SOCIAL SECURITY: OVERVIEW AND OPTIONS

The intense controversy about the future of Social Security is found to be basically political. Adjustments that are relatively minor from an economic point of view suffice to maintain the viability of Social Security and of the economy as a whole. The defined-benefit, pay-as-you-go character of Social Security inevitably produces politically troubling crises as the system matures. Five options for change are considered, with special attention given to a defined-cost system which would gradually adjust benefits and avoid both cyclical and long-term crises     

The financial status of the Social Security and Medicare programs (1990)

To summarize the major points I have covered: The Social Security and Medicare trust funds are carefully held and monitored by three five member boards of trustees, and each board has two members who represent the public's interest. The combined Social Security trust funds are well financed for many years into the future; however, there is reason to monitor the financing for the disability insurance trust fund; and actions will in all likelihood ultimately be required to assure the long-term financial integrity of the combined OASDI programs over the next 75 years. The Medicare trust funds are adequately financed for the short term; however, the HI program faces serious mid- and long-range financing problems that must be addressed. As a result, there is a strong need for Congress to take remedial action to improve the financing and provide an adequate contingency reserve for the program.     

Social Security and the increasing longevity gap

Growth in overall life expectancy is straining the Social Security budget, and the gap in life expectancy between the rich and poor is widening. Motivated by these facts, this paper does four things. First, we develop a simple way to summarize the degree of progressivity in a Social Security system. Second, we show that growth in the life expectancy gap over the last few decades unwinds three-quarters of the progressivity of the Social Security system. Third, we develop simple reforms to Social Security that maintain the progressivity of the system and restore fiscal solvency. Fourth, we estimate the welfare effects of these potential reforms.     

On the Pro-Social Security Rhetoric

We propose to reframe Social Security to offer a coherent anti-privatization rhetoric that has not been fully provided in the contemporary literature. The dissatisfaction that motivated this study centers on the observation that the prevalent anti-privatization rhetoric exposes the drawbacks of Private Retirement Accounts (PRAs), but this rhetoric itself doesn't satisfactorily explain why the current Social Security system is more desirable. In reframing Social Security, we will follow a two-stage strategy. First, we will articulate the desirability of Social Security grounded in the function it serves in a way PRAs are not suited for serving: being a social income insurance scheme whose provision inherently favors the least fortunate in a Rawlsian fashion. Second, we will concentrate how Social Security provides this non-market choice by drawing on the unique resources not entirely available to the market.     

Strengthening Social Security

Social Security's core protections must be maintained, according to this author. He believes that by creating universal savings accounts and investing a small portion of the Social Security trust fund in equities, it is possible to secure the long-term future of Social Security without subjecting workers to the risks of individual, private accounts.     

完善我国社会保障基金投资运营机制对策研究

社会保障基金是社会保障制度实施的核心条件和物质基础,社会保障基金投资运营机制的完善关系到社会保障基金的安全和有效运行。完善我国社会保障基金投资运营机制必须以福利经济学与投资组合理论为科学依据,关注社会保障机制与社会保障制度的协调发展。尤其在我国经济转型期,合理解决社会保障基金投资运营机制的关键在于社会保障基金应实行资本化经营,资金投向应逐渐向低风险、长收益的项目上实现多元化战略投资转移。     

Social Security and saving: A time-series econometrics pedagogical example (with R code)

In 1974, and then again in 1996, Martin Feldstein published studies of the impact of the Social Security system on private saving in the U.S. economy. He found that Social Security depressed personal saving by a substantial amount—up to 50 percent. The author uses the Feldstein data and empirical models in this article to illustrate the steps in analyzing distributed lag problems. These particular data and methods exemplify, among other things, unit roots, autocorrelated residuals, spurious regression, trend breaks, and cointegration. As such, they provide an excellent pedagogical case study. All R code for this article is provided so that students may replicate and extend the included models and results.     

The Effects of Health, Wealth, and Wages on Labour Supply and Retirement Behaviour

This paper estimates a life cycle model of labour supply, retirement, and savings behaviour in which future health status and wages are uncertain. Individuals face a fixed cost of work and cannot borrow against future labour, pension, or Social Security income. The method of simulated moments is used to match the life cycle profiles of labour force participation, hours worked, and assets that are estimated from the data to those that are generated by the model. The model establishes that the tax structure of the Social Security system and pensions are key determinants of the high observed job exit rates at ages 62 and 65. Removing the tax wedge embedded in the Social Security earnings test for individuals aged 65 and older would delay job exit by almost one year. By contrast, Social Security benefit levels, health, and borrowing constraints are less important determinants of job exit at older ages. For example, reducing Social Security benefits by 20% would cause workers to delay exit from the labour force by only three months.     

