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Robert M. La Follette
School of Public Affairs
1225 Observatory Drive
Madison, WI 53706

Telephone:  608.262.3581
Fax: 608.265.3233


Last updated:
October 6, 2009

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Karen Holden. La Follette School photo by Bob Rashid taken Feb. 2, 2005

Karen Holden

Professor Emeritus of Public Affairs and Consumer Science
Faculty Affiliate, Institute for Research on Poverty, Center for the Demography and Health of Aging, Institute on Aging

Office: 370C School of Human Ecology Building
Phone: 608-263-9283
Fax: 608-265-3233
E-mail:

Robert M. La Follette School of Public Affairs
University of Wisconsin - Madison
1225 Observatory Drive
Madison, WI 53706-1211

Karen Holden is Professor Emeritus of Public Affairs and Consumer Science. She is a Research Associate of the Institute for Research on Poverty and a Faculty Affiliate and Steering Committee member at the Center for the Health and Demography of Aging, and the Center for Demography and Ecology. She was Associate Director of La Follette in 1995-98 and 2005-07. Her research focuses on the effects of social security and pension policy on economic status after retirement and widowhood. Previous work has examined issues in the areas of disability, welfare reform, mandatory retirement policies, and risk of nursing home care. In 1986-87 she was a visiting economist at the Social Security Administration's Office of Research and Statistics.

Professor Holden's current projects include an examination of the adequacy of retirement savings and correlates of changes in adequacy over time; happiness and financial well-being; evaluation of financial literacy programs; and development of financial education programs for young children. She served on the National Academy of Social Insurance Task Force that examined payout issues should there be individual social security accounts. The report, "Uncharted Waters: Paying Benefits from Individual Accounts in Federal Retirement Policy," is informing the policy debate on Social Security reform. She received her B.A. degree in Economics from Barnard College and her doctorate in Economics from the University of Pennsylvania.

Social Security and Reform: What it Does Now; Will it be Around to Keep Doing it? presentation slides, Oct. 11, 2005

Curriculum vitae  

Courses

PA 871 Public Program Evaluation: fall 2008, fall 2007
PA 869 Workshop in Public Affairs, Domestic Issues: spring 2007, spring 2008, spring 2009

La Follette School Working Paper Series