Using over two decades of Survey of Consumer Finances data and a pseudo-panel technique, we measure the impact of the Great Recession on US family wealth relative to the counterfactual of what wealth would have been given wealth accumulation trajectories. Our synthetic cohort-level models find that the Great Recession reduced average family wealth by 28.5 percent-nearly double the magnitude of previous pre-post mean descriptive estimates and double the magnitude of any previous recession since the 1980s. The housing market was only part of the story; all major wealth components fell as a result of the Great Recession.

Employers are beginning to search for ways to elicit more labor supply from older adults as the population ages, the ability to work in later life increases, and younger workers become relatively scarce. Many employers are turning to hybrid pension plans, such as cash balance plans and pension equity plans. Whereas traditional defined benefit plans often subsidize workers who retire early and penalize those who remain at work beyond the plan's retirement age, most hybrid plans reward work at older ages. This paper documents the impact of population aging on the labor market and changes over time in work capacity at older ages. It then shows how movement toward hybrid pension plans, among other types of private and public retirement plan reforms and redesigns, can be used to increase work incentives for older adults.

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