Category Archives: Longevity

Oct. 15Most asphalt roads can last seven to 10 years before needing a repave, but the Missouri Department of Transportation is working to make sure repairs last as long as possible.

Local roads have been getting treated with Scrub Seal, a preventative maintenance treatment that goes over existing asphalt overlay surfaces.

The product reseals the surface and fills cracks in an attempt to extend the life of the pavement.

"If we wait three to five years after a payment's completed, we start to notice that deterioration reaches that point," said Austin Hibler, district construction materials engineer for MoDOT's northwest district. "We can come in and apply this preventative maintenance treatment, seal it up and get another five to seven years out of it ideally."

While the spray lays on top of the pavement, it has little effect on the actual driving conditions.

"You shouldn't notice it," Hibler said. "They're putting a real fine aggregate rock material over the top of the oil and rolling it in to help seal it and then provide a bit of structure to it."

Currently the spray has been used on parts of Frederick, North Belt and Highway 59. Other roads that MoDOT controls are preparing to get the same treatment through a contract with Vance Brothers.

The process is relatively fast and easy, which allows for more to be done in a shorter time.

"There are multiple routes in this area under this contract that are in the process of being completed by the end of October," Hibler said. "They've done the major routes here and they're going to work on some of those side roads."

The full list and schedule of roads to be surfaced can be found on MoDOT's website.

Link:
MoDOT working to extend longevity of roads - Yahoo News

Johnson County has seen many changes in the last hundred years; children have grown up, technology has improved, the population has expanded, and many businesses have come and gone. While the world seems to move at a faster pace than some prefer, there have been some things that have not changed, some constants in life that many folks hold dear.

Here, enter Rod Trivett, who celebrated his 103rd birthday on Monday and has many memories of life from over the past century. The Johnson County native enjoyed a small celebration with cake and balloons at the farm his family has lived on for generations.

He is amazing, said Patty Trivett. Patty and her husband, Darrell, spent the day celebrating with Trivett and sharing fond memories of times past. After describing her husbands uncle as a beloved family member, Patty added, he is such a wonderful man.

The love of God and deep faith are valued by many who live in Johnson County, and the county's centenarian gives God all the credit for his longevity.

He is a man of faith, said Darrell Trivett, nephew. He credits his long life to the good Lord blessing him.

In addition to being a man of faith, Rod is also an avid gardener, still working in the garden and even riding the tractor on occasion. He loves to get out and do gardening, working on his flowers. He has beautiful dahlias.

Caring for the land is not something new for the Trivett family. Their farm is considered an important part of Johnson County's agricultural history.

My uncle has been a farmer all his life, said Darrell. They raised all kinds of crops, green beans, tobacco, potatoes, just about everything.

While many in the community benefitted from the produce, others appreciated a different yearly event at the Trivett farm.

When the fall season arrived, many residents of Johnson County relied on the Trivetts farm to provide pork for the winter.

They butchered hogs for everybody in the community, said Darrell, adding, It was a big thing.

Although farming the land and caring for the pigs involved a lot of hard work, Mr. Trivett is not one to let hard work slow him down. The family reports he is still hard at work, getting out and doing things around the farm, including mowing the lawn and splitting logs for firewood.

Thousands of years ago, wise King Solomon said there was no better reward than to serve God, adding, It added years to ones life. Rod Trivett, at 103 years of age, has personified the truth in those words.

Original post:
Turning 103, Johnson County native credits God for longevity - The Tomahawk

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Our guest on the podcast today is Dr. Anita Mukherjee, associate professor in Risk and Insurance at the Wisconsin School of Business at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Professor Mukherjee conducts research on public policy related to prisons and the opioid crisis, as well as household finance, retirement, and aging. Professor Mukherjee joined the Wisconsin School of Business after completing her Ph.D. in applied economics at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. She holds an M.S. in management science and engineering, a B.S. in mathematics, and a B.A. in economics, all from Stanford University. Prior to enrolling at Wharton, she spent two years working as a consultant to Oliver Wyman.

Bio

Lost and Found: Claiming Behavior in Abandoned Retirement Accounts, by Anita Mukherjee and Corina Mommaerts, Retirement & Disability Research Center, 2020.

Set It and Forget It? Financing Retirement in an Age of Defaults, by Lucas Goodman, Anita Mukherjee, and Shanthi Ramnath, papers.ssrn.com, Oct. 19, 2022.

Lucas Goodman

Frictions in Saving and Claiming: An Analysis of Unclaimed Retirement Accounts, by Anita Mukherjee and Corina Mommaerts, Retirement & Disability Research Center, December 2019.

Inequality in the Golden Years: Wealth Gradients in Disability-Free and Work-Free Longevity in the United States, by Hessam Bavafa, Anita Mukherjee, and Tyler Q. Welch, Journal of Health Economics, Sept. 26, 2023.

The Effects of the Opioid Crisis on Employment: Evidence From Labor Market Flows, by Anita Mukherjee, Daniel W. Sacks, and Hoyoung Yoo, papers.ssrn.com, July 27, 2022.

The Effects of Naloxone Access Laws on Opioid Abuse, Mortality, and Crime, by Jennifer L. Doleac and Anita Mukherjee, papers.ssrn.com, Dec. 5, 2022.

Intergenerational Altruism and Retirement Transfers: Evidence From the Social Security Notch, by Anita Mukherjee, The Journal of Human Resources, September 2022.

Medicaid and Long-Term Care: The Effects of Penalizing Strategic Asset Transfers, by Junhao Liu and Anita Mukherjee, papers.ssrn.com, Jan. 6, 2020.

