October 2021

Pension, health costs to dwarf COVID debt legacy in long term -OECD

The costs of repaying debt raised to help households and businesses through the COVID-19 crisis will be dwarfed by those from long-term trends like funding pensions and health services as societies age, the OECD said in a report on Tuesday. Read also  Canada. Uber drivers, gig workers pressure Ontario government for employee status Examining the economic outlook out to 2060, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development said governments will increasingly have to contend with the costs associated with aging populations...

September 2021

The Government Debt Iceberg

By Jagadeesh Gokhale Europe and the United States will soon begin to encounter fiscal constraints the like of which we have never seen before. Federal debt as a percentage of GDP more than doubled between 2000 and 2012. According to the US Congressional Budget Office, total national debt is expected to remain close to 100 per cent of GDP during the next decade and begin to increase thereafter as the baby-boomers fully enter retirement. · Debt levels in European Union countries...

June 2021

How Does Social Security Reform Indecision Affect Younger Cohorts?

By John B. Shoven, Sita Slavov, John G. Watson The Social Security trust fund will be exhausted in the early 2030s. The U.S. government will need to make a choice about how to address the impending trust fund exhaustion, but it is unclear what it will choose to do. This indecision leaves young and middle-aged workers not knowing whether they will face Social Security benefit cuts, payroll tax increases, or an increase in the full retirement age. This uncertainty about...