Profile
**On leave Fall 2025**
Teresa Ghilarducci is a labor economist and nationally recognized expert in retirement security.
She holds the Irene and Bernard L. Schwartz Chair in economic policy analysis in the Economics Department at The New School for Social Research. She also directs the Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis (SCEPA) that focuses on economic policy research and outreach.
Ghilarducci joined The New School in 2008 after 25 years as a professor of economics at the University of Notre Dame. Her most recent book, Rescuing Retirement: A Plan to Guarantee Retirement Security for All Americans, offers solutions to the growing retirement crisis in the U.S. Her previous books include How to Retire with Enough Money, When I’m Sixty Four: The Plot Against Pensions and the Plan to Save Them, published in 2008' Labor's Capital: The Economics and Politics of Employer Pensions, winner of an Association of American Publishers award in 1992; and Portable Pension Plans for Casual Labor Markets, published in 1995.
Degrees Held
PhD 1984, University of California, Berkeley
Recent Publications
Books
Rescuing Retirement: A Plan to Guarantee Retirement Security for All Americans, co-authored with Tony James (Disruption Books, 2016)
How to Retire with Enough Money and How to Know What Enough Is (Workman Publishing, 2015)
Articles and Book Chapters
"Monopsony Power, Race, and Gender. In Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Economics and Finance." Farmand, A. and Ghilarducci, T., 2022.
"The Illusory Benefit of Working Longer on Retirement Financial Preparedness: Rethinking Advice That Working Longer Increases Retirement Income." The Journal of Retirement. Ghilarducci, T., Papadopoulos, M. and Webb, A., 2022.
"How to Think about Our Children's Children: Warmth: Coming of Age at the End of Our World, Daniel Sherrell." Social Research: An International Quarterly, 89(2), pp.285-295. Ghilarducci, T., 2022.
The Impact of a Social Security Proposal for “Catch-Up” Contributions. Ghilarducci, T., Papadopoulos, M., Sun, W. and Webb, A., 2022.
"Practical Applications of The Illusory Benefit of Working Longer on Retirement Financial Preparedness: Rethinking Advice That Working Longer Increases Retirement Income. Practical Applications." Ghilarducci, T., Papadopoulos, M. and Webb, A., 2022.
"The Impact of a Social Security Proposal for “Catch-Up” Contributions." Ghilarducci, T., Papadopoulos, M., Sun, W. and Webb, A., 2022.
"No 'Great Resignation' for Older Workers—Mass Job Loss Drove the Retirement Surge" (No. 2022-01). Schuster, B., Radpour, S., Conway, E. and Ghilarducci, T., 2022. Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis (SCEPA), The New School.
Gender, Family Histories, and Late-Life Economic Well-Being. Innov Aging. Carr D, Smock P, Ghilarducci T. 2021
"How Expanding EITC Will Benefit 1.5 Million Low-Income Older Workers" (No. 2021-02). Ghilarducci, T., Farmand, A., Fisher, B. and Radpour, S., 2021. Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis (SCEPA), The New School.
"Trends in Employer-Sponsored Retirement Plan Access and Participation Rates: Reconciling Different Data Sources." Ghilarducci, T., Radpour, S. and Papadopoulos, M., 2021. (No. 2021-02). Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis (SCEPA), The New School.
“The Distribution of Time in Retirement: Evidence From the Health and Retirement Survey.” With Anthony Webb. Work, Aging and Retirement. 2018.
“The Labor Consequences of Financializing Pensions.” With Amanda Novello. In The Contradictions of Pension Fund Capitalism. Edited by Kevin Skerrett, Chris Roberts, Johanna Weststar, Simon Archer. Labor and Employment Research Association, LERA Research Volume. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. 2018.
“Innovations in Protecting the Old: Mostly Social Insurance and Some Assets." In The Welfare State Revisited. Edited by José Antonio Ocampo and Joseph E. Stiglitz, Columbia University Press 2018
“Earnings Volatility and 401(k) Contributions.” With Joelle Saad-Lesler and Gayle Reznik. Journal of Pension Economics and Finance. 2017.
"Explaining the Decline in the Offer Rate of Employer Retirement Plans Between 2003 and 2012," with Joelle Saad-Lessler, Industrial and Labor Relations Review, 2015.
"The Surprising Equality of Retirement Time: Evidence from the Health and Retirement Survey," co-authored with Anthony Bonen, ed. by Danielle M. Jaffe, The Connecticut Insurance Law Journal, 2014.
"Private Pensions," in The Oxford Handbook of US Social Policy, ed. Daniel Beland and Christopher Howard (Oxford University Press, 2014).
"Are US Workers Ready for Retirement? Trends in Plan Sponsorship, Participation and Preparedness," with Joelle Saad-Lessler & Kate Bahn, Journal of Pension Benefits, 2014.
"Retirement Security Worse on ERISA's 40th Anniversary," Drexel Law Review, 2014.
“How to Supplement Social Security Fairly and Effectively," Journal of Aging & Social Policy, 2010.
"The macroeconomic stabilisation effects of Social Security and 401(k) plans," with Joelle Saad-Lessler & Eloy Fisher, Cambridge Journal of Economics, 2012.