Building Financial and Health Literacy at Older Ages: The Role of Online Information, by Anita Mukherjee, Hessam Bavafa, and Junhao Liu, The Journal of Consumer Affairs, January 2019.

(Please stay tuned for important disclosure information at the conclusion of this episode.)

Christine Benz: Hi, and welcome to The Long View. Im Christine Benz, director of personal finance and retirement planning for Morningstar.

Jeff Ptak: And Im Jeff Ptak, chief ratings officer for Morningstar Research Services.

Benz: Our guest on the podcast today is Dr. Anita Mukherjee, associate professor in risk and insurance at the Wisconsin School of Business at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Professor Mukherjee conducts research on public policy related to prisons and the opioid crisis, as well as household finance, retirement, and aging. Professor Mukherjee joined the Wisconsin School of Business after completing her Ph.D. in applied economics at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. She holds an M.S. in management science and engineering, a B.S. in mathematics, and a B.A. in economics, all from Stanford University. Prior to enrolling at Wharton, she spent two years working as a consultant to Oliver Wyman.

Dr. Mukherjee, welcome to The Long View.

Dr. Anita Mukherjee: Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Benz: Were excited to have you here. You have a diverse portfolio of research interests, public policy related to prisons and the opioid crisis, as well as household finance, retirement, and aging. Do you find that there are a lot of connections, a lot of interrelationships among those two broad sets of topics? And if so, whats an example of that?

Mukherjee: I think for me, the draw to this set of topics has really been a focus on vulnerable populations. And you find those both among people growing older, with some uncertainty as to how the last years will look like, and also among people who are afflicted by drugs or by being involved in the criminal justice system. So, for me, its been vulnerable populations and also uniquely groups for whom policy is hugely impactful. I think both when were older, were very influenced by policies around healthcare, around retirement savings; and people who are in prison or involved in the healthcare system from different angles are also very involved and affected by policy very deeply. So, these have been reasons that Ive focused on these populations.

Ptak: What was the initial research spark for you in these areas, and perhaps specifically in the area of household finance, retirement, and aging?

Mukherjee: For me, I think, household finance is something that I think every single one of us has to do on some level. And I think within that, whats unique about retirement and aging to me is just the long-term planning thats required there, and all the different frictions and biases that then enter along with that. So, its not just like planning for your next big thing, its planning for something thats quite uncertain over maybe decades into the future. You dont even know if youll live that long, you dont know what your health state will be. Employers and policy attempts to help you plan with different sorts of benefits. But I think navigating the public and private resources and the complexity of the long-term horizon is really interesting for me. And I think just in conversations, one of my projects has been about these abandoned retirement accounts. Its been also this lack of attention that we could have, at least in our younger years, around planning for retirement. You have different jobs, youre not totally clear what savings you have with each job, and how those are all adding up and getting ported into later states of life. So, I think those challenges were really interesting for me to think about and study.

Benz: I want to follow up on the abandoned retirement accounts. You co-authored a paper on that topic. First off, could you talk about how you gauged abandonment? Because it seems like a lot of people, myself included, might really choose to tune out of their retirement accounts for long periods of time. So how did you know that something had really been left probably inadvertently?

Mukherjee: Its a great question because this is something we had to define in some ways in the paper. This is co-authored with Shanthi Ramnath and Lucas Goodman, both economists in policy areas. And this paper, we defined abandonment by looking at people who failed to meet their required minimum withdrawals for at least three years in a row. Basically, with retirement savings, youre allowed to accumulate them tax-free. But at some point, you have to withdraw them and pay taxes on them. And so that required a minimum distributionusually hits at age 70. Now its at age 72. It will be age 75. But if at that point, we see people failing to withdraw their savings for one, two, or three yearsin the paper we even look at up to 10 yearsthats when we start to categorize you as maybe youve abandoned these savings and youre not planning to withdraw them at all.

Ptak: What happens to assets that have been abandoned in a 401(k) plan? What responsibilities does the plan sponsor have to reunite account owners with their accounts?

Mukherjee: This is a great question. Its actually a muddy one. So, what happens to assets that have been abandoned? In principle, they should stay with the plan if theyre at least $5,000. And then at some point, if the plan determines that you have abandoned them, then they can send them to the state through a process called escheatment where they say, look, this is abandoned property. Were not holding on to it anymore. It should be the states responsibility to then take it over and find the rightful owner. De facto, like the actual rules that the plan sponsors have to try and reconnect owners with their accounts is not very much. And theres a lot of variation across plans and how much they do. At minimum, they have to send you notices to your last known mailing address. But many plans do much more, like they have staff that will Google you and try to locate you. But really, they just have to go by what you have given them, which is your address, maybe your phone number, and they give you repeated mailings there. But if youve moved out of state, or if youve moved even houses, those mail communication may not come to you. And its really nobodys fault legally at that point.

Benz: How do the states get involved? In the paper, you talked about how a couple of different states, I think the examples were Wisconsin and Massachusetts, have taken varying approaches to helping reunite people with their abandoned retirement plan assets. Can you talk about that dimension?

Mukherjee: Some states when you have unclaimed property, like Wisconsins one of these where they will, if they see you as a taxpayer in the state, they will just automatically send you a check. So, using Social Security numbers, they will understand that OK, this person has unclaimed property, I know where this individual lives, because they just filed taxes. So, theyll just send a check that automatically reunites that unclaimed property with the owner. In most states, however, like Massachusetts, and really all others, the property goes to the central unclaimed property fund. And then, they try to reunite people by putting in names in newspapers I think a couple times a year. Theres a large list of names that are published in state newspapers saying these individuals have unclaimed property. Every state has a searchable database by which you can go in and see if you have unclaimed property. So, there are ways that states try to help. But I think the problem with particularly these retirement accounts is that most of them dont end up in unclaimed property to begin with. I think the stuff that is an unclaimed property is really interesting. And theres such a large variety of assets there. But as far as retirement plans go, mostly, they stay with the plans that they were originally in. They dont end up being sent over to unclaimed property departments.

