is to produce first-class research and forge a strong link between the academic community and decision-makers in the public and private sectors around an issue of critical importance to the nation's future. To achieve this mission, the Center sponsors a wide variety of research projects, transmits new findings to a broad audience, trains new scholars, and broadens access to valuable data sources.

is to produce first-class research and forge a strong link between the academic community and decision-makers in the public and private sectors around an issue of critical importance to the nation's future. To achieve this mission, the Center sponsors a wide variety of research projects, transmits new findings to a broad audience, trains new scholars, and broadens access to valuable data sources.

The policy option of extending mandatory Social Security coverage to newly hired uncovered state and local workers is often included in packages to eliminate the program's financing shortfall. The arguments for mandatory coverage go beyond financial considerations, though, as extending coverage would bring benefit protections that state and local workers currently lack and would improve equity by more broadly sharing the burden of Social Security's legacy costs. The main argument against mandatory coverage is that it would raise costs to public employers and workers. The actual cost increase depends on the extent to which employers reduce their existing pensions when adopting Social Security. This paper estimates the costs under four different integration strategies: 1) no adjustment to existing pensions; 2) match the level of the first-year benefit; 3) match the lifetime benefit; and 4) match the benefit to levels in neighboring states with Social Security coverage. This analysis is conducted for 22 state-administered plans in 13 states that were identified as lacking coverage. The results show that the cost of adding Social Security varies significantly, with the smallest increase for the "match lifetime benefit" option and the largest increase for the "no adjustment" option.Presenting the additional costs as a percent of payroll may exaggerate their burden on the employer as the increases will likely be split between employer and employee. Perhaps a better way to gauge the size of the cost increase is as a share of a state's budget; this measure shows only a very modest impact.

While life insurance purchase decisions have long been studied, we still do not know how people decide if they need insurance or how much they need. Using in‐depth interviews, we peer into the black box of employee decision making to learn what people know about this employee benefit, and how they decide if it is of value for them. We find that individuals understand the need for life insurance, but find many behavioral economic barriers to getting adequate coverage, including mental accounting, money illusion, and a strong role of defaults. We then conduct an online experiment of the hypothetical employee‐benefit purchase scenario, and find a few, simple interventions could help individuals better decide their life insurance needs.

Social Security's Representative Payee Program faces a difficult balance with respect to dementia: Many people living with dementia can conduct their finances without a payee if they have help from informal caregivers, but those without help are at risk. To date, it has been unclear what share of retirees with dementia use a payee, what share has help potentially available from another source, and what share has no observed means of assistance. This study finds that while fewer than 10% of retirees with dementia use a payee, only about 8% have no observed means of help.