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Retirement good for your health, study finds
DOES retirement better health, or make it worse? A new study published in The Journal of Human Resources point to the former. “Results indicate that the retirement effect on health is beneficial and significant,” Michael Insler, an assistant professor of economics at…
RETIREMENT PLANNING: Don’t focus on the wrong things
Could you be focusing on the wrong area of your retirement plan? Are you agonizing over your investment portfolio? Do you constantly scrutinize the performance of your mutual funds to see how they stack up to their peers or to…
Addressing the Dangers of Nursing Facilities
Earlier this month, the federal department of Health & Human Services concluded that more than one of every five skilled nursing facility (SNF) patients suffered serious harm from events such as medication errors, falls, or infections in 2011. Half were sent to…
Retirement Roadblocks: Are They All in Your Head?
Economists, journalists, and financial-services companies love to pile on the subject of why most Americans aren’t saving enough for retirement. But aside from the issue of not having enough disposable income to save, what if retirement saving is a behavioral issue. We can…
Fellow baby boomers, we have a job to do: Entitlement reform
My baby boom generation has always dreamed of transforming society. In callow youth, we felt a calling to bring a more enlightened consciousness to America. That epic self-confidence has faded for many of us. And yet, the longing to do something…
U.S. Supreme Court examines bright-line mental disability rule
In 2002, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that executing a mentally disabled (formerly referred to as mentally retarded) person violated the Eighth Amendment’s ban against cruel and unusual punishment. In a case known as Atkins v. Virginia, the Supreme Court…
What the Social Security COLA means to seniors
Despite a narrow brush with a new reduction to Social Security benefits, seniors will not see the proposed move to a more conservative cost-of-living adjustment, or COLA, in 2014. President Barack Obama’s announcement on Feb. 2 that he was scrapping the…
The millennials come of age
The sheer number of millennials — about 80 million — makes then a significant force in the U.S. economy. But many of them have trouble accurately answering basic personal finance questions, spend more than they make and are worried about…
Retirement Quiz: The Basics
It’s quiz time! I’ve designed this one to cover some of the basics, with relatively new federal employees in mind. But midcareer and pre-retirement age federal employees may also find they have a few things to learn. 1. There is no…
A 2014 GOP Election Model
Republicans celebrating this week’s victory in a Florida special House election are right to take the race as proof that they’ve got a potent midterm weapon in ObamaCare. Those looking to mimic the model this fall would be even wiser…