Ptak: One of your teams conclusions from this research was that defaulting participants in new plans through automatic enrollment seems to be exacerbating the problem of abandoned accounts. Can you expand on that?

Mukherjee: I should pause for a second, and maybe talk about the motivation more generally for this paper, and which links to this. I think a big motivation is just that individuals today have more and more jobs as they enter retirement. Theyve experienced more and more jobs, and each of these jobs may have had retirement plans. And so, the question is, really, do people pay attention and consolidate and manage their various retirement accounts? Its much more fragmented now than it might have been decades ago, where individuals just had one job and one pension, or one main account to manage. Now, I think the average individual entering retirement has had 12 jobs with retirement accounts. And so, the question is, do you really know about all of them? Do you manage them?

And so when were looking at the automatic-enrollment aspect, one of the huge, huge pushes that has been very successful in raising retirement savings has been automatic enrollment, where employers from day one of you joining a job will default you into some kind of savings. So its cut out of your paycheck and into some kind of a 401(k) or 403(b) plan where youre saving for retirement. And what we find in the paper is at least for the lower balances, where people are leaving behind savings from an old job between $1 and $5,000, we find that a lot of those types of plans seem to have abandoned rates at, I think it was close to 30%. And we think a lot of the problem might stem from people never even knowing that they were in a retirement account. So clearly, automatically enrolling people is beneficial in the sense that people now have savings, at least passively, that theyre accruing into retirement. But a downside, at least as people job hop is that youre getting these payroll deductions for benefits that you might not even know about.

And when we think about people not claiming these later in life, its a little bit different than not claiming something like unemployment insurance. Its your own savings that were cut from your paycheck that youre not accessing. And so, we think defaults are clearly important. They play a big role in getting people engaged with retirement saving. But we have to be a little bit careful about it, especially for people with smaller balances from maybe short-term jobs where maybe the individual didnt have the attention or the financial knowledge to really understand their own benefits. And these savings might end up lost forever.

Benz: You examined the factors that tend to be associated and not associated with abandoning a retirement account. Account size, which youve already alluded to, sounds like its pretty important. So, if I have a significant amount of money in a plan, Im more likely to pay attention to it and know that its there. But what other factors are in the mix that you looked at in the paper?

Mukherjee: Theres a couple. I think one is financial sophistication. This project was quite exciting because one of the co-authors, Lucas Goodman, hes at the Office of Tax Analysis. So, we had access to really all U.S. tax records for this project. We could measure financial sophistication by looking at, did you file a tax return? Did you report investment income? Things like that. And there we see that at least some of these measures of financial sophistication are negatively related to abandonment. Some other factors were, I think, the plans ZIP code. So essentially, theres a lot of plan variation, like I was saying earlier. Some plans, if theyre well-resourced, will look for you. And thus, that account will be less likely to be abandoned. But other plans, if theyre just doing the bare minimum of sending a notice to their last known address, if you had your account with that plan, you may end up much more likely to have an abandoned account. So, we think financial sophistication is a big one, and the plan characteristics or plan location appears to be a big one as well.

Ptak: Is there any way that defaults could better serve participants to help address this problem weve been talking about? For example, put in place defaults for the time when the participant separates from service, not just when theyre hired?

Mukherjee: I think this is a great question and something that people are thinking a lot about. There are some defaults when people separate. So thats partly where we got this variation from, in the sense of if you leave behind less than $1,000 in retirement savings at a job, you are automatically cashed out with the penalty. If you leave behind $1,000 and $5,000, youre automatically put into a balance-preserving plan. And if you leave behind more than $5,000, you get to stay with the plan. So, there are already some defaults. I think other ideas that could work maybe is increasing the threshold for cash-outs without penalty. If youre leaving a job with a small pocket of savings, its not likely to be very meaningful as it rolls into retirement, particularly as you think about all the different management fees. Maybe allowing people to just cash out some of those savings with the lower penalty could be helpful. Maybe forcing people to engage in some way, or increasing the amount of time you have to roll over retirement savingsthings like that could be certainly helpful.

But there is this general tension that defaults are intended to be passive. Like theyre intended to not get your attention. Thats partly why they work. But then as people at some point need to awaken to shifting from saving to using up that money, then you suddenly have to remember that you have all these savings or be reminded that you have all these savings. And so, I think some kind of a default that maybe when somebody separates from service that at least gets your attention in some way as to your benefits could certainly be very helpful.

Benz: Im curious, and its really beyond the scope of this paper, but did the work in this area get you thinking about how our system could better serve people who are in the decumulation phase? You mentioned earlier that most of us have many jobs throughout our lifetimes. Its just a lot more complicated to figure out retirement decumulation. Do you feel like there needs to be more work done at that life stage versus at the front end where it seems like weve solved for a lot of the problems in terms of getting people to save better and sooner? Its more in the decumulation phase where people could really use some help.

Mukherjee: Yeah, I think thats definitely part of the motivation for this project. My Ph.D. advisor, Olivia Mitchell, always told me decumulation phase is where we dont know as much. And so, Ive always had an eye toward questions in that space. And I think definitely part of decumulation is just knowing your assets. To begin with, thats partly where this project came into play. And I think theres a huge interest in there. Like, even in terms of how people engage with their benefits. You do take a lump sum out; do you take an annuity? Do you take some kind of a regular monthly payment until the money draws out? I think theres a lot of questions around how people can best decumulate. And I know theres a strong financial advising space there. And I think theres lots more work to do on how to get people to do it optimally. My own work has been interested in step one of that, which is how do you at least know exactly what youve had as you enter retirement, which seems kind of obvious. But I think with all the different hassle costs, and employers you might have worked for may no longer exist, so the plan that you had may have changed hands multiple times. Im interested in all those hassle costs and frictions and just managing and keeping track of your accounts to begin with, which informed the decumulation phase.

