Month: April 2021

The Gender Pensions Gap

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.actuarialpost.co.uk/article/the-gender-pensions-gap-19479.htm

Excerpt:

 The difference between the mean retirement income of men and women aged 65 and over currently stands at an average of 26% across OECD countries, however in the United Kingdom it is even higher than that at somewhere between 34% and 43%.

 There are many reasons for this gap, both economic and societal, and the report gamely provides an analysis of them all. Ultimately however, the greatest impact is down to the differences in work patterns between male and female employees. Women in the OECD have on average a career which is a third shorter than that of men and are much more likely to be working part time. On top of this they are paid less for the work they do, with the gender pay gap standing at 13%, a difference that, unsurprisingly, starts to appear between the ages of 24 and 35 when women are most likely to take a career break in order to raise a family.

 Third tier pension contributions are strongly correlated with earnings and so women tend to save lower amounts and for less time.

Author(s): Fiona Tait

Publication Date: 19 April 2021

Publication Site: Actuarial Post (UK)

Measuring the COVID-19 Policy Response Around the World

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://freopp.org/measuring-the-covid-19-policy-response-around-the-world-2e37a7a97bc8

Graphic:

Excerpt:

In the U.S., 38% of all deaths from COVID-19 have occurred in nursing homes and assisted living facilities that house only 0.6% of the U.S. population. The failure to protect this population is not only a problem in the U.S., however; a survey of international countries found similar results.

Indeed, among 22 countries reporting care home fatalities, the U.S. sits squarely in the middle in terms of the share of fatalities occurring in care homes. Among WIHI countries, Canada (80%) and Australia (75%) had the highest concentration of fatalities in nursing homes, whereas Singapore (11%) and Hungary (23%) the lowest.

While Ireland reported a care home fatality share of 56%, its true share is closer to Canada’s, because Ireland, Finland, New Zealand, and Norway do not report deaths of care home residents who die outside of long-term care facilities. In other countries, roughly one-quarter of COVID-19 deaths of care home residents occur in hospitals and other external locations.

Author(s): Avik Roy

Publication Date: 5 April 2021

Publication Site: FREOPP

How Are Your State’s Roads Funded?

Mary Pat Campbell
How Are Your State’s Roads Funded?

Graphic:

Excerpt:

Traditionally, revenue dedicated to infrastructure spending has been raised through taxes on motor fuel, license fees, and tolls, but revenue from motor fuel has proven less effective over the last few decades. Between developments in vehicles’ fuel economy, increased sales of electric vehicles, and inflation, taxes on motor fuel generally raise less revenue per vehicle miles traveled (VMT) than they did in the past. As a result, most states contribute revenue from other sources to make up differences between infrastructure revenue and expenditures.

The amount of revenue states raise through taxes on infrastructure and transportation vary to a significant degree—as do the sources. Four states (California, Indiana, Montana, and Tennessee) raise enough revenue to cover their highway spending, but 46 states and the District of Columbia must cover the difference with tax revenue from other levies. Alaska (17 percent) and North Dakota (29 percent), which both rely heavily on revenue from severance taxes, raise the lowest proportion of highway funds from transportation taxes and fees.

Author(s): Ulrik Boesen

Publication Date: 21 April 2021

Publication Site: Tax Foundation

The COVID-19 Disaster That Did Not Happen in Texas

Mary Pat Campbell
The COVID-19 Disaster That Did Not Happen in Texas

Excerpt:

Most businesses in Texas had been allowed to operate at 75 percent of capacity since mid-October, when Abbott also allowed bars to reopen. It was implausible that removing the cap would have much of an impact on virus transmission, even in businesses that were frequently hitting the 75 percent limit.

While Abbott said Texans would no longer be legally required to cover their faces in public, he urged them to keep doing so, and many businesses continued to require masks. At the stores I visit in Dallas, there has been no noticeable change in policy or in customer compliance.

Conversely, face mask mandates and occupancy limits did not prevent COVID-19 surges in states such as Michigan, where the seven-day average of newly confirmed infections has risen more than fivefold since March 1; Maine, which has seen a nearly threefold increase; and Minnesota, where that number has more than doubled. Cases also rose during that period, although less dramatically, in other states with relatively strict COVID-19 rules, including Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Washington.

