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Text of Testimony of Urban Institute to House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Social Security: 'What Every Worker Needs to Know About an Unreformed Social Security System' (PDF)

"In this testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee Subcommittee on Social Security, Eugene Steuerle, Institute Fellow and Richard B. Fisher Chair at the Urban Institute discusses the fairness, efficiency and adequacy questions that arise almost no matter how much growth Congress maintains in Social Security. In particular he addresses three troubling aspects of an otherwise successful program: unequal justice; middle age retirement; and impact on the young."

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Urban Institute Testimony to House Budget Committee on Promoting Middle-Class Retirement Security: The Importance of Accounting for Inequality in Resources, Burdens, and Risk (PDF)

29 pages. "Social Security is the bedrock of the US income security system.... For many, employer-sponsored retirement plans and Social Security complement one another, but access to such plans is not yet universal, and government subsidies to these plans now mostly go to those who need them least.... Medicare is a vital support for older Americans.... Americans face a significant, unpredictable risk of needing long-term services and supports. For many, this is the largest financial risk in retirement.... Decades of income stagnation and high levels of inequality in health risks have compounded many of these challenges."

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Urban Institute Proposes the 'Healthy America Program'

"[This] proposal builds on components of the Medicare program and the ACA Marketplaces.... The large new Medicare-style marketplace, featuring a public plan and private insurer options, would contain costs by fostering competition among many insurers, capping provider payment rates, and addressing prescription drug pricing. This proposal is less ambitious than a single-payer system ... but it would get close to universal coverage with much lower increases in federal spending and less disruption for people currently enrolled in employer coverage or Medicare."

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Urban Institute Provides Online Public Pension Simulator

"Covering 14 million state and local government employees, public pension plans typically provide lifetime retirement benefits that are based on years of service and the salary earned near the end of a career.... The public pension simulator shows how much state and local government retirees would receive in pension benefits, how much governments will pay for those benefits, and how costs and benefits would change under various pension reforms. Calculations depend on various user-set assumptions."  MORE >>

Urban Institute Testimony on ACA's Impact on Premiums and Provider Networks

"In this testimony before the US House Oversight and Government Reform Committee on the [ACA's] impact on premiums and provider networks, [Urban Institute Fellow Judy] Feder concludes that by filling the gaps in the current financing structure and slowing the growth in health care costs, the ACA has enormous potential to address the flaws in the country's health care system. The biggest barrier Feder sees to realizing the law's potential is the political resistance to the law's implementation."

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Testimony of Urban Institute to Senate Special Committee on Aging: Retirement Income Challenges in the Twenty-First Century (PDF)

"A generation ago most people working at large firms could leave their retirement planning on auto pilot, because their employers guaranteed retirees lifetime income streams based typically on how much they earned near the end of their careers and how long they worked. Today, those traditional defined benefit pension plans have largely been supplanted by 401(k)-type plans ... The evidence suggests that for most Americans 401(k) plans have fallen short so far[.]"  MORE >>

Testimony of Urban Institute Before the House Ways and Means Committee Subcommittee on Social Security

"Reform of the Social Security benefit structure should proceed on the basis of principles and goals related to adequacy, protections in old age, encouragement of work to protect the tax base on which programs like this depend, and equal justice under the law for those equally situated. Many features of current law violate basic principles of public finance without promoting other worthy goals in an effective or well-targeted manner. In his testimony before the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Social Security, Gene Steuerle lays out how to go beyond the types of options put forward by many proposals under consideration to achieve such reform."

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Urban Institute Criticizes Use of Stop-Loss Insurance by Small Employers

"To protect health reform in the event stop-loss insurer attitudes change, the [Urban] Institute touts state laws imposing on stop-loss insurers minimum attachment points of $60,000 to $100,000. Such attachment points may be easily handled by a large employer, but it would put self-funding out of the reach of employers with fewer than 200 employees, which the Institute says would be a good thing."  MORE >>

The Urban Institute's Microsimulation Model for Reinsurance: Model Construction and State-Specific Application (PDF)

12 pages. Excerpt: This report describes the Urban Institute's microsimulation model of reinsurance, which was built to simulate the impacts of various state-specific ways of using state-funded reinsuranceto subsidize primary insurance premiums.