Ptak: I wanted to shift and talk about wealth inequality in retirement. Its been another focus in your research. That people with more wealth tend to live longer, I think has been well established. You worked on some recent research that digs into that a bit further, however. Specifically, you and your co-researchers found that not only do wealthier people live longer, but they also have more healthy disability-free years than lower income people do. Can you discuss whats going on there?

Mukherjee: This paper actually just got published in the Journal of Health Economics, just this week. So, were excited about this work. In this paper, we were really interested in the relationship of wealth with the quality of longevity after age 65. I think certainly our motivation, as you said, the fact that people with wealth live longer is known, but how are those longer lives broken down into healthy and unhealthy years, or work and not working years was not known. And so for our project, we were really interested, for example, do the most wealthy live very long because theyre able to extend six states of life, like by having access to good healthcare, or is it that they are just generally healthier and experience also a lot of good years, post age 65? This is one of my first descriptive type of papers. Were really just interested in laying down some facts about how people live after age 65 across the wealth quartile and across years in the U.S.

And here we find that the wealthiest quartile of people do live, not just longer lives after age 65, but its also healthier lives, and years that enable them to work longer. Were really seeing, when we think about inequality in the U.S., were seeing a lot of these inputs to inequality where the wealthiest can keep working for longer, they can keep having healthier lives, keep drawing down their savings over a longer period of time. Were seeing some evidence of deepening inequality in the U.S. through this study.

Benz: Im curious, and this is something you looked at in the paper, can you talk about wealth and education and whether theyre interchangeable in this discussion of longevity? If someone has high educational attainment, but maybe theyre not in the top quartile for wealth, are they likely to exhibit some of these same patterns in terms of disability-free, healthy life expectancy as the people who have high incomes and maybe are top quartile from a standpoint of income?

Mukherjee: So this is something, we looked at in the paper, as you noted, we looked at education, mostly because a challenge with looking at the effect of wealth on health is that they are interrelated. Lets say you have a disease at age 40, you may draw down your wealth to take care of that disease and to manage that disease. Maybe that disease also shortens your life span. So, what we might incorrectly see in the data is that people who arrive with less wealth to age 65, when we see that they live less long afterward, maybe its because they had a health shock earlier in life. And so, this deep connection between health and wealth is something that makes it hard to make statements about the effect of wealth on health in older ages. What we did in the paper is that we looked at education and the reason why education is often, you could say preferred, but at least interesting, is because you cant spend down your education. So, if you get a big disease at age 40, you cant change your education.

You cant spend it to take care of your health. And so, for that reason, we think education is another proxy for socioeconomic status, just like wealth is, that is usually fixed earlier in life. And when we look at the trends of healthy life expectancy with education instead of wealth, we find the same types of patterns. So people who are highest education, thats who a lot of these gains in life expectancy, healthy life expectancy and extended years of work, are accruing to. I wouldnt say that theyre fully interchangeable because theyre not exactly the same for all the reasons you might imagine. You could be wealthy without education, you could have high education and not high wealth and so forth, but they tend to both select on, theyre both imperfect proxies for some measure of socioeconomic status, which is maybe what really is related to these outcomes were interested in. So, for that reason, education and wealth do behave similarly when we look at their effect on disability-free life expectancy.

Ptak: Lets discuss the lowest-income quartile, if we can, where theres a connection to your other work about opioids. That cohort has been hit disproportionately by so-called deaths of despair over the past few decades, including drug-related deaths and suicide. Can you discuss what youre seeing in that part of the population?

Mukherjee: This is a massive area of work in economics and our recent Nobel Prize to also focus on a lot of this work. In my particular paper that were talking about, we condition on living to age 65. We look at people after age 65. So, a lot of this is resolved by that age. In a way, I think the life expectancy for people who have drug addiction, opioid abuse, and so forth is quite low, unfortunately. And many of those individuals wouldnt be in our sample. But certainly, more broadly speaking, I think these have driven, I think, some of the first declines in longevity in the U.S. in a long time. Theyre hugely important, large enough to affect kind of the aggregate statistics on life expectancy, even when cut by subgroups. And something that I think were still grappling with, the opioid crisis continues. And so, I dont think this has been solved in any way. And something that is important, and I think really complicates a lot of the analysis that I and others are trying to do in an important way, we try to address it by looking at different cuts of the population and so forth.

But really, these drug-related deaths are quite I think whats unique about them, from my own prior work and others prior work, is that they cut across all social groups, they cut across race, they cut across everything. So, its not as easy to study. And I think theres a lot of interest in trying to better understand policies around the opioid epidemic and how we can contain it, and consequently reduce drug-related deaths and suicide. Some of my own prior work has looked at opioid policies, like prescribing limits, and particularly like triplicate state protection, where some states already had rules that made it much harder to prescribe opioids than in other states. And those seem to be very powerful and impactful. But yeah, I think theres no solution here; this is something thats ongoing.

Benz: Thinking broadly about longevity, is it too simplistic to think that the lower income, say, quartile of our population has experienced some declines in longevity, whereas the higher income, say, quartile, theyve just sailed along and even had longevity gains through this period, even though longevity broadly for our population seems to have stalled out or maybe even gone downward a little bit?

