Report: Louisiana's poor pay higher tax rate than the rich ... - The Lens

Jindal

The poor in Louisiana pay twice as much of their income in state and local taxes as do the rich, a new study shows.

The report, released Wednesday by the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a liberal, Washington, D.C.-based group, will likely raise more questions about Gov. Bobby Jindal?s plan to eliminate income and corporate taxes and replace them with additional sales taxes. That plan is already facing criticism that it would hit the poor hardest.

Though virtually all states tax the poor at higher rates than the wealthy, the disparity in Louisiana makes for one of the most regressive tax systems in the country, the report found. A regressive tax structure results in the poor paying a higher percentage of their income than do middle-class residents and the rich. The Jindal plan seems likely to make Louisiana even more regressive because of its mounting reliance on sales taxes, an impost that falls most heavily on the poor.

?It is a standard finding in the public finance literature that the sales tax is the most regressive, the income tax the most progressive and the property tax falls in between,? said Steven Sheffrin, a Tulane economics professor who is director of the university?s Murphy Institute.

The 20 percent poorest of non-elderly families in Louisiana paid 10.6 percent of their family?s income in state and local taxes while the richest 1 percent paid 4.6 percent, the ITEP study found.

?The study says we already have a regressive system in Louisiana,? said Jan Moller, director of the Louisiana Budget Project, a liberal Baton Rouge-based research and advocacy group. Under the Jindal plan, ?it would get worse. The only question is how much worse. You can make a bad plan somewhat better, but that doesn?t solve the problem.?

Tim Barfield, executive counsel to Jindal?s Revenue Department, has said the governor plans to expand the Earned Income Tax Credit for the poor to offset the higher sales taxes. The credit amounts to a negative tax rate for low-income residents.

About 70 days before the Legislature convenes on April 8, Jindal, ?has yet to reveal details of his plan to Louisiana taxpayers. He has been busy speaking to Republican groups around the country.

Eliminating income and corporate taxes would cost the state about $3 billion a year, state figures show. To offset the lost revenue?which Jindal says he intends to do?he is expected to favor raising ?the state sales tax and imposing taxes on some activities and purchases that are currently exempt. His aides have said, however, that Jindal won?t touch the exemptions on groceries, prescription drugs and home utility bills.

Jindal and Barfield have indicated that they want to focus not on whose taxes will be lowered or raised but on how the plan will spur investment and job creation in Louisiana.

Greg Albrecht, the chief economist for the non-partisan Legislative Fiscal Office, published a commentary Wednesday that questions how much extra tax revenue the Jindal plan might produce.

The ?macroeconomic effects of such a tax swap are likely to be small, if they exist at all,? Albrecht wrote. ?States in general do not really have macroeconomic policy?capability. States cannot manipulate the money supply or interests rates, and have to balance their budgets annually. Elimination of income taxes will increase disposable income, but the spending of total disposable income will be subject to higher taxation.?

The Jindal administration responded to the report Wednesday evening with a written statement:

We have a fundamental philosophical disagreement with ITEP about how to help the poor and improve job opportunities for all Louisianans. Contrary to ITEP?s definition of fairness, we believe that the less money the government takes from people?s incomes, the better.

The best way to alleviate poverty is to create jobs, and the way to create jobs is by structuring a tax code that is fairer and simpler so that Louisiana can continue to foster an environment where businesses want to invest and create job opportunities for all of Louisiana?s citizens. Study after study has shown that companies move to places where taxes are lower, and job creation is the only sustainable way to combat systemic poverty.

The ITEP study overall found that virtually every state taxes the poor at higher rates than the wealthy. The states with the 10 most regressive tax systems include Texas and Florida, which don?t have income taxes and rely on sales taxes for their revenue. Jindal has said he wants to model Louisiana?s tax system on those two states.

Source: http://thelensnola.org/2013/01/30/report-louisianas-poor-pay-higher-tax-rate-than-the-rich/

lana del rey john 3 16 alex smith 49ers miss america 2012 hgtv dream home patriots vs broncos contraband

Proximity beats ratings in DPS school choice | EdNewsColorado

Proximity to schools matters more than the school district?s rating system when families choose schools in Denver.

Image from the school choice page on the DPS website

That?s among the findings of two recently released reports, conclusions that could spark debate about some of the assumptions education reformers have about school choice.

