Nari Rhee, Ph.D., is director of the Retirement Security Program at the UC Berkeley Labor Center. Her current research focuses on the retirement crisis facing California and the U.S. in the context of declining pension coverage, and policies to improve the retirement income prospects of low- and middle-wage workers. Before returning to the Labor Center in November 2014, she served for two years as manager of research at the National Institute on Retirement Security. She formerly held appointments as a postdoctoral scholar, visiting scholar, and associate academic specialist at the Labor Center. Dr. Rhee has written on a wide range of issues related to pensions and retirement security, including public pension reform, international pension systems, and retirement plan design. Her analysis of the retirement savings crisis and its racial dimensions has received broad media coverage and informed policy debates at the state and national levels.
Dr. Rhee’s previous work engaged a range of issues related to the economic security of low-wage workers, including care work, income inequality, housing affordability, uneven regional development, and labor-community coalition building. She earned a Ph.D. in geography from UC Berkeley in 2007, a master’s degree in urban planning from UCLA in 1998, and a bachelor’s degree in anthropology from UC Santa Cruz in 1996.