• EBRI Issue Brief – March 2010

    The 2010 Retirement Confidence Survey: Confidence Stabilizing, But Preparations Continue to Erode

    Americans’ confidence in their ability to retire appears to be stabilizing, now that the economic volatility of the recession has abated, but their self-described preparations for retirement continue to erode, according to the 2010 Retirement Confidence Survey (RCS) released by EBRI and Mathew Greenwald and Associates. However, the RCS also finds that a growing number of American workers are also planning to delay retirement—which has negative implications for the U.S. job market, where unemployment is high and layoffs continue to grow. As older workers stay at their jobs longer, the RCS results suggest that fewer existing jobs are likely to open up. Press release

  • EBRI Issue Brief – February 2010

    Employers, Workers, and the Future of Employment-Based Health Benefits

    Since the vast majority of Americans who have health coverage get it through their jobs, one obvious question raised by the health reform legislation pending in Congress is: How might it affect the U.S. employment-based health benefits system? At a recent day-long conference sponsored by EBRI, more than a dozen experts from a wide range of specialties found consensus on one point: Imposing a tax on health benefits (such as the proposed tax on so-called “Cadillac” health plans) is likely to cause major cuts in health benefits and might result in structural changes in the employment-based benefits system. Press release