Florida, a state often criticized as lax, also has seen a significant increase in daily new cases: 34 percent since mid-March. But Florida, despite its relatively old population, still has a per capita COVID-19 death rate only a bit higher than California’s, even though the latter state’s restrictions have been much more sweeping and prolonged.

Author(s): Jacob Sullum

Publication Date: 21 April 2021

Publication Site: Reason

All eyes on Chile´s Pinera as congress approves a fresh pensions drawdown

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/all-eyes-chiles-pinera-congress-approves-fresh-pensions-drawdown-2021-04-23/

Excerpt:

Chile´s Congress on Friday approved by a large majority a move to allow citizens to withdraw a third tranche of their privately held pensions to assuage economic hardship wrought by the coronavirus pandemic.

Lawmakers in the country´s lower house approved the measure with 119 to 17, with 3 abstentions, prompting cheering and applause. Senators greenlighted the move earlier this week.

Previously, Congress approved two withdrawals of 10% from pension pots in July and December, with the help of members of President Sebastian Pinera’s Chile Vamos coalition who defied instructions to vote the initiatives down.

Author(s): Aislinn Laing

Publication Date: 23 April 2021

Publication Site: Reuters

Banks resist racial-equity audits, but they shouldn’t

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.startribune.com/banks-resist-racial-equity-audits-but-they-shouldn-t/600049751/

Excerpt:

By lunchtime Tuesday we should know whether the Wells Fargo & Co. shareholders adopted a proposal to have the company conduct a racial-equity audit, an idea championed by a pension fund shareholder affiliated with the Service Employees International Union.

Wells Fargo and other big banks have recommended shareholders vote down these racial-equity audit proposals, a feature of this year’s annual shareholder meeting season.

The banks are likely to have the votes, but hopefully they don’t put the whole idea into a file and forget about it.

Author(s): Lee Schafer

Publication Date: 24 April 2021

Publication Site: Star Tribune

PRITZKER PRESSURES BIDEN FOR TAX CHANGE WORTH $2.5 MILLION A YEAR TO GOVERNOR

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.illinoispolicy.org/pritzker-pressures-biden-for-tax-change-worth-2-5-million-a-year-to-governor/

Graphic:

Excerpt:

Of course, no one can know the true extent to which Pritzker has been able to reduce his tax bills through loopholes and carve-outs over the years, because he refuses to release his full tax returns. In recent years it has been revealed Pritzker went to great lengths to avoid paying taxes, removing toilets from his Gold Coast mansion to skimp on his property tax bill by $331,000 and establishing shell corporations in the Bahamas in a likely attempt to avoid U.S. income taxes. The toilet ploy earned him a federal investigation.

The letter, which pushes for tax reforms that would almost exclusively benefit the wealthy, comes less than six months after Pritzker’s progressive income tax amendment was rejected by voters and is a significant departure from his previous stance on taxation.  In the letter, Pritzker claims the cap hurts middle-class taxpayers and is “untenable” during these dire economic times. Because the data is clear on who directly benefits from the SALT deduction, one can only assume the governor is implying higher taxes on the wealthy also hurt Americans with lower incomes.

That is precisely the argument opponents of the “fair tax” made after the governor first unveiled his tax-the-rich scheme in 2019.

Author(s): Orphe Divounguy, Bryce Hill

Publication Date: 23 April 2021

Publication Site: Illinois Policy Institute

California Has Seen a Staggering Amount of Unemployment Fraud During the Pandemic

Mary Pat Campbell
California Has Seen a Staggering Amount of Unemployment Fraud During the Pandemic

Excerpt:

After sifting through news myriad stories about California’s ongoing scandal at the Employment Development Department, however, I’m left wondering: Where is Ed Anger when you need him? I’m “pig-biting mad” about the ongoing unemployment mess, as an angry Anger might write. Yet California’s elected officials and a weary public are treating it like any garden-variety bureaucratic failure.

This is one of the most infuriating scandals ever to plague our state. The department, which is responsible for paying out unemployment insurance claims, has been incapable of paying legitimate claims even as it has paid as much as $31 billion in fraudulent ones, often to inmates. Think about those staggering losses. They would be enough to make a dent in any number of the state’s infrastructure, budgetary, and debt-related problems.