?Almost every family we talked to ? even though they are getting through SchoolChoice, they were not accessing any of these beautiful tools that have been created,? said?Mike Kromrey, executive director of Together Colorado, which conducted a small study focused on low-income Latino families in Denver. ?A?lot of money has been poured into creating some pretty nice tools, but what we have learned is that we? have a lot of work to do.?

The report SchoolChoice: How Parents Chose Schools in 2012 examined the new one-stop open enrollment application rolled out in Denver Public Schools and used for the first time last year.

The online application allows families to rank their top five school choices and then matches them with a compatible school based on capacity, availability, neighborhood preference and other factors.

Last year, the application included three optional questions about the most important factor in choosing a school, useful choice resources and additional information that would have helped.

The Donnell-Kay Foundation and the Piton Foundation partnered with the University of Colorado Denver?s Buechner Institute of Governance to analyze responses to those questions. Of the 23,154 forms completed, about half included an answer to at least one of the three questions. Here are the findings:

• Fewer than a quarter of the respondents listed Denver?s School Performance Framework (SPF), which documents student academic growth and school status, as an important factor in a choice decision.
• Nearly half of respondents said the most important reason for selecting a school was location close to home, work or family.
• Just under a third of parents indicated that a special program or a school?s focus was an important reason.
• Parents of Hispanic students were almost twice as likely (59 percent) to cite location as an important factor as parents of white students (32 percent).
• Parents of students eligible for free- or reduced-price lunches were twice as likely to endorse school ratings as an important reason in selecting their school, compared to parents whose students do not qualify.
• When asked which resource provided parents the most useful information, about one third of all respondents cited teachers or administrators at the school. The other most popular resources listed were information from other parents (30 percent) and the SchoolChoice enrollment guide (28 percent).
• Parents of black and Hispanic students were most likely to respond that the SchoolChoice enrollment guide was their top resource (35 percent and 37 percent, respectively), while parents of white students were most likely to respond that other parents were the best resource (35 percent).

?A lot of families ? especially families living in poverty ? are still choosing schools more based on location than the School Performance Framework,? said Rebecca Kisner, a Donnell-Kay Foundation fellow and community engagement coordinator at Denver?s Rocky Mountain Prep.

Chart from Buechner Institute of Governance report. (Click to enlarge)

Kisner said when she and her team presented the results to local school reform groups ?people felt like the number of families choosing (schools) based on the SPF was better than it has been but still certainly not as high as we?d like it to be.?

Interestingly, when families were asked what resource they would have wanted but didn?t have, they said information about academic performance. So, there seems to be a disconnect between parents and the SPF, with parents not understanding that the framework reflects academic performance, Kisner said.

The bottom line to Kisner?

?To find a really quality neighborhood school in a poor neighborhood is rare. There needs to be more quality choices in all parts of the city.?

Meanwhile, Together Colorado, The Piton Foundation and Stand for Children Colorado recently released their own report on school choice in Denver and documented similar findings.

Their study, called Fulfilling the promise of choice: Challenges and opportunities in school choice decisions made by Latino families, found families struggling to make sense of the performance framework.

The organizations hired a researcher to analyze the data and conduct six 10-person focus groups.

One of the biggest findings was something the reform groups already knew: Education is highly valued by new immigrants, Together Colorado?s Kromrey said.

?In many cases families come to this country for education,? he added.

The performance came up in both studies as something average people struggle to both access and comprehend.

The ratings are based on points awarded for student academic growth, status, post-secondary readiness, student engagement, school demand and parent engagement. Each category is weighted differently, with student growth carrying about two-thirds of the weight, followed by status (whether or not students are performing at grade level). The remaining categories carry less weight.

Schools end up with color-coded rankings that affect a school?s operations and its future. A school consistently labeled ?red? can be shut down.

The ratings are:

• ?Distinguished? or blue, which means a school has earned 80 to 100 percent of points possible
• ?Meets expectations? or green, meaning that a school has earned 51 to 79 percent of points possible
• ?Accredited on watch? or yellow, indicating a school has earned 40 to 50 percent of points possible
• ?Accredited on priority watch? or orange, meaning a school has earned 34 to 39 percent of points possible
• ?Accredited on probation? or red. This means a school has earned only 33 percent or less of points possible

The report offered several recommendations on how to help Latino parents better use all relevant information for selecting schools. These suggestions include providing:

• Comprehensive outreach through community members about school choice and factors to consider.
• More detailed information on transportation, extracurricular activities and school performance information beyond what was presented in the choice materials last year. In particular, the information presented must meet one of Latino parents? primary concerns ? geographic proximity to home.
• Information about school academic performance that is more accessible and presented more clearly to parents.
• Clearer language in choice materials.
• Informative websites that are simple and streamlined, with an easy-to-find Spanish language option, featuring data that is searchable using geographic criteria, rather than simply comparing schools against each other.

