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Retirement, as portrayed in TV commercials, is for indulging a passion, whether tennis, enjoying more time with a spouse, frequent socializing, or civic engagement.

Boston University sociologist Deborah Carr isn’t buying this idealized picture of aging.

“This gilded existence is not within the grasp of all older adults,” she argues in “Golden Years? Social Inequality in Later Life.” “For those on the lower rungs of the ladder,” she writes, retirement is “marked by daily struggle, physical health challenges and economic scarcity.”

Her book, which mines multidisciplinary research on aging, reaches the distressing conclusion that economic inequality not only exists but that it becomes more pronounced as people age and become vulnerable. And this problem will grow and affect more people as the population gets older.

With your free, personal my Social Security account, you can receive personalized estimates of future benefits based on your real earnings, see your latest Statement, and review your earnings history. It even makes it easy to request a replacement Social Security Card or check the status of an application, from anywhere!

The Illinois Public Pension Fund Association (IPPFA) and Northern Illinois University have teamed up to develop a program to assist law enforcement leaders and rank-and-file officers in expanding their knowledge of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, as it effects police officers. This program, “Saving Blue Lives through Training on PTSD, Suicide, Resilience and Peer Support,” is offered at no cost to those attending.

irst responders are routinely exposed to critical incidents involving exposure to injury or death in others, as well as the risk of injury or death to themselves. Research shows, and those in the profession intuitively know, that individual incidents and accumulated exposure can adversely affect the mental and physical health of those involved.

The NIU – IPPFA seminar will include:

• Learning the symptoms of PTSD
• Conditions that often arise with PTSD, such as depression and substance abuse
• Identifying ways to bolster resistance
• Suicide and conditions such as PTSD
• Methods for dealing with PTSD without the help of a mental health professional
• Effective treatments with the help of a mental health professional

New research seeks to answer that question. Using data from the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, researchers at North Carolina State University tallied all incentives offered by 32 states from 1990 to 2015, effectively covering 90 percent of incentives nationally. What they found doesn’t portray incentives in a positive light. Most of the programs they looked at — investment tax credits, property tax abatements, and tax credits for research and development — were linked with worse overall fiscal health for the jurisdiction that enacted them.

Disability statistics can be a useful tool to increase our collective understanding of the barriers faced by the disability population in the workforce.  This information can also help us learn more about the customers we serve each day at an American Job Center. The following resource links are provided to help you gain insights on current and historical labor force participation at the national, state, and county level.