Social Security Reform and Corporate Governance

Abstract

This paper considers implementation issues arising from potential reforms to the United States Social Security system. Many reform proposals involve individually invested accounts, but the corporate governance implications of such accounts have not been fully explored. Existing reform plans will result in a large fraction of votes being concentrated at one private fund manager. The implications for corporate governance and debt management under alternative fund management strategies are evaluated. The use of futures to construct synthetic investments could alleviate corporate governance and debt management problems.     

SOCIAL SECURITY BENEFITS AS A RETIREMENT RESOURCE FOR U.S. NEAR-RETIREES

This paper analyzes Social Security benefits as a retirement resource (wealth and income) for U.S. near-retirees. We look at how the average values of several measures of benefits such as Social Security wealth and earnings replacement rates have changed from earlier cohorts to today's near-retirement cohort, examine differences among demographic and socioeconomic groups within cohorts, and discuss reasons for these changes and differences. We use improved data (actual earnings history data) to produce more accurate measures of benefits. The paper also uses some new benefit measures. Three key findings are: (1) average real Social Security wealth increases markedly as we move to later cohorts primarily because of increases in average real lifetime earnings; (2) replacement rates fall as we move from the cohorts of persons reaching 61 in 1993–97 to later cohorts primarily because of the phase-in of increases in the age of eligibility for full benefits and the increasing labor market activity of women; and (3) median Social Security wealth is much higher for women than for men because women live longer.     

Social Security Income and Health Care Spending: Evidence from the Social Security Notch

In this paper, I exploit Social Security legislation changes to identify the causal effect of Social Security income on out‐of‐pocket medical expenditures of the elderly. Using the 1986–1994 Consumer Expenditure Survey and an instrumental variables strategy, the empirical results show that health care expenditures are responsive to changes in Social Security income for elderly individuals with less than a high‐school education. The estimated income elasticities are between 1.41 and 3.47, depending on the outcome measures, and are statistically significant at conventional levels. The findings are in contrast to existing studies that find a small income elasticity at the individual/household level.     

Privatizing Social Security

This paper studies the political sustainability of the existing pay-as-you-go Social Security system in the face of recent demographic patterns. We analyze different approaches to privatizing the system and consider what it would require for them to be politically implementable. The analysis is based on an overlapping-generations economy where an initial generation would choose to implement a pay-as-you-go social insurance system. We study the sustainability of this system in each subsequent period. We describe some transition policies that make the current generations of agents at least as well off as the maintenance of the Social Security system. All feasible transition policies use debt to finance the benefits during the transition period, shifting at least some of the cost to unborn generations.     

Labor supply effects of the recent social security benefit cuts: Empirical estimates using cohort discontinuities

In response to a “crisis” in Social Security financing two decades ago Congress implemented an increase in the Normal Retirement Age (NRA) of 2 months per year for cohorts born in 1938 and after. These cohorts began reaching retirement age in 2000. This paper studies the effects of these benefit cuts on recent retirement behavior. The evidence suggests that the mean retirement age of the affected cohorts has increased by about half as much as the increase in the NRA. If older workers continue to increase their labor supply in the same way, there might be important implications for the estimates of Social Security trust fund exhaustion that have played such a major role in recent discussions of Social Security reform.     

Projected U.S. Demographics and Social Security

Without policy reforms, the aging of the U.S. population is likely to increase the burden of the currently unfunded Social Security and Medicare systems. In this paper we build an applied general equilibrium model and incorporate the population projections made by the Social Security Administration (SSA) to evaluate the macroeconomic and welfare implications of alternative fiscal responses to the retirement of the baby-boomers. Our calculations suggest that it will be costly to maintain the benefits at the levels now promised because the increases in distortionary taxes required to finance those benefits will reduce private saving and labor supply. We also find that the “accounting calculations” made by the SSA underestimate the required fiscal adjustments. Finally, our results confirm that policies with similar long-run characteristics have very different transitional implications for the distribution of welfare across generations. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: D52, D58, E21, E62.     