The organizations involved in the research commended DPS for making several key changes since the research was done. Relatively recent tweaks to the SchoolChoice system include creation of a new electronic SchoolMatch tool, improving the enrollment guide, use of school choice liaisons and expanding school choice expos.

But Kromrey pointed out that more needs to be done to help families access and understand the rating data.

?They did care about being close to their families. They did want to be involved with children. They wanted to see how the schools around them were doing,? Kromrey said. ?They do want to understand how data works. They need some tools that simplify without being so simple that they?re not fair to the schools.?

Kromrey also noted that transportation remains a huge issue for many low-income families. Together Colorado worked on the Success Express shuttle plan in Northeast Denver and will continue to be involved in those issues, he said. He said families also wanted more information from schools, such as information about arts programs or special education.

?The whole reform community and DPS have work to do to change this,? Kromrey said. ?We need to create some different tools. Many parents don?t have computer access. There are some computer literacy issues.?

Understanding How Parents Chose Schools: An Analysis of Denver?s SchoolChoice Form Questions

Source: http://www.ednewscolorado.org/2013/01/30/55373-proximity-beats-ratings-in-dps-school-choice

bulls california earthquake california earthquake tyson chandler tyson chandler stephen hill draft tracker

Warning over sports aid after marathon death

A coroner has warned of the dangers of a legal stimulant as it emerged that a runner who collapsed and died during the London mara-thon had taken the drug in a bid to boost her performance.

Claire Squires (30), above, suffered a cardiac arrest a few hundred metres from the finish line.

An inquest heard that she had bought a powder supplement called Jack3d which contained DMAA (dimethylamine), a drug with similar properties to amphetamines and is said to boost energy, concentration and metabolism.

Her boyfriend, Simon van Herrewege, told Southwark Coroner's Court that she bought it online as she was keen to beat her personal best race time.

Irish Independent

Comments that are judged to be defamatory, abusive or in bad taste are not acceptable and contributors who consistently fall below certain criteria will be permanently blacklisted. Comments must be concise and to the point. The moderator will not enter into debate with individual contributors and the moderator's decision is final. The comment facility is removed after 48 hours.

Source: http://www.independent.ie/world-news/europe/warning-over-sports-aid-after-marathon-death-3370937.html

seahawks natalie wood patriots Sandy Hook Hoax 2014 Corvette Stacie Halas justin timberlake

Portable fitness equipment - OverdriveOnline.com

Gaiam offers a wide variety of travel-friendly fitness gear that can be used to create a home gym in your truck, such as the Abs Ball, the Toning Ring and the Core Balance Kit.

The Abs Ball kit comes with?an 8-ounce, two-handled ball and?a DVD featuring two workouts instructed by Iron Man Triathlete Jonathan Roche. The?Toning Ring is a padded and flexible ring with grip pads, designed for Pilates exercise and also comes with a workout DVD. The Core Balance Kit contains four pods and DVD with workouts for beginners and intermediates.

For more information, visit www.gaiam.com.

Source: http://www.overdriveonline.com/portable-fitness-equipment/

Pa Lottery Ebates lotto Illinois Lottery texas lottery Dell Levis

Diplomats: Iran prepared to up nuclear program

FILE - In this Sept. 2007 file picture an anti-aircraft gun position is seen at Iran's nuclear enrichment facility in Natanz, Iran. Iran is poised for a major technological update of its uranium enrichment program, allowing it to vastly increase production of the material that can be used for both reactor fuel and nuclear warheads, diplomats told The Associated Press Thursday, Jan. 31, 2013. The diplomats said that Iran last week told the International Atomic Energy Agency that it wants to install thousands of high-technology machines at its main enriching site at Natanz, in central Iran. The machines are estimated to be able to enrich up to five times faster than the present equipment. (AP Photo/Hasan Sarbakhshian, File)

