A consortium of six national centers will study Social Security programs and related policies and distribute information to policymakers, researchers and the public under five-year agreements announced by the Social Security Administration.

Recipients of the multimillion dollar agreements are Boston College, City University of New York, the National Bureau of Economic Research, the University of Maryland, the University of Michigan and the University of Wisconsin.

According to the Social Security Administration, the Retirement and Disability Research Consortium has three main goals:

  • Research and evaluate a wide array of topics related to Social Security’s Old-Age, Survivors and Disability Insurance and Supplemental Security Income programs and related federal policies;
  • Disseminate information on those topics to policymakers, researchers, stakeholder organizations and the general public; and
  • Provide training and education to scholars and practitioners in relevant research areas.

The City University of New York has established the New York Retirement and Disability Research Center, which will be a collaboration between the CUNY Institute for Demographic Research housed at Baruch College, the Brookdale Center for Healthy Aging at Hunter College and the Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis at The New School.

Funding for the first year of that center will total more than $1.9 million, with similar amounts expected in each of the remaining four years of the program.

“CUNY is proud to partner with The New School in creating an important new research center whose work will help the Social Security Administration pursue policies that improve the lives of millions of people in New York and across the country,” CUNY Chancellor Félix V. Matos Rodríguez stated. “CUNY is committed to reducing health and economic disparities and this partnership exemplifies how we are expanding research opportunities for CUNY students by creating collaborations across disciplines, across our campuses and with partner institutions.” 

The university noted that this RDRC center will be the first to be led by a minority-serving institution. 

Before 2019, SSA funded two separate extramural research programs: the Retirement Research Consortium and the Disability Research Consortium.