in recent decades: the gender wage gap is shrinking and more women hold a growing share of senior leadership positions at Canadian companies. But as we celebrate International Women’s Day, there’s another gap that should get more attention – the gender pension gap. Despite advancements made in the workplace, according to Stats Canada, women still face an annual income gap of 29 per cent. And what’s more worrisome is that we...