FILE - In this Sept. 2007 file picture an anti-aircraft gun position is seen at Iran's nuclear enrichment facility in Natanz, Iran. Iran is poised for a major technological update of its uranium enrichment program, allowing it to vastly increase production of the material that can be used for both reactor fuel and nuclear warheads, diplomats told The Associated Press Thursday, Jan. 31, 2013. The diplomats said that Iran last week told the International Atomic Energy Agency that it wants to install thousands of high-technology machines at its main enriching site at Natanz, in central Iran. The machines are estimated to be able to enrich up to five times faster than the present equipment. (AP Photo/Hasan Sarbakhshian, File)

VIENNA (AP) ? The U.N. nuclear agency has told member nations that Iran is poised for a major technological upgrade of its uranium enrichment program, in a document seen Thursday by The Associated Press. The move would vastly speed up Tehran's ability to make material that can be used for both reactor fuel and nuclear warheads.

In an internal note to member nations, the International Atomic Energy Agency said it received notice last week from Iran's nuclear agency of plans to install high-technology enriching centrifuges at its main enriching site at Natanz, in central Iran. The machines are estimated to be able to enrich up to five times faster than the present equipment.

The brief note quoted Iran as saying new-generation IR2m "centrifuge machines ...will be used" to populate a new "unit" ? a technical term for an assembly that can consist of as many as 3,132 centrifuges.

It gave no timeframe and a senior diplomat familiar with the issue said work had not started, adding it would take weeks, if not months, to have the new machines running once technicians started putting them in. He demanded anonymity because he was not authorized to divulge confidential information.

Iran insists it does not want nuclear arms and argues it has a right to enrich for a civilian nuclear power program. But suspicion persists that the real aim is nuclear weapons, because Iran hid much of its program until it was revealed from the outside more than a decade ago and because of what the IAEA says are indications that it worked secretly on weapons development.

Defying U.N. Security Council demands that it halt enrichment, Iran has instead expanded it. Experts say Tehran already has enough enriched material for several nuclear weapons.

Nonproliferation expert Mark Fitzpatrick described the planned upgrade as a potential "game-changer."

"If thousands of the more efficient machines are introduced, the timeline for being able to produce a weapons worth of fissile material will significantly shorten," said Fitzpatrick, of the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

"This won't change the several months it would take to make actual weapons out of the fissile material or the two years or more that it would take to be able to mount a nuclear warhead on a missile, so there is no need to start beating the war drums," he said. "But it will certainly escalate concerns".

A diplomat accredited to the U.N. agency said IAEA delegation heads from the United States and its allies planned to discuss Iran's plans later in the day. He too demanded anonymity because he was not authorized to talk about the issue.

The planned upgrade deals a further blow to international efforts to coax Tehran to restore confidence in its aims by scaling back its nuclear activities and cooperating with agency attempts to investigate allegations of secret weapons work.

It comes ahead of planned talks next month where the United States, Russia, China, Britain, France and Germany will press Tehran to cut back on enrichment. Separately, IAEA experts are scheduled to visit Tehran Feb. 13 in their more than year-long effort to restart a probe of the weapons allegations.

Iran says it is enriching only to power reactors and for scientific and medical purposes. But because of its nuclear secrecy, many countries fear that Iran may break out from its present production that is below the weapons-grade threshold and start enriching to levels of over 90 percent, used to arm nuclear weapons.

Tehran now has more than 10,000 centrifuges enriching uranium at its main plant at Natanz, 225 kilometers (140 miles) southeast of Tehran, to fuel grade at below 4 percent. Its separate Fordo facility, southwest of Tehran, has close to 3,000 centrifuges ? most of them active and producing material enriched to 20 percent, which can be turned into weapons-grade uranium much more quickly.

Iran has depended on domestically made and breakdown-prone IR-1 centrifuges whose design is decades old at both locations up to now, but started testing more sophisticated prototypes in the summer of 2010.

David Albright, whose Washington-based Institute for Science and International Technology serves as a source for some U.S. government branches, estimated in a 2011 report that 1,000 of the advanced machines "would be equivalent to about 4,000-5,000 IR-1 centrifuges" in production speed.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/3d281c11a96b4ad082fe88aa0db04305/Article_2013-01-31-Iran-Nuclear/id-c7ac2f7f8cd8440e963458abfe538289

the secret life of bees full moon aubrey o day masters live johan santana viktor bout ncaa hockey

President Barack Obama seeks Cong nod over immigration reforms in US

US President Barack Obama has come out with his much-awaited comprehensive immigration reforms, that, among other things, will pave way for legalisation of more than 11 million undocumented immigrants.