Mukherjee: I think that what you summarized is really what this research finds. That these gains that were having in longevity are accruing only to the top-wealth quartile. So, its in a way not simplistic. That is the basic finding. And I think, related to the previous question, I think the lowest-income quartile has experienced either stagnation or maybe some decline due to all these other factors going on. But I think that fact that a lot of these gains are only really accruing to the richest people in society, highlights some need to put attention on that. Why is that? And how can we experience gains more equally as society?

Ptak: Your research noted that people in the lowest-income quartile tended to overestimate their life expectancy. What are the implications of that tendency?

Mukherjee: We looked at some of these questions around what we call sort of subjective mortality and subjective expectations about living and healthy living. And we do find some excess optimism among the lowest-income quartile. I think the main implications there are really around saving and maybe health investments. So if you think that youre going to live a lot longer than you will, maybe you oversave, maybe you dont invest in health. I think thats the bigger one. Maybe you dont invest in health as much as you should. If you wanted to change that trajectory, maybe theres some really great returns to health investments today that people are not making because they think theyll be OK. Those are the most salient ones that come to mind. But there could certainly be other implications in terms of how people plan even, caregiving. You might buy long-term care insurance, maybe you dont need to, and people dont overall. But I think generally it highlights some disconnect between how these gains in longevity are being spread across the population. People think that theyre being more evenly spread than they are.

Benz: I wanted to discuss the Social Security dimension of this. Social Security I think is, a lot of us would agree, that the best-performing part of our system for retirees. Its progressive and its designed to replace a higher share of lower-income workers pay than is the case for higher-income workers. But the fact is that wealthier people live longer, and they often get more years of income from Social Security and that undermines that progressive nature. So, are there any adjustments to Social Security that you think might adjust that, acknowledging that youre not an expert in Social Security? But do you have any thoughts on that?

Mukherjee: Its an interesting question. There are ways you could change. I think the angle that I have been more interested in is how do we get the gains in longevity to be more spread across the population so that Social Security is in fact progressive as its intended to be? But I think there could be ways in which maybe at the time that you decide on your claiming you are given some accurate life expectancy information and allowed to make decisions around distributions. I think the concern has been generally that people claim too early and take too much lump sum-type distributions rather than annuities. I wouldnt say this is an issue maybe as much in practice as it is by design. So, in principle, if everybody was taking an annuity at the right time at the normal retirement age, the full retirement age, then you might see that the wealthier people end up getting more years of the annuity. I think in practice, many people claim early, many people take lump sums. So, theres some undoing of that concern.

Ptak: One point that some of our previous guests have made is that retirees are generally pretty happy across the wealth spectrum. And that undermines the notion that the U.S. is in the midst of or on the brink of a retirement crisis. How would you respond to assertions like those that, retirees are a happy lot in general?

Mukherjee: Thats a good thing, right? Overall, I think its good. Im a faculty member in our risk and insurance department. And so being, I think, around insurance economics constantly, its the risks that everybodys happy until something happens. So, I think there are these risks of, you become disabled, or you thought your kids would do caregiving for you, but theyre not going to anymore. There are risks of you can no longer be independent; you suddenly dont have enough money, like nursing home care costs are much larger than you anticipated. I think all those types of risks are really where at least my research hopes to play a role. Its one thing to be happy, and its good to be happy. But I do think were in a crisis in the sense that I think the savings that people have may not be sufficient to afford the types of nursing home care, types of care for the duration that people might want them. And so, I think at that point, for example, some of my prior research looks at what happens. So, it may be then that the burden shifts to the next generation, maybe. In particular, its often like an adult daughter who steps out of the workforce to do caregiving.

So that could be a solution. But then youre perpetuating some inequalities to the next generation as a way to deal with some gaps in retirement planning from the previous generation. I think people may be happy, but I think how people are equipped to handle the risks. Some are uncertain, but more and more you can predict on some level, whether you might need nursing home care, and whether you can afford it. I think those are where the happiness maybe is less stable, and more critical to really think about planning for those tail risks.

Benz: I would love to dial out and look beyond the U.S. and ask, to what extent are some of the trends that weve been discussing the relationship between wealth and longevity and healthy lifetimes? To what extent are those a U.S. phenomenon or a U.S. problem? And to what extent do other countries, I suppose, especially developed countries, have a similar pattern in play?

Mukherjee: From our paper, when we did the review, it does seem to be a general developed-country fact. So not everybody has looked at specifically the breakdown of longevity post 65, as relates to wealth as we have. But generally, I think this is something true in developed countries. And so, this relationship between wealth and longevity, but also wealth and healthy longevity, and wealth and maybe the ability to work seems to be strong and growing over time, and present in modern economies. And so, when we think about that, I think the real way to maybe begin to address it is to think about the healthcare system. Who goes to the doctor, who gets treatment? I think one of the studies, and here, Im stepping out of my own research for a bit. But I think even things like statins, which are known to be life extending, are they prescribed across the wealth spectrum? And I dont know the answers to those things. But my guess is that management of chronic disease is probably a big factor in these gradients in the U.S. and beyond. And so, I think these are prevalent enough and stable enough in different settings that we have to now think harder about why this is.

Ptak: Youve mentioned long-term care a couple times during our conversation, so wanted to turn to that for a few moments. Some of your research has looked at Medicaid and long-term care, and specifically whether people offload assets to become Medicare eligible. What did you find?

Mukherjee: This was a paper that we looked at the specific rule that Medicaid has, where you can become eligible for Medicaid only once you have, net of your house and several exclusions, have $2,000 in assets. And so, we find that people who exhibit some sense that they might need nursing home care in the future. So, this was a survey question, a dataset, they asked: With what probability do you think youll need nursing home care in the future? And we find that people who anticipate needing it do give more money to their kids in advance. And so we find that to be some evidence that people are offloading their assets by giving them to children to become Medicaid eligible for when they do need long-term care, because otherwise you have to give it to the nursing home.