Privatizing Social Security in the United States—Comparing the Options

This paper uses a new version of the Auerbach–Kotlikoff model to consider alternative ways to privatize the U.S. Social Security System. The new model incorporates intra- and intergenerational heterogeneity and is closely calibrated to U.S. fiscal institutions. Three privatization issues are considered: financing the transition, participation rules, and progressivity. As shown, Social Security's privatization can substantially raise long-run living standards. But these gains come at the cost of welfare losses to transition generations and take a long time to materialize. The long-run poor have much to gain from privatization even absent an explicit redistribution mechanism. Finally, privatizations that give initial workers the option of remaining in the current system have particularly low transition costs and particularly favorable macroeconomic consequences. Journal of Economic Literature Classification Numbers: D9, E6.     

Social Security must be reformed

Today's Social Security system must be reformed not only because it will soon be in financial crisis but also because it is simply a bad deal for most Americans, this author believes. She argues that it should be transformed into a system of personal retirement accounts and uses the example of San Diego, which opted out of Social Security in 1981 and replaced it with a mandatory defined contribution program for city employees, to show the benefits of private accounts.     

THE SIGNIFICANCE AND USE OF LONG-RANGE ACTUARIAL COST ESTIMATES FOR THE SOCIAL SECURITY SYSTEM

This paper describes the methodology underlying the actuarial cost estimates for the Social Security program and the assumptions needed therefor. With this as a background, the use to which these estimates is made in developing legislation is described, with emphasis on the current financing problems. Finally, various possible solutions to these problems are discussed. These solutions involve either increasing the income of the program or decreasing the rate of growth of its outgo. Increased income could be derived by increasing the payroll tax rates, by injecting general revenues (either directly or indirectly, such as taxing Social Security benefits and putting the proceeds in the trust funds or financing part of all of the Hospital Insurance program from general revenues and moving some of its payroll tax rate to the cash-benefits program), or by covering government employees who are not now covered. The growth of outgo could be reduced by changes in the cost-of-living adjustments of benefits, by gradually increasing the normal retirement age, or by gradually decreasing the relative benefit level     

Reinforcing the Link Between Contributions and Pensions: The Effect of the Population Aging

In this paper, we analyze a majority voting process on the earnings-related part of pension benefits in a Social Security system with flexible retirement. We show that the aging of the population may make it easier to implement one of the proposed reforms to achieve a delay in the average retirement age of workers, to reinforce the link between contributions and pensions.     

DISENTANGLING THE ANNUITY FROM THE REDISTRIBUTIVE ASPECTS OF SOCIAL SECURITY IN THE UNITED STATES*

In the United States, the life-cycle relationship between initial Social Security contributions and subsequent benefits causes the effect of Social Security on income distribution to be overestimated in a single-period analytical framework. By separating the annuity from the redistributive aspects of Social Security we provide a life-cycle framework for measuring its net effect on redistribution. To this point in its history, we find all income classes have received positive net life-cycle income transfers and, in an absolute sense, upper-income groups have done at least as well as lower-income groups. This suggests a reason for the near-universal support of Social Security by past generations, as well as the controversy which now surrounds it. As it becomes apparent to younger cohorts of taxpayers that many of them will be net losers, it is inevitable that Social Security will be subject to the same controversy as other welfare programs which attempt to redistribute income.     

A Critique of ‘Neoliberal Autonomy’: The Rhetoric of Ownership Society

The rhetoric of the Ownership Society defined by the Cato Institute has been integral to framing the motivation behind the Social Security reform introduced by George W. Bush. This motivational frame involves a fierce advocacy of what we will call ‘neoliberal autonomy’ in a Hayekian and Friedmanite sense. For Hayek and Friedman, the social adequacy component of Social Security is problematized in the name of self-reliance and individual choice, which rejects any authoritative standards as morally indefensible. Nevertheless, the rhetoric of the Ownership Society, though it glorifies the neoliberal notion of autonomy, does not explicitly question the moral basis of Social Security. Rather, by defining the terms of debate, it frames the meaning of Social Security along neoliberal lines in an attempt to make a supposedly detached economic case for private retirement accounts. In this ‘pro-privatization’ framework, the social adequacy component of the Social Security system fades away as individual equity, or actuarial fairness, comes to the fore as the chief theme. We suggest a ‘pro-social’ rhetoric that recognizes the pursuit of social standards as providing the element of autonomy.