The reforms, which also propose to eliminate the annual country caps in the employment category, are expected to benefit large number of Indian technocrats and professionals.

In a major policy speech on comprehensive immigration in Las Vegas, Obama urged the Congress to act on his proposals.

"It (immigration) keeps our workforce young, it keeps our country on the cutting edge, and it's helped build the greatest economic engine the world has ever known. After all, immigrants helped start businesses like Google and Yahoo. They created entire new industries that in turn created new jobs and new prosperity for our citizens," Obama said

The other key proposals of his "comprehensive" reform plan include "stapling" a green card to the diplomas of science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), PhD and Masters Degree graduates from qualified US universities who have found employment in the country.

The President also proposed to create a startup visa for job-creating entrepreneurs.

The proposal allows foreign entrepreneurs, who attract financing or revenue from American investors and customers, to start and grow their businesses in the US, and to remain permanently if their companies grow further, create jobs for American workers, and strengthen the economy.

The proposal removes the backlog for employment-sponsored immigration by eliminating annual country caps and adding additional visas to the system.

Outdated legal immigration programs are reformed to meet current and future demands by exempting certain categories from annual visa limitations, the White House said.

Obama also proposed to eliminate existing backlogs in the family-sponsored immigration system by recapturing unused visas and temporarily increasing annual visa numbers.

The proposal also raises existing annual country caps from seven per cent to 15 per cent for the family-sponsored immigration system.

It also treats same-sex units as families by giving US citizens and lawful permanent residents the ability to seek a visa based on permanent relationship with a same-sex partner.

The proposal also revises current unlawful presence bars and provides broader discretion to waive them in cases of hardship.

"In recent years, one in four high-tech startups in America were founded by immigrants. One in 4 new small-business owners were immigrants, including right here in Nevada, folks who came here seeking opportunity and now want to share that opportunity with other Americans," Obama said.

"But we all know that today we have an immigration system that's out of date and badly broken. A system that's holding us back instead of helping us grow our economy and strengthen our middle class," he noted.

Among other things, the proposals include creating a startup visa for job-creating entrepreneurs, expand opportunities for investor visas and US economic development and create a new visa category for employees of federal national security science and technology laboratories.

Referring to the 11 million undocumented immigrants in America, of which more than 2,40,000 are from India, Obama said though they have broken the rules, but it is "impossible" to deport them.

"These 11 million men and women are now here. Many of them have been here for years. And the overwhelming majority of these individuals aren't looking for any trouble. They're contributing members of the community. They're woven into the fabric of our lives," Obama said.

He noted the change in the system was needed to strengthen country's middle class and create more opportunities.

"We have to bring this shadow economy into light so that everybody is held accountable," he said.

The reforms also aim at holding back the "brilliant" talents in the country once they complete their education at US institutions, Obama said, noting that this was not happening due to lack of a liberal immigration policy.

"We're giving them all the skills they need to figure that out, but then we're going to turn around and tell them to start that business and create those jobs in China or India or Mexico or someplace else. That's not how you grow new industries in America. That's how you give new industries to our competitors," the President said.

Obama cited examples of companies like Intel and Instagram to highlight contributions by the immigrant community towards development of US economy.

Urging the Congress to immediately act on his comprehensive immigration reform, Obama said the good news is that for the first time in many years, Republicans and Democrats seem ready to tackle this problem together.

"Members of both parties in both chambers are actively working on a solution. Yesterday a bipartisan group of senators announced their principles for comprehensive immigration reform which are very much in line with the principles I've proposed and campaigned," he said.

"My hope is that this provides some key markers to members of Congress as they craft a bill," Obama added.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said the president "welcomes" the proposal, saying it represents the "bipartisan support coalescing" behind certain principles of immigration reform.

Senator Chuck Schumer, D-NY, one of the eight senators, called the new proposal a "major breakthrough" and said he hopes to turn it into legislation by March -- with the goal of passing something out of the Senate "by late spring or summer."

Sen John McCain, R-Ariz, standing beside him, claimed 2013 is the "best chance" lawmakers will have to tackle immigration for years.

Even so, the proposed pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants drew immediate criticism from others on Capitol Hill.

"No one should be surprised that individuals who have supported amnesty in the past still support amnesty," Rep Lamar Smith, R-Texas, said.

"By granting amnesty, the Senate proposal actually compounds the problem by encouraging more illegal immigration."

