Скачать или смотреть Changing Mortality Rates, Delays in Retirement, and Income Inequality Amongst the Elderly

SIEPR Conference on Working Longer and Retirement
October 9th, 2014
Gary Burtless and Barry Bosworth
Discussant: Sita Slavov, George Mason University

Income inequality in the US has increased over time, and lifespans have become more unequal. What does this mean for the equity of the formulas used to calculate basic benefits under Social Security, called the Primary Insurance Amount (PIA)? The PIA formula is more generous to those lower lifetime wage earnings. But the actual amount received depends on the PIA formula and adjustments factors used to account for the worker's age at benefits inception. Workers who claim benefits later receive considerably higher benefits, and higher earnings workers tend to delay benefits claiming. This increases the gap in Social Security benefits between the low and high-income workers. How can the PIA formula and the adjustments be recalibrated to close the gap? This paper presents new dataset that matches information from the Census Bureau's Survey of Income and Program Participation and the Social Security lifetime earnings and mortality records, a combination that allows researchers to analyze the determinants of mortality among a large sample of respondents born between 1910 and 1956 over the period 1984 to 2011. Such analysis help inform how the PIA formula and the age adjustments can be changed to close the growing gap in social security benefits between the poor and the rich.