Blog: Retirement Insecurity

While Teach for America teachers are working to close the achievement gap, most are also losing out on core retirement benefits like a pension and/or Social Security, creating a gap in retirement security.

It's possible to design a 401(k)-style retirement plan that supports workers in meeting their retirement savings needs.

Neither The New York Times nor teachers union leaders discuss how individuals lose out under current pension systems.

A new Urban Institute brief suggests the vast majority of teachers will leave the profession with less than their own contributions.

Last week I presented our work on teacher pensions at the Education Writer’s Association (EWA) 67th national seminar.

Federal and state leaders have recently proposed a variety of solutions intended to address the need for greater retirement security.

Many teachers get worse benefits than those offered in the private sector.

A new paper looks at pension changes adopted by states during the recent recession and finds that new teachers face significant penalties based solely on the day they were hired.

Randi Weingarten, the President of the American Federation of Teachers, used her monthly paid advertisement in The New York Times to talk about retirement, but she didn't use the opportunity to call for better benefits for public school teachers.

School administrators should warn all new teachers about the significant savings penalty they face because of high mobility rates and long service requirements to qualify for a pension.