Increasing the Social Security earliest eligibility age, while of small importance to Social Security's finances, could significantly increase retirement incomes while boosting the economy and federal tax revenues. Some individuals could not work longer due to poor health, but the health status of older Americans has improved significantly while the physical demands of work have declined.

Partly as a result of increasing international trade, food is more affordable than any time in U.S. history, when measured as a share of disposable income.

It's no secret that state and local governments are currently experiencing substantial revenue declines. One popular explanation is that deteriorating local real estate conditions are responsible for a portion of that decline, but it turns out that this explanation is not the main cause, at least not yet.

In the accompanying guide, which we're providing to you at no cost as a public service, the item on the left should be considered to be unhealthy since it's subject to  tax on candy, while the item on the right should be considered to be a healthy alternative, because it isn't subject to tax on candy.

How much does the federal government subsidize the cost of college in the United States?That's the subject of today's chart, where we've taken historical data from the White House's proposed budget for Fiscal Year 2011 and plotted it over time. The chart below shows both nominal and inflation-adjusted figures for all federal outlays for higher education since 1962, with projected values through 2014.

Law schools thus responded to the worst recession in the legal market in at least two decades by letting in more law students.

House prices have fallen approximately 30% from their peak in 2006, accompanied by a level of defaults and foreclosures without precedent in the post-World War II era.In general, the rational default point is below the "underwater" point where house price equals the remaining loan balance, and depends on prospects for future house price appreciation and borrower default costs.

The nation’s economic woes boil down to this. Compared with a healthy economy, about 7 million working-age people and 5 percent of the nation’s industrial capacity are sitting idle, not producing what they could. The economy is growing again, but at a rate — less than 2 percent in recent months — that’s too slow to keep up with a population that keeps increasing... More

Pension funds have to make assumptions about the returns that they expect over long horizons. These assumptions then form the basis for how much money the fund should invest. If the fund is run by a state, these assumptions then directly impact the state budget.Set assumptions too low and you have to raise taxes or cut current expenditures in other areas of state government. Set it too high and you end up with an ... More

For many countries the rate of growth in the medium-term outlook is significantly slower than the rate recorded in the period before the financial crisis.

The unemployment rate for  ’middle-educated’ workers–people with some college or an associate degree–hit a new high of 9.1% in September. That’s up from 8.2% in June, and the highest unemployment rate since this data started being collected 20 years ago.  This is not the result of an improving labor market drawing in more willing workers who were sitting on the sideline.... More

It's encouraging that private companies like CVS are pursuing market-based solutions to health care by investing in retail clinics that provide convenient health care 7 days a week, with affordable, transparent low prices.     

You may not have thought about it this way before, but your reluctance to hop on the latest technological trends may well have put you on the path toward becoming a technological dinosaur, doomed to have time and opportunities pass you by as those who embrace the newest and latest leave you behind on your evolutionary dead end. Or in other words, when you will truly have become old.

I think we can agree that we would like our society to have a property-owning democratic citizenry, which includes widespread home ownership. But the international perspective makes it clear that many countries achieve home ownership levels as high or higher than ours with no government-sponsored enterprises. It turns out that these levels can be achieved without tax deductions for the interest paid on home mortgages,... More

Manufacturing worker productivity has doubled in the last 17 years since 1993, and that has contributed to the loss of more than 11 millions jobs.

The White House is calling a new job training program Skills for America's Future. The complication is, that lack of skills is not the problem for the 66% of the labor force aged 25 years and over without a bachelor's degree. The problem is the lack of jobs.

There is significantly greater income inequality in the NFL than in the general U.S. population, with 62.4 percent of team payrolls going to the top fifth of NFL players in 2009, compared to 50.3 percent of total national income going the top quintile of American households. And while the share of income going to the top 20 percent of U.S. households has been constant for more than a decade, ... More