February 2025
13Feb

India. Atal Pen­sion Yojana enrol­ments grow 29% annu­ally since 2019

The Centre’s ambi­tious Atal Pen­sion Yojana (APY), launched in 2015 to provide uni­ver­sal social secur­ity to India’s unor­gan­ised work­force, has wit­nessed a remark­able surge in enrol­ments, with five States alone account­ing for nearly half of the total sub­scribers. FOCUS. Accord­ing to the latest data presen­ted in the Lok Sabha, Uttar Pra­desh leads with 16.11 per cent of total enrol­ments, fol­lowed by Bihar (9.59 per cent), Maha­rashtra (7.96 per cent), West Bengal (7.68 per cent), and Tamil Nadu (6.69 per cent). Com­bined,...

February 13, 2025
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January 2025
17Jan

Designing Benefits for Platform Workers

By Jonathan Gruber Designing benefits for the growing platform workforce in the U.S. poses significant challenges. While platform workers need protection against unforeseen shocks, work that is often part time and spread across multiple platforms makes the traditional benefits model untenable. This paper reports the results from a survey of drivers and couriers working with Uber to help understand their benefits preferences. We find that there is a wide diversity across these workers in platform earnings, the share of platform...

January 17, 2025
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13Jan

PensionBee Launches New Climate Plan to Help Customers Invest in Line With the Paris Agreement Goals

PensionBee, a leader in the consumer retirement market, has launched its new Climate Plan that sets a clear standard for climate-focused pensions. This plan not only excludes fossil fuel producers but also commits to continually reducing the total intensity of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions produced by companies in the plan by 10% annually. So, even if the global economy uses more carbon over time, the Climate Plan will move in the opposite direction, always using less. Building on the success of...

January 13, 2025
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10Jan

Collective Bargaining, Unions, and the Wage Structure: An International Perspective

By Simon Jäger, Suresh Naidu & Benjamin Schoefer In this paper, we assess the recent economics literature on collective bargaining. Despite a declining trend in the OECD in coverage and especially union membership, a large share of formal workers around the world are still covered by collective bargaining agreements. We describe the substantial institutional variation across a variety of countries, highlighting research done with modern research designs and recently available administrative datasets. We then estimate a canonical empirical model of individual-level coverage effects...

January 10, 2025
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09Jan

Why millions of young Chinese are refusing to make pension payments

China’s pension system is in danger of running out of cash within a decade due to severe underfunding. Now it faces a new threat: Tens of millions of mostly young workers are refusing to pay into it. On today’s Big Take Asia Podcast, host K. Oanh Ha talks to Bloomberg’s Qianwei Zhang about why workers are boycotting the system and what’s at stake for the struggling economy and the Communist Party. Here is a lightly edited transcript of the conversation: Gao Pengcheng...

January 9, 2025
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December 2024
23Dec

Here’s What Retirement on a Pension Looks Like in America

The pursuit of happiness in retirement is a lot easier with a pension. Retirees with regular paychecks report higher levels of satisfaction than those who rely on 401(k)s to supplement their Social Security, studies have shown. The security of a lifelong income is a source of comfort and happiness, those with pensions say. While 401(k)s can generate more wealth, retirees say navigating all the investing, tax and withdrawal strategies can add to their stress when they are trying to lower it. Pensions do have drawbacks....

December 23, 2024
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17Dec

Should the U.S. Government Create a Nationwide Retirement Savings Plan?

Proposed legislation suggests that the U.S. government is interested in creating a federally sponsored retirement savings program. Under the Retirement Savings for Americans Act, private-sector employees without access to employer-sponsored savings options would automatically be enrolled in the program. Other proposals would also provide for matching contributions for lower- and middle-income employees. We asked two professors and authors of ALM’s Tax Facts with opposing political viewpoints to share their opinions about whether the United States should create a nationwide retirement savings plan at...

December 17, 2024
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13Dec

Do Pensions Enhance Worker Effort and Selection? Evidence from Public Schools

By Michael Bates & Andrew C. Johnston Why do employers offer pensions? We empirically examine two theoretical rationales, namely that pensions improve worker effort and worker selection. We test these hypotheses using rich administrative measures on effort and output for teachers around the pension-eligibility notch. When workers cross the notch, their effective compensation falls by roughly 50 percent of salary, but we observe no reduction in worker effort or output. This implies that pension payments do not increase effort. As for selection, we find...

December 13, 2024
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13Dec

China Expands Private Pensions Nationwide Despite Challenges

China is expanding its private pension fund pilot program nationwide to address retirement payout strains. The limitations of the experiment are already on display. Disappointing fund performance and a lack of investor interest are just some of the difficulties that private pension funds have encountered after China rolled out the program in 36 cities since 2022. The program allows workers to contribute as much as 12,000 yuan ($1,650) to tax-sheltered accounts similar to Individual Retirement Accounts in the US. It was...

December 13, 2024
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12Dec

Just 19% of UK savers have factored getting a serious illness in to their retirement plan

Just a fifth of UK savers (19%) have fully considered getting a serious illness in their retirement plan, according to research by consultancy Barnett Waddingham. Its At retirement reckoning report, which surveyed more than 5,000 UK employees, also found that 25% of respondents under the age of 50 have prepared for this possibility, compared to just 16% of those aged over 50. Two-fifths (43%) of this older age group have thought about it but not included it in their retirement planning, and 32%...

December 12, 2024
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