Retirement plans can create strong financial incentives that have important labor market implications, and many states have adopted alternative plan designs that significantly change these incentives. The authors use longitudinal data to investigate the impact of Washington State's 1996 introduction of a hybrid retirement plan on late-career…

In the context of threats to their financial sustainability, this paper uses Resource Dependency Theory to explore the challenges being faced by a sample of 10 small new public universities in England. It discusses the responses being taken and prospects for the future in this segment of the sector. It concludes that some of the most important…

This study examined the association between financial literacy and the decision to withdraw funds from different types of retirement accounts before retirement. Data from the 2012 and 2015 National Financial Capability Study were used to investigate if financial literacy may potentially influence the decision to dissave from funds already set…

Teachers in Puerto Rico are more than just educators--they serve as mentors and guides and play a significant role in shaping their students' lives as they lead them towards transformative changes. As teachers consider transitioning from their jobs to other objectives outside the academic field, they must prioritize their students' best interests.…

Teacher vacancies have been a long-standing issue in U.S. public schools, only made worse by the COVID-19 pandemic. Vacancies tend to be concentrated in high-poverty, high-minority schools and hard-to-staff subjects like special education and STEM. States have implemented various policies to decrease turnover, including offering teachers bonuses…

How much do teachers value compensation deferred for retirement (CDR)? This question is important because the vast majority of public school teachers are covered by defined benefit pension plans that "backload" a large share of compensation to retirement relative to the compensation structure in the private sector, and there is scant…

This qualitative study examines the perceptions of current and former instrumental music educators regarding the reasons behind music teachers leaving the profession. The study aims to provide evidence to better understand these issues and their implications for educational leadership. By conducting semi-structured interviews with seven former…

Retirement benefits are integral to teacher compensation; yet, most pension plans are designed to reward teachers who remain in a system for a full career while levying substantial penalties on those who do not. Even teachers who devote their lives to the profession but do not stay in a single system for their entire careers are not served well by…

Direct support professionals (DSPs) provide a range of supports in a variety of settings to people with intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD) who count on these supports to live, work, and contribute in their communities. Despite this, high annual DSP turnover rates are problematic. DSP turnover is disruptive to people who receive…

The ongoing crisis in teacher pension funding has led states to consider various reforms in plan design to replace the traditional benefit formulas, based on years of service and final average salary (FAS). One such design is a cash balance (CB) plan, long deployed in the private sector, and increasingly considered, but rarely yet adopted, for…

Defined benefit (DB) pension plans incentivize "salary spiking," where sharp increases in pay are leveraged into significantly higher levels of retirement compensation. While egregious instances of salary spiking occasionally make headlines, there is little guidance on the definition of salary-spiking behavior or understanding of its…

Adequately saving for retirement requires both planning and knowledge about available retirement savings options. Teachers participate in a complex set of different plan designs and benefit tiers, and many do not participate in Social Security. While teachers represent a large part of the public workforce, relatively little is known regarding…

The University and College Union (UCU) has been in dispute with 69 universities over the latest valuation of the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS) -- the largest private sector pension scheme in the UK. Over 50,000 members of staff were balloted for strike action by UCU in opposition to the outcome of the 2018 valuation, which determined…

How are teacher pension benefits funded? Under traditional plans, the full cost of career teachers' benefits far exceeds the contributions designated for them. The gap between the two has three pieces, which may (with some license) be mnemonically tagged the three R's of pension funding: "redistribution," "return," and…

The COVID-related financial market decline and economic recession have raised new concerns regarding the financial sustainability of retirement plans for state and local government employees, the largest group of whom is public school teachers. Using data from the Public Plans Database and the National Income and Product Accounts, I analyze…