• The Future of Social Security
• How Social Security Figures Your Retirement Benefits
• More than a Retirement Income: Disability and Death Benefits
• Estimating Your Retirement Benefits
• How Tests and Taxes Affect Your Income

• Insurance's Role in Your Financial Plan
• The Value of Life Insurance
• Why You Need Disability Insurance
• The New Health Care Paradigm
• The Benefits of Medicare
• Filling the Gap with Medigap Insurance
• The Realities of Long-Term Care

• Pension and Health Benefits for Workers in Higher Education (December 1996)
• Real Bonds and Inflation Protection for Retirement (March 1996)
• Longevity's Gift: A Second Middle Age (October 1995)
• Planning for Retirement -- The Age of Individual Responsibility (July 1995)
• Pension Design in the Post-Mandatory Retirement Era (May 1994)
• Implications of Demographic Change for the Design of Retirement Programs (February 1994)

The critical decision an employee makes on receipt of a lump-sum distribution (LSD) is whether to roll over the distribution to another tax-qualified retirement savings vehicle or to cash out the distribution for current consumption. In order to be an effective mechanism for preserving retirement income, LSDs must remain as retirement assets. This Issue Brief examines trends in LSD availability, utilization, and magnitude.

The report of the 1994-1996 Advisory Council on Social Security settled one thing: we stand at a crossroads in deciding the future of the nation's retirement system.

But we are ill-prepared to choose which path to take. The options proposed by different factions of the divided council--large-scale government investment in the stock market, a new mandatory savings plan for individuals, or partial "privatization" of the current system--would lead us in profoundly different directions. Yet we understand only vaguely the impact each would have on our retirement security, social relationships, and economy.