Overview
John A. Turner is Director of the Pension Policy Center, an independent research organization based in Washington, DC, focused on pension and Social Security policy. He has a long record on comparative pension systems, defined-contribution plan design, and workers' perceptions of retirement income programs.
Key Contributions / Features
- Co-author with David Rajnes of Turner and Rajnes (2021): a 50-year meta-analysis of 18 surveys (N > 130,000) documenting workers' systematically pessimistic and often unrealistic expectations about future Social Security benefits. Key finding: 20–34% of workers across surveys expected not to receive SS benefits, vs. ~4% who actually fail to do so; pessimism is highest among young workers and driven by misunderstanding of trust-fund depletion mechanics.
- Earlier collaborative work with Rajnes and Zhang on irrational expectations about Social Security (Turner, Zhang, Hughes, and Rajnes 2019).
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