The stories are as unbelievable as the Weekly World News‘ latest Elvis sighting. Here’s a desk-pounder from CBS Los Angeles: “A Fresno girl who just celebrated her first birthday is collecting $167 per week in unemployment benefits after a claim was filed on her behalf stating that she was an unemployed actor.”

Author(s): Steven Greenhut

Publication Date: 23 April 2021

Publication Site: Reason

U.S. Lifts Pause, Will Restart J&J Vaccinations with Warning

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.nationalreview.com/news/u-s-should-restart-jj-vaccinations-with-warning-cdc-advisory-group-says/

Excerpt:

The United States will resume Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccinations after health officials lifted an 11-day pause on the shots at the recommendation of a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisory panel on Friday.

The pause in inoculations was triggered by concerns over six cases of a rare blood clot that occurred out of more than 7 million people who had received the vaccine in the U.S.

The panel voted 10 to 4 to recommend restarting the vaccinations, saying the benefits of the shot outweigh the rare risk of blood clots. However, the group suggested that the vaccine include a warning about the increased risk of the very rare but severe blood clots.

Author(s): Brittany Bernstein

Publication Date: 23 April 2021

Publication Site: National Review

India’s giant second wave is a disaster for it and the world

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.economist.com/leaders/2021/04/24/indias-giant-second-wave-is-a-disaster-for-it-and-the-world

Excerpt:

April 14th was a big day in India. Hindus and Sikhs gathered to mark the new year. Many Muslims celebrated the first day of Ramadan at late-night feasts with friends and family. In Haridwar, a temple town that this year hosts the Kumbh Mela, an intermittent Hindu festival that is the world’s biggest religious gathering, between 1m and 3m people shoved and jostled to take a ritual dip in the Ganges. And across the country, the number of people testing positive for covid-19 for the first time surpassed 200,000 in a single day. It has continued to surge since, reaching 315,000 just one week later—the highest daily figure in any country at any point during the pandemic. Deaths, too, are beginning to soar, and suspicions abound that the grisly official toll is itself a massive underestimate. Makeshift pyres are being constructed on pavements outside crematoriums to deal with the influx of bodies.

Publication Date: 24 April 2021

Publication Site: The Economist

Could covid lead to a lifetime of autoimmune disease?

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.technologyreview.com/2021/04/23/1023438/long-term-covid-antibodies-autoantibodies-immunity-cytokines-lupus/

Excerpt:

Ring’s autoantibody tests showed that in some patients—even some with mild cases of covid—the rogue immune proteins were marking blood cells for attack. Others were on the hunt for proteins associated with the heart and liver. Some patients appeared to have autoantibodies primed to attack the central nervous system and the brain. This was far more ominous than anything identified by the Rockefeller scientists. Ring’s findings seemed to suggest a potentially systemic problem; these patients seemed to be cranking out multiple varieties of new autoantibodies in response to covid, until the body appeared to be at war with itself.

What scared Ring the most was that autoantibodies have the potential to last a lifetime. This raised a series of chilling questions: What are the long-term consequences for these patients if these powerful assassins outlive the infection? How much destruction could they cause? And for how long?

Author(s): Adam Piore

Publication Date: 23 April 2021

Publication Site: MIT Tech Review

Consumers Want Liquidity: Survey

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.thinkadvisor.com/2021/03/23/consumers-want-liquidity-survey/

Excerpt:

The Million Dollar Round Table (MDRT) looks at what consumers want, and need, in a new batch of results from a survey of 2,034 U.S. adults, ages 18 and older, that was conducted in November 2020, as the third U.S. wave of the COVID-19 pandemic was beginning.

….

About 68% of the MDRT survey participants had investments of some kind, according to the public results summary and the survey executive summary.

The pandemic hit the finances of many of the survey participants hard: 19% said their income rose in 2020, but 35% said their income fell.

About 82% of all of the participants said they were saving money, and many of them reported aiming more for liquidity than for a secure retirement.

Author(s): Allison Bell

Publication Date: 23 March 2021

Publication Site: Think Advisor