Collaboration for Poverty Research Associate Director Christopher Wimer and CPI graduate fellow Emily Ryo present a new working paper on economic distress in San Francisco: the "San Francisco Distress Index," developed with support from the San Francisco Foundation and New America Media, shows that economic distress in San Francisco has nearly doubled since the beginning of the Great Recession, and stands well higher today than in the months and years following the dot-com bust.

This brief considers the impact of recent declines in stock prices and nominal interest rates on older households, examining the effect of the crisis on the financial wealth of older households, the impact of the financial crisis on the investment and total incomes of retired households, and the impact of the financial crisis on lifetime consumption.

During the Great Recession, more older workers have claimed Social Security benefits early. This paper addresses two important policy questions: Who are these early claimers? How much retirement income have they lost as a result of claiming early? Using the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) we estimate a discrete-time hazard model that makes claiming Social Security benefits a function of age, personal characteristics, and the national unemployment rate.

Relative to other industrialized, Western nations, the United States is uniquely reliant on nongovernmental organizations to provide public goods, including relief services for the poor. Research on charitable provision, however, finds a consistent gender gap in Americans' giving, with women bearing a significantly greater share of the burden than men. Here we investigate what explains gender differences in giving and what can counteract the pattern by increasing men's giving.

CPR's social policy laboratory on Poverty Measurement presents a new working paper by Barbara Bergmann and John Coder that attempts to estimate an experimental new monthly poverty measure.