You can spend it down through either nursing home care, or you can spend it down by just giving it away and then becoming eligible. There are some policies to try and limit that behavior. Because its not the spirit of the asset test. And so, what we find is that in the policy where they basically changed the period in which they will look to see whether youve done things like that. Whether youve just given away money to kids, whether we see the Deficit Reduction Act change that look-back period from three years to five years. And in response, we see that people actually do offload assets earlier than five years. So, people are paying attention to these look-back periods and thinking about depleting assets in a way that can make you eligible for nursing home care. I think a benefit of giving to your children, although you lose some agency over it, is that if it turns out maybe you dont need nursing home care, you might be able to get some of that money back either directly or in the form of care. And so, we find some kind of interplay between Medicaid rules and peoples management of assets.

Benz: Another of your research interests is financial literacy and also health literacy and how to improve it. And you had a really interesting paper where you looked at someones savviness with respect to being able to do online searching and how that affects their literacy level, say financial literacy. Can you discuss that?

Mukherjee: This was a paper that I was really excited about in part because it gets at some of my longer-term goals of trying to think about the hassle costs in healthcare and in financial management. Theres just so many logins now for every single account, do people really figure that out? Do they create them, remember them, log in, roll things over, keep track of their savings, things like that. And so I think in this paper, our main interest was A, to really document to what degree do people, at least older peopleagain, this is using the health and retirement study, which focuses on older individuals in the U.S.to what degree do people exhibit internet literacy? And then within that, how does being literate online affect your financial literacy and your health literacy? And so we were just interested It seems like there is quite a strong relationshippeople who are better at the internet, at navigating the internet, logging into things, being able to search for information, they do seem to have higher financial literacy and higher health literacy. And we think thats important. In the sense when we think about these inequities and the digital divide and all that stuff, both geographically and among older people and younger people, being able to stay technologically engaged seems to help inform changing information about finances and health. So, it does seem to matter quite a lot.

Ptak: Is it possible that this problem is exclusive to the current population of older adults, some of whom have only been using the internet for part of their lives and will improve with each successive generation?

Mukherjee: I think certainly, the comfort with technology increases with each generation, but I think there will always be probably a gradient between younger and older and adoption and comfort with technology. Like just yesterday, I was at Whole Foods, and they asked me if I wanted to enable my thumbprint for pay, and I said no. But maybe a younger person would say yes, and if they say yes everywhere, maybe that makes their financial management much easier. You can just use biometrics to log in to everything, and maybe older people will be slower to adopt that type of thing. So I think that there will always be some kind of gradient. But certainly youre right, like our generation growing older will be very comfortable with email and all that stuff, but maybe not with the most newest formslike the multiple-factor authentication is very common. I dont know the adoption of that across the age gradient. Or, just keeping your finances secure but also maintaining access to themI think will improve, but theres likely to stay some divide, both among young and old, and also among old in terms of the comfort with that technology.

Benz: I wanted to ask about the role of career in all of this. It seems like if you have a job in the information economy, youre just naturally going to spend more time doing searches on this or that, and youd be better at it when you need information on other things, related to your finances, for example. Can you discuss that? And also, I know theres been research done on the fact that people with certain types of jobs, desk jobs, for example, oftentimes just have more discretionary time to do things. Theyre related, personal, details, things they need to follow up on or call a doctor or whatever it is. The job just gives you more leeway to do that stuff. Can you talk about how career fits into all this?

Mukherjee: I dont have my own research on this, but what youre saying very much resonates. I think in line with all these hassle costs, in terms of how hard it is to navigate and keep track of everything. Certainly, people who have both the literacy to do so in terms of, not just reading, writing literacy, but literacy of really the online portals and being able to maybe have a password manager, things like that. I think certainly people with jobs that enable being able to do some of that more easily, either because youre doing it anyways for work or because you have some slack time during the dayyoure already at your computer, I think certainly helps. And I think thats really the markers of that in our data when we look at them is sometimes in financial literacy. And that seems to mitigate more of it. So if somebodys very financially literate but does not have a desk job, that seems to be OK, but often, as you mentioned, those might be correlated. But certainly, no, I think staying employed in generalprior research has shown that that itself has beneficial effects on mortality and other stuff. So its maybe useful to stay employed for cognitive reasons and also to maintain your skills at managing your own personal finances.

Ptak: How do you decide which topics are worthy of further research?

Mukherjee: Thats a good question. Im not sure. I make my own decisions. Ideally, I think the research question that Im studying is interesting regardless of the finding. So, I try not to pick questions where Ill be disappointed if the data shows something. It should be interesting either way, so sometimes that leads me to a descriptive paper like the health-wealth gradients that we discussed earlier. Sometimes it leads me The abandoned accounts paper, for example, there was part of it was descriptive. We just knew nothing about the extent of abandoned accounts, but then beyond that, we were able to do a little bit more.

And beyond that, Im an empirical microeconomist, so I try hard to look for questions that can be tested with appropriate data. Ideally, theres some sorts of variation in the data that allows us to determine some kind of causal relationship. So, for example, in the abandoned accounts paper, there are these thresholds at $1,000 and $5,000 for when youre leaving behind money with your old job at which you get treated differently. You get a cash-out, or you stay with the plan, or you get into this other plan thats created by default. So, those types of thresholds really allowed us to learn a lot about, for example, the role of defaults and eventual abandonment. But I think keeping an eye out for these policy cutoffs and appropriate data. And I think most of all the question that I find interesting because a lot of my projects, they end up as being a little line on a resume, but they sometimes have three years of phone calls and research behind them, three or more years. And so, I think it should be something that also I enjoy reading about and learning about, not just at work, but just generally thinking about.