The eight senators who unveiled the new principles are Democrats Schumer, Dick Durbin of Illinois, Robert Menendez of New Jersey and Michael Bennet of Colorado; and Republicans McCain, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Rubio of Florida and Jeff Flake of Arizona.

Source: http://indiatoday.feedsportal.com/c/33614/f/589699/s/2813b516/l/0Lindiatoday0Bintoday0Bin0Cstory0Cbarack0Eobama0Eimmigration0Ereforms0Eus0Econgress0C10C2482570Bhtml/story01.htm

amanda bynes Revolution TV Show bankofamerica revolution rosh hashanah rosh hashanah boardwalk empire

Fewer Americans count on retiring by 65

Jason Reed / Reuters file

Warren Buffett, 82, is among the most high-profile Americans who have continued their careers well past age 65.

By Allison Linn, TODAY

If you?re planning to work past age 65, you may find that you have a surprising amount of company among your peers.

A larger chunk of Americans are working into their late 60s and even beyond, part of a long-term trend that has continued despite the tight job market of the past five years and is expected to increase in coming decades.

?It?s one of the most important changes in the labor force over the last generation,? said Robert Johnson, director of The Urban Institute?s Program on Retirement Policy.

Most Americans?still stop working by the time they hit?65. But about 18.5 percent of Americans age 65 and over were working in 2012, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That?s a nearly 8 percentage point increase from a low in 1985, when just 10.8 percent of Americans over age 65 were still at work.

The trend toward working past age 65 is an about-face from the decades that followed World War II. From the late 1940s through the mid-1980s, the percentage of people over age 65 who were in the labor force generally fell as workers took advantage of pensions and Social Security payments that gave them plenty of financial incentive to quit working by age 62 or even before.

These days, however,?people have an incentive to work longer and wait to collect more lucrative Social Security benefits.

Perhaps more importantly,?more companies have moved from pension-type retirement plans to 401(k)-type plans. Johnson noted 401(k) plans can have the opposite effect on retirement, because they aren?t as generous and provide incentive for people to work longer so they can bulk up their funds more.

?The erosion in traditional pension plans has really encouraged people to work longer,? he said.

Still, not everyone is healthy enough to work past age 65, and many people don?t want to. Alicia Munnell, director of the Center for? Retirement Research at Boston College, said her research has shown that people ages 55 to 64 are more likely to keep working for a few extra years because they didn?t think they could afford to retire.

But she said people who are still working at age 65 and beyond are generally healthier, wealthier and more educated than those who have stopped working, and she thinks a significant chunk are doing so at least partly by choice.

?When you?re talking with people older than 65, people are healthier and better educated and jobs are less physically demanding, and that makes it attractive to stay in the labor force,? she said.

Munnell noted that not all professions are friendly to older workers, so working longer isn't always rewarding or even pleasant. But in some?fields - such as academia -?it is more common and acceptable to stay at work past age 65.

There are also plenty of examples of famous older people, such as Warren Buffett, 82, who are clearly staying on the job more for love than money.?

Related: Are you struggling in the suburbs? We want to hear from you.

The percentage of people 65 and over who are working has continued to increase?in the past five years, even though?the overall labor force participation rate has fallen because the tight job market has made it so hard to find jobs.

Phillip Levine, an economics professor at Wellesley College who has studied retirement trends extensively, said he doesn?t think the recession itself has played a big role in exacerbating the existing trend of older workers staying in the labor force longer.

His research has shown that the Great Recession has?had an opposite effect on many workers who were close to retirement, pushing them into early retirement because they lost a job and couldn?t find a new one.

But in years to come, he does expect the Great Recession will play a role in increasing the number of people who work past age 65. That?s because younger people who were unemployed for several years during this period will then work a few extra years to make up for the earnings, and retirement contributions, they lost during their stints of unemployment.

Johnson, from The Urban Institute, said the continued decline in pension plans also will likely play a role in more people choosing to hold onto their jobs longer than their parents or grandparents.

?The idea of retiring at age 62 ? I think a lot of young people think that?s a quaint idea,? Johnson said.

{"contentId":"16775764","totalVotes":"37246"}

At what age do you plan to retire?

Source: http://lifeinc.today.com/_news/2013/01/30/16775764-fewer-americans-count-on-retiring-by-65?lite

Closing Ceremony London 2012 Tom Daley Leryn Franco The Campaign Kinesio tape randy travis Allyson Felix