Sources of Data on Pension Policy

A pension is an established amount of monetary compensation paid to a retired person on a regular basis by their former employer or by a government.

A policy is an announced way of explaining how or why an organization will follow a specific course in regards to an issue.

Pension Policy is then an announced plan by a government or private organization on how and why they will compensate their retired employees or retired population.

The data sources I found mainly dealt with the United States� Social Security policy and proposed reform of the current program. I found a few sites that dealt with private pension policy, several government sites from both the US and the UK, as well as many non-partisan organizations, educational sites, and a few admittedly progressive or conservative Think Tanks.

I did not include the UK sites in my review, but some of the links below provide links to international pension policy data sources.

The sites are ordered by tupe of site and in the order of what I considered most helpful to less helpful. I omitted dozens of other sites in order to keep this a useable list. There are links listed below that provide links to multiple other sites if you are interested in more sites on this topic.

US Government Pension Policy Data Links

Social Security Online: The Official Website of the U.S. Social Security Administration. This site provides the most comprehensive data on US Pension Policy. There is a lot of data on the main home page, but it is generally user-friendly. There is information here for social security customers, the casual visitor who wants to know more about the system, as well as researchers looking for past data, modeling projections, studies, briefings, and reports.

There are two sub links that should be emphasized:

1) Actuarial Resources, History, Research, & Data

and

2) Office of Policy This policy site has two additional links with several data sources.

• Policy Research. This site provides research and analysis of current policy and the user can sort by subject, date, alphabet, and type with results in HTML or PDF files. There are 24 subject areas. The �Demographics� link allows further breakdown of data by race, sex, age, military service, ..etc. The �Reform of Social Security� link is broken down into domestic US issues and international case studies. �Modeling� includes policy briefings that summarize the results of modeling in social security research. For example, one modeling program projected what would occur if nothing was done to strengthen social security. Another projected the income of future retirees.

• Policy Data. This link provides information on seven specific areas including, �Geographic Information� which highlights pension policies on the international and local scenes, �Disability�, and datasets available on �Medicare Respondents� and �Disabled Respondents�. The �Datasets, Linkages, Quality, and Evaluation� link provides datasets from successive New Beneficiary Surveys from 1982 and 1991.

Congressional Budget Office Social Security Publications, provides an analysis of social security and its future. This link provides a full report on the state of social security and projections for social security for the next 100 years, based on current law. The report is relatively recent, from 2004. The CBO report makes no recommendations, but all data is available for analysis.

Non-Partisan Policy and Research Sites

DMOZ Open Directory Project. This site provides a comprehensive listing of many organizational websites and articles related to social security research and reform. Each link is provided with a helpful description of the website. The DMOZ site is similar to Wikipedia in that on-line volunteer editors provide the analysis of which websites have the best information about the subject.

Private Pension Policies in Industrialized Countries: A Comparative Analysis. This site provides what the title describes, but it also lists the data used for this analysis including �Social Security Expenditures as a Percentage of Gross Domestic Product in Selected Countries from 1960-1985� and �Old-Age Dependency Ratio in Selected Countries, [for] 1990, 2010, and 2025�.

The American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) Policy and Research site also provides various several sources of information on social security policy and research. While this is a non-partisan organization providing data and reports that are very informational, keep in mind that this is also a very powerful lobby group and that the data presented may be slanted to strengthen their lobby efforts.

The Concord Coalition is another non-partisan organization, founded by two US Senators. The data provided by this site includes testimony before Congress, data charts, reports, public statements, briefings on social security research/reports, essays, and an overview of the current problems with social security and reform options.

Wex: Social Security is a web resource offered by the Cornell Univeristy Legal Information Institute. While there is no specific data on social security provided, this site provides information on social security law.

The Social Security Reform Center resources page provides links to a variety of publications, additional web links, and a list of subject matter experts with contact information. The publications list covers topics ranging from �Comparative Systems�, Women and Minorities and Social Security�, Reform Options�, and �Generational Equity�. Most of these are papers, reports, and essays by the subject matter experts, but I think this could be useful for gathering information on international pension systems, and learning about some of the issues concerning pensions. The contact information (with names, addresses, and phone numbers) for the subject matter experts could be very helpful for anyone seeking additional information about the ideas presented in the essays themselves.

Political, Partisan (Self-labeled �Conservative� or �Progressive�) Sites

The US White House site called Strengthening Social Security presents President Bush�s plan for Social Security reform. While there is little data on the site, it is a good informational page for a brief outline of the President�s proposed solution to social security.

The President�s Commission to Strengthen Social Security provides more detail on the President�s proposal and includes data from reports, congressional testimony, and public hearings on social security reform.

The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think-tank provides The Top Ten Myths About Social Security Reform, an analysis of personal retirement accounts.

American Prospect Online, provides a series of essays on Social Security that they call �progressive articles disagreeing with the Bush privatization plan and offering alternative visions for social security reform.