Benz: You referenced household finance earlier and maybe you can talk about what falls under that umbrella? Also, do you think that some realms of household finance have perhaps been eclipsed by the whole retirement and investing discussion? Do we maybe underplay some of the smaller decisions that households make with respect to their finances?

Mukherjee: My own research agenda for the next several years, I think Im really interested in these. Ive referenced them a couple times in this conversation, but I call them hassle costs,this information or management cost, we could think about it in terms of all the different benefits we have. I think, theres just so much logging in and logging out, not just in finance, but you see it a lot in healthcare too. Like for every doctors appointment, theres five different logins from different providers. And so, I think trying to be reasonable about what people can actually do in that space and manage it over an entire lifetime, and how to reduce those hassle costs is really quite interesting for me. And also thinking about how much hassle costs prevent people from engaging with their own finances.

Like you couldnt figure it out or you delay or procrastinate or something because its unpleasant. And I think the other area that seems to have been under-researched that Im also interested to study is this idea of changing your habit from saving to spending. I think many people, especially among maybe the more wealthyyou get so trained to save that youre scared to ever spend. So, thinking about how people make decisions about that juncture that, OK, now Im officially going to go from saving to spendingwhen that is for an individual, for a couple, for a family, what unit are people thinking about as they make that decisionI think is not heavily studied. I think weve gotten good at getting people to save or at least better. But in terms of thinking about the decumulation, as you said, one of the first questions there is, just when does decumulation begin? And I think evidence shows its not exactly just at retirement. You may have adult children youre thinking about, you may have a spouse whos at a different career juncture than you. So, thinking about how people actually decide when to make that switch has not been heavily studied.

Benz: Well, Dr. Mukherjee, we are interested in seeing your forthcoming research on that topic. Thank you so much for taking time out of your schedule to be with us today.

Mukherjee: Thanks again for having me. This was really fun for me to reflect on the different research questions.

Ptak: Thanks again.

Benz: Thanks for joining us on The Long View. If you could, please take a minute to subscribe to and rate the podcast on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

You can follow us on Twitter @Christine_Benz.

Ptak: And @Syouth1, which is S-Y-O-U-T-H and the number 1.

Benz: George Castady is our engineer for the podcast and Kari Greczek produces the show notes each week.

Finally, wed love to get your feedback. If you have a comment or a guest idea, please email us at TheLongView@Morningstar.com. Until next time, thanks for joining us.

(Disclaimer: This recording is for informational purposes only and should not be considered investment advice. Opinions expressed are as of the date of recording. Such opinions are subject to change. The views and opinions of guests on this program are not necessarily those of Morningstar, Inc. and its affiliates. While this guest may license or offer products and services of Morningstar and its affiliates, unless otherwise stated, he/she is not affiliated with Morningstar and its affiliates. Morningstar does not guarantee the accuracy, or the completeness of the data presented herein. Jeff Ptak is an employee of Morningstar Research Services LLC. Morningstar Research Services is a subsidiary of Morningstar, Inc. and is registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Morningstar Research Services shall not be responsible for any trading decisions, damages or other losses resulting from or related to the information, data analysis, or opinions, or their use. Past performance is not a guarantee of future results. All investments are subject to investment risk, including possible loss of principal. Individuals should seriously consider if an investment is suitable for them by referencing their own financial position, investment objectives and risk profile before making any investment decision.)

Originally posted here:
Dr. Anita Mukherjee: Exploring the Link Between Wealth, Longevity ... - Morningstar

By Chris MacDonald

Whats the secret to living a long life? People have been trying to figure that out for years. I decided to ask folks, mainly in their 80s and 90s, their favorite tips for longevity. Happy wife, happy life, said Sunset Beachs Eric Bakker, 87, who owns Antiques of the Sea, with his spouse of 52-years, Elaine.

A loving marriage, good friends, a social life and a close, caring family, said longtime Huntington Harbour Realtor Dianne Rector, 80, who was an actress that appeared with Elvis Presley and other top stars in movies and on TV. She has been married to her husband, Rich, 83, for over 61 years.

Neither one of us thought about divorce at the same time, said 93-year-old Graham Martin, with a wink of an eye. Weve been married 73 years and my wife, Dolores, 90, still sparkles. She knits hats and sews jackets for her business, Dolores Hand Mades at Timeless Treasure Boutiques.

Hang in there, when youre hurting all over and trust in the Lord, said former Army Vietnam veteran and actor in Dallas and Murder She Wrote, Frank Pangborn, 78, who grew up in Buena Park, robbing stagecoaches at Knotts.

Follow the Lords words, thats what works for me, said Dan Moore, 80, pastor emeritus at Living Waters Christian Fellowship, who loves walking with his dog, Jake, around local parks.

Be happy, said Catherine Wong, a registered nurse for 45 years, who often unselfishly shares her advice, common sense and wisdom, with friends and neighbors

Listen or perform music. Music is life. Its relaxing, great for your mind and body, keeps you alert, is fun and always great to look forward too, sad Dr. Richard Thill, 83, who retired as a dentist at 80. Hes studying at Fullerton College to become a music teacher and show young people the value of music. His father, Elmer, who lived to be more than 107, took up the flute at 90 and played clarinet at 106, with his son, in a popular band, Forever Young in Sunset Beach, Long Beach, and Huntington Beach. When Elmer was 13, his music teacher told him, Why dont you learn to play clarinet, youll live a long life? He did and was still playing it at 107!

