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The Social Security Statement is sent annually to each individual over age 25. The Statement contains information regarding the Social Security program, the individual's past covered earnings and contributions, and an estimate of the individual's future retirement benefits. Given the complexity of the Social Security benefit formula, the Statement represents the best and perhaps only estimate of the benefits to which an individual may be entitled. Knowledge of benefits is important, as individuals must plan their own retirement saving around their Social Security benefits.

This report describes several linked empirical studies that examine the activities of public libraries in increasing the financial literacy of their service population. It describes a qualitative field study of librarians’ perceptions of the challenges in offering financial literacy-based information and services, and a parallel study of the perceptions of six “partners” – or outside organizations or individuals - that work with libraries to offer programs and services.

Abstract: American parents, teachers, and policymakers generally express strong support for personal financial education for high school students, despite a need for further research to determine if such education is effective in improving long-term decision-making capabilities. However, research in related fields such as child development and behavioral economics suggests that personal financial learning begins at an early age and encompasses a broad array of general decision-making skills rather than just narrowly financial topics.

This paper presents a dynamic model of the decision to pursue a college education in which students face uncertainty about their future income stream after graduation due to unobserved heterogeneity in their innate scholastic ability. After students matriculate and start taking exams, they reevaluate their expectations about succeeding in college and may find it optimal to drop out and join the workforce without completing an undergraduate degree.

This letter provides additional information about federal financial literacy activities that were addressed in two reports to Congress issued in March 2011, Opportunities to Reduce Potential Duplication in Government Programs, Save Tax Dollars, and Enhance Revenue and List of Selected Federal Programs That Have Similar or Overlapping Objectives, Provide Similar Services, or Are Fragmented Across Government Missions.

This testimony discusses the Social Security Administration's decision to suspend mailings of the Social Security statement in March 2011 and preparations to take the Statement online. GAO examined (1) the current status of the statement and (2) ways SSA plans to improve the usefulness of the statement.

This paper examines whether rising house prices immediately prior to children entering their college years impacts their intergenerational earnings mobility and/or educational outcomes. Higher house prices provide homeowners, especially liquidity constrained ones, with additional funding to invest in their children's human capital. The results show that a 1 percentage point increase in house prices, when children are 17-years-old, results in roughly 0.8 percent higher annual income for the children of homeowners, and 1.2 percent lower annual income for the children of renters.

Abstract: We study the trend in household income uncertainty using a novel approach that measures income uncertainty as the variance of forecast errors at each future horizon separately without imposing parametric restrictions on the underlying income shocks. We find that household income uncertainty has risen significantly and persistently since the early 1970s. For example, our measure of near-future uncertainty in total family non-capital income rose about 40 percent between 1971 and 2002.

Eligible participants in the U.S. Social Security system may claim benefits anytime from age 62-70, with benefit levels actuarially adjusted based on the claiming age. This paper shows that individual intentions with regard to Social Security claiming ages are sensitive to how the early versus late claiming decision is framed. Using an experimental design, the authors find that the use of a "break-even analysis" has the very strong effect of encouraging individuals to claim early.

This testimony discusses (1) the state of the federal government’s approach to financial literacy, (2) observations on overall strategies for addressing financial literacy, and (3) the role GAO can play in addressing and raising awareness on this issue. This testimony is based largely on prior and ongoing work, for which GAO conducted a literature review; interviewed representatives of organizations that address financial literacy within the federal, state, private, nonprofit, and academic sectors; and reviewed materials of the Financial Literacy and Education Commission.