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Fact Sheet: Recent Research Findings on Retirement and Aging from The Urban Institute (PDF)

"Women are much more likely than men to live in poverty at older ages. Under a voluntary system of individual accounts, outcomes would depend on who opts in and who stays out. This fact sheet offers highlights from Urban Institute's recent research findings on retirement and aging, including cites for additional research."  MORE >>

First Tuesday Discussion at the Urban Institute: Working Longer to Make Retirement More Secure (PDF)

"ROBERT REISCHAUER: (In progress) -- Welcome to First Tuesdays at the Urban Institute. Today's topic involves all of those issues that surround the age at which people leave the workforce and retire. There are a lot of forces at work here. There are societal incentives that come in the form of tax policy and Social Security and Medicare policy and the way we structure pensions that effect those decisions. There are personal conditions and circumstances that might involve one's health[.]"  MORE >>

The Urban Institute's Attack on Single Payer: Ridiculous Assumptions Yield Ridiculous Estimates

"To put it bluntly, the estimates are ridiculous. They project outlandish increases in the utilization of medical care, ignore vast savings under single-payer reform, and ignore the extensive and well-documented experience with single-payer systems in other nations -- which all spend far less per person on health care than we do."

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Understanding the Finances of Rural vs. Urban Americans

"Those living in rural areas were more likely to have their assets from businesses ... In contrast, urban individuals held more of their assets in their homes and retirement accounts as well as stocks and mutual funds. Rural Americans were more likely to own their home and a vehicle, while they were less likely to own a retirement account or stocks and mutual funds than were urban Americans."

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Obamacare Enrollees Become Urban Legend

"Nearly two weeks after the federal government launched the online Health Insurance Marketplace at HealthCare.gov, individuals who have successfully used the choked-up website to enroll for a subsidized health insurance plan have reached a status akin to urban legend: Everyone has heard of them, but very few people have actually met one."

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Is Patient Engagement by the Chronically Ill a Solution ... or a Healthcare Urban Legend?

"[This] statistic from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention never fails to shock: the 133-million adults -- or 'nearly 1 in 2' -- with chronic disease account for 75% of spending. Engaging those high utilizers, the story continues, will help bring healthcare spending under control. This storyline is a classic healthcare urban legend."  MORE >>

Testimony of SEC Chairman to Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs: 'Oversight of the SEC'

"The SEC's mission to protect investors, maintain fair, orderly and efficient markets and facilitate capital formation is deeply engrained throughout our offices and divisions.... [O]ur analysis starts and ends with the long-term interests of the Main Street investor; or as I call them, 'Mr. and Ms. 401(k).' At a time when greater responsibility is shifting to Main Street investors to save for their own retirement, I am confident that this is the correct metric for our analysis of success in meeting our tripartite mission. If Mr. and Ms. 401(k) are able to invest in a better future, then the SEC is serving them and our markets well."  MORE >>

Dispelling an Urban Legend: Participant Loans Do Not Result in Double Taxation

"If a plan participant needs a loan and takes a loan from the plan, or from a bank, or from a relative, the loan repayment is always made with after-tax dollars. Please note that loan proceeds are generally not taxable. If the loan repayments to a retirement plan were made with pre-tax dollars, the participant would effectively get TWO tax deductions or tax deferrals for only one distribution that will be taxable."  MORE >>

Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center Says Health Care Tax Benefits Give High-Income Households a Boost

"About 85 percent of people in the top 20 percent of income get a tax cut because of health care-related tax spending ... Only about 12 percent of taxpayers in the bottom quintile have any income tax liability ... And because the income tax is progressive, the exemption is more valuable for taxpayers with higher incomes, because their tax rate is also higher[.]"

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Who Knew? 80% Funding Target for Pension Funds Just An Urban Legend

"People refer to one report or another to substantiate their claim that some presumed experts actually made this assertion (including a GAO report and a Pew Center report that both cite unidentified experts), but nobody actually names these alleged 'sources.'"  MORE >>

Urban Planning, Housing Design, and Work-Family Balance

Excerpt: [The author argues] that effective work-family balance requires attention to the spatial dimensions of the work-family conflict.

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