Luck, eating right, staying in good shape through exercise and doing something thats important to you, which makes every day important, said Sunset Beachs Bill Anderson, 82, owner of Anderson Art Gallery.

Stay alive and have good chromosomes, advised Jerry Person, 80, Huntington Beach City Historian.

Ive lived longer and felt better since I stopped drinking alcohol over 30 years ago, said Bob Anderson, 75, a retired antique dealer from Huntington Harbour. I started walking and exercising more and its made a world of difference.

Remember, age is just a number, be grateful and positive for what you have, advised the late fitness legend, Jack LaLanne, who on his 70thBirthday (Sept. 26, 1984) swam a mile and a half in Long Beach Harbor, towing 70 rowboats (with people in them), while his hands and feet were shackled.

(The writer of this article was a close friend of the late 96-year-old, Sid Hallburn, who was an MGM and Little Rascals tap dancer and a buddy of Jacks. He rode in one of the rowboats LaLanne pulled in this unbelievable feat.).

Originally posted here:
Locals share their secrets of longevity - EVENT NEWS

While lower temperatures have typically been associated with lower performance for electric vehicle batteries, a new study outlined by Electrek has revealed that cold weather might actually be a good thing for the long-term health of those batteries.

Recurrent, a clean tech startup that researches electric vehicle technology, released some data on the 12,500 Teslas it is currently tracking and found that those in colder and coastal climates retained their battery life better than those in warmer climates.

Recurrent assigned each vehicle a Range Score, which shows how much of its original capacity each battery retained since Recurrent began tracking it (an unspecified period of time). The sample of 2020 Model Ys in warmer climates averaged a Range Score of 92, whereas the ones in colder climates averaged a Range Score of 95.

Earlier this year, Tesla was fined $2.2 million by the government of South Korea for failing to tell its customers that battery ranges would be shorter in colder temperatures. But for the affected customers, things might work out for them in the long term as their batteries may degrade slightly less over time.

Recurrent explained the phenomenon somewhat, writing, Environmental heat contributes extra energy to the electrochemical reactions in the battery, which can accelerate unwanted chemical reactions that age the battery prematurely.

Another recent study found that Tesla batteries are not as affected by frequent Supercharging as was previously thought.

Interesting. For the lower degradation in colder climates, that makes sense. All electro-chemical processes slow at lower temperatures, so degradation should as well, one Electrek commenter wrote. Concerning the lack of degradation from Supercharging, more data is needed. Does the same apply to other brands?

The data is really starting to show that the way to kill lithium batteries is through heat. This points to a robust thermal management system being the key component of any EV when it comes to long term reliability, another commenter wrote.

Join our free newsletter for weekly updates on the coolest innovations improving our lives and saving our planet.

See more here:
New study reveals surprising effect of cold weather on Tesla battery longevity: Does the same apply to other brands? - Yahoo

Summary

Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One is another showcase for Tom Cruise's incredible action movie star qualities, but the movie also acts as a shocking reminder of the franchise's longevity thanks to his age. The seventh entry in the Mission: Impossible franchise arrived 27 years after the original movie that rebooted the TV series as an action/thriller movie series. Audiences have spent nearly three decades watching Tom Cruise becoming increasingly more daring with his stunts in an effort to bring more people to theaters and treat them to something they've never seen. It's only become more impressive as he gets older too.

Tom Cruise's age in the Mission: Impossible movies has continued to gain recognition thanks to the unbelievable practical stunts he pulls off with each new installment. Mission: Impossible 7 is no different in that regard, as he was 61 years old by the time the movie finally hit theaters. Tom Cruise's age in Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One is actually 59 and 60 years old as a result of the extensive production process and delays caused by the pandemic. Not only does this make many of the movie's stunts and his physical performance all that more special, but comparing it to the original movie makes it truly shocking.

It is somewhat miraculous to realize that Tom Cruise is older in Mission: Impossible 7 than Jon Voight was in 1996's Mission: Impossible. While Cruise was a spry 32-year-old in the original movie playing a 34-year-old Ethan Hunt, Jon Voight was introduced as Jim Phelps, the elder statesman of the Impossible Mission Force and a mentor to Ethan. Voight easily fills in this role and makes Phelps' experience in the field believable, and this is thanks to the actor being 57 years old during the making of the movie. That really puts Tom Cruise's commitment to Mission: Impossible and the franchise's success into perspective.

Related: Mission Impossible Movies Ranked - From The 1996 Original to Dead Reckoning Part 1

Tom Cruise has officially surpassed the age of the franchise's original "old" agent, but Mission: Impossible 7's ending shows no signs of him slowing down. This can partially be attributed to the fact that Tom Cruise looks much younger than a man in his 60s, whereas Jon Voight's slicked-back grayish-brown hair naturally makes him feel older. But, Ethan Hunt also continues to be incredibly active in missions as Tom Cruise runs, jumps, fights, and more in each new movie. It is clear that even after 27 years of playing Ethan Hunt that Tom Cruise's character remains a premier IMF agent who can save the world, even as he gets older.

Tom Cruise has no plans to stop playing Ethan Hunt and starring in Mission: Impossible movies either. He will be 62 years old by the time Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part Two hits theaters, as long as more delays do not come. The action star also told Sydney Morning Herald that he wants to match Harrison Ford's time playing Indiana Jones and hopes to keep making Mission: Impossible movies until he is in his 80s. That would mean there is room for plenty of other movies that will make Tom Cruise feel even younger in Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One as a result.

Source: Sydney Morning Herald

Continued here:
Tom Cruise's Age In Mission Impossible 7 Is A Shocking Reminder ... - Screen Rant