EDITORS: News media are invited to attend. For a complete agenda and information on attending the conference, reporters should contact Diane Swanbrow, (734) 647-4416.

WASHINGTON, D.C.—With Social Security reform on the national agenda, some of the country’s leading researchers on retirement issues are meeting at the National Press Club, May 17-18, to present new findings on income security for an aging population.

Co-sponsored by the University of Michigan Retirement Research Center and the Boston College Center for Retirement Research, the conference is titled “Making Hard Choices about Retirement.”

The presentations include new findings on whether American households are saving enough for retirement, what factors affect worker participation in 401(k) plans, how pension provisions affect retirement decisions, the relationship between financial behavior and probabilistic thinking, and the extent of public misinformation about social security and pensions.

Keynote speaker for the conference, to be held at the National Press Club, 529 14th Street, N.W., in Washington, D.C., is Bush administration economic adviser Larry Lindsey, who will discuss the president’s vision for the U.S. retirement system. Larry Massanari, acting commissioner of the Social Security Administration, will also speak.

The Michigan Retirement Research Center is part of the U-M Institute for Social Research (ISR), the world’s largest academic survey and research organization. Directed by U-M economist Thomas Juster, who chairs the National Academy of Sciences Panel on New Data for an Aging World, the Michigan Center emphasizes research on retirement income policy and the protection of low-income workers and their families from economic loss due to retirement, death, or disability. It also sponsors research on the long-range solvency of the Social Security system.

The Michigan Retirement Research Center and the Boston College Center for Retirement Research are both funded by grants from the Social Security Administration.

Retirement Research CenterNational Press ClubInstitute for Social ResearchSocial Security Administration