PRB Webcasts

Most of what we hear in the media about how the recession is affecting individuals and families in the United States is based on broad population surveys. These tell us what has happened since the recession started but there is not as much reporting based on data tied to the events that led up to the recession. However, data from The American Life Panel shed some light on how the recession and events leading up to the recession have affected Americans. Michael Hurd, director of the Center for the Study of Aging and a senior economist at the RAND Corporation, has studied the economics of aging and the elderly; savings, wealth, and retirement; Social Security; and U.S. labor markets. According to Hurd, the current recession is the worst since the Great Depression because it has affected three major sectors of the economy: housing, the stock market, and the labor market. In this interview, Hurd discusses how the declines in each of these sectors have affected older Americans, the kinds of data we need to look at