More Information: Population ageing and employment policies: An OECD Perspective - presentation by John Martin Live Longer, Work Longer - special website Purchase publications on this topic at OECD Online Bookshop Access publications on this topic on SourceOECD (for subscribers)
Live Longer, Work Longer Moderator: Jim Kolbe, Former US Congressman Presentation: John Martin, Director for Employment, Labor and Social Affairs at the OECD Discussant: Marvin Kosters, Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

This event took place on Wednesday, June 6, 2007
Rayburn House Office Building, B-354
Independence Ave and South Capitol Street SW, Washington DC
9:00-10:00 AM Presentation, 8:30 AM Registration

Event Description:

John P. Martin, the Director for Employment, Labor and Social Affairs at the OECD, presents the findings of a 4-year comprehensive OECD review of aging and employment policies in 21 countries, including the United States.

Population aging in the U.S. and other OECD countries poses serious economic and social challenges. Absent a change in work and retirement patterns, the ratio of older inactive persons per worker will almost double from around 38% in the OECD area in 2000 to just over 70% in 2050. In the U.S., the average effective retirement age for male workers has dropped from 71 to 64 years of age since 1960. By 2030, almost one-fifth of the U.S. population is expected to be over the age of 65. These trends threaten living standards and put enormous pressure on the financing of social protection systems.

Martin will present the Report’s recommendations for policies that will make work a more attractive and rewarding proposition for older workers. These include:

• Strong financial incentives to carry on working and existing,
• Eliminating subsidized pathways to early retirement,
• Wage-setting and employment practices that ensure that employers have stronger incentives to hire and retain older workers,
• Programs that provide older workers with help and encouragement to improve their employability, and
• Measures to encourage major shift in employer and employee attitudes to working at an older age.

Martin also will discuss the recommendations of the U.S. policy review, Ageing and Employment Policies: United States. Bearing in mind the financial status of the Social Security System and the report’s focus on improving work incentives and employment opportunities for older Americans, the recommendations include the following:

• Raise the minimum age for social security and speed up the transition from 65 to 67 for the full retirement age.
• Strengthen measures to combat age discrimination.
• Eliminate the “Medicare-as-secondary-payer” rule to reduce the cost of employing older workers.
• Improve older job seekers’ access to employment services and strengthen training opportunities for low-skilled workers.
• Improve working conditions. Older Americans have much longer hours of work than in most other OECD countries and there are substantial barriers to phased retirement.

Biographies:

Jim Kolbe currently serves as a Senior Transatlantic Fellow for the German Marshall Fund United States. He advises on trade matters as well as issues of effectiveness of US assistance to foreign countries, on US-EU relationships, and on migration and its relationship to development. For 22 years, Jim Kolbe served in the United States House of Representatives, elected for eleven consecutive terms, from 1985 to 2007. He represented the Eighth (previously designated the Fifth) congressional district, comprising the southeastern part of Arizona with Tucson as the main population area.

John P. Martin is Director for Employment, Labor and Social Affairs at the OECD; his brief also covers OECD work on health and international migration. Mr. Martin joined the OECD in 1977 and has held several posts in his current directorate and in the Economics Department. He was the founding editor of the OECD Employment Outlook from 1983 to 1986, and he edited the OECD Economic Outlook in 1992 to 1993. He was a member of both the Editorial Board of OECD Economic Studies and an associate editor of Labor Economics for many years.

Marvin Kosters is a resident scholar and the director of economic policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute. He served as a senior economist to the President's Council of Economic Advisers and at the White House Office of the assistant to the president for economic affairs. Mr. Kosters held a senior policy position at the U.S. Cost of Living Council and a research position at the RAND Corporation. He is the author of Wage Levels and Inequality (1998), editor of The Effects of the Minimum Wage on Employment (1996), Personal Saving, Consumption, and Tax Policy (1992) and Workers and Their Wages (1991), and coeditor of Trade and Wages: Leveling Wages Down? (1994) and of Reforming Regulation (1980).