The effect of social security,health, demography and technology on retirement

This article studies the determinants of the labor force participation of the elderly and investigates the factors that may account for the increase in retirement in the second half of the last century. We develop a lifecycle general equilibrium model with endogenous retirement that embeds Social Security legislation and Medicare. Individuals are ex ante heterogeneous with respect to their preferences for leisure and face uncertainty about labor productivity, health status and out-of-pocket medical expenses. The model is calibrated to the U.S. economy in 2000 and is able to reproduce very closely the retirement behavior of the American population. It reproduces the peaks in the distribution of Social Security applications at ages 62 and 65 and the observed facts that low earners and unhealthy individuals retire earlier. It also matches very closely the increase in retirement from 1950 to 2000. Changes in Social Security policy – which became much more generous – and the introduction of Medicare account for most of the expansion of retirement. In contrast, the isolated impact of the increase in longevity was a delaying of retirement.     

Aching to retire? The rise in the full retirement age and its impact on the social security disability rolls

The Social Security Amendments of 1983 reduced the generosity of Social Security retired worker benefits in the U.S. by increasing the program's full retirement age from 65 to 67 and increasing the penalty for claiming benefits at the early retirement age of 62. These changes were phased in gradually, so that individuals born in or before 1937 were unaffected and those born in 1960 or later were fully affected. No corresponding changes were made to the program's disabled worker benefits, and thus the relative generosity of Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) benefits increased. In this paper, we investigate the effect of the Amendments on SSDI enrollment by exploiting variation across birth cohorts in the policy-induced reduction in the present value of retired worker benefits. Our findings indicate that the Amendments significantly increased SSDI enrollment since 1983, with an additional 0.6% of men and 0.9% of women between the ages of 45 and 64 receiving SSDI benefits in 2005 as a result of the changes. Our results further indicate that these effects will continue to increase during the next two decades, as those fully exposed to the reduction in retirement benefit generosity reach their fifties and early sixties.     

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.     

Do immigrants delay retirement and social security claiming?

ABSTRACT

We use data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) to examine how immigrants’ retirement and Social Security claiming patterns compare to those of natives. We find that immigrants retire and claim Social Security at older ages than natives, an effect that is similar across immigrant ethnic groups and more pronounced among immigrants who arrived in the U.S. after age 40. We discuss and explore possible mechanisms for these differences. Hazard models suggests that these differences arise because immigrants have lower retirement and claiming hazard rates in their early 60s. We do not find evidence of an increase in the rate at which immigrants move abroad or exit the survey, compared to U.S. natives, in their late 50s through 60s, a finding that is consistent with immigrants retiring in the U.S. rather than abroad. These results are important given the rising share of older immigrants living in the U.S., and they have implications for the impact of immigration on government finances as well as the retirement security of an important subgroup of the population.     

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.     

Labor supply responses to marginal Social Security benefits: Evidence from discontinuities

A key question for Social Security reform is whether workers respond to the link on the margin between the Social Security taxes they pay and the Social Security benefits they will receive. We estimate the effects of the marginal Social Security benefits that accrue with additional earnings on three measures of labor supply: retirement age, hours, and labor earnings. We develop a new approach to identifying these incentive effects by exploiting five provisions in the Social Security benefit rules that generate discontinuities in marginal benefits or non-linearities in marginal benefits that converge to discontinuities as uncertainty about the future is resolved. We find that individuals approaching retirement (age 52 and older) respond to the Social Security tax-benefit link on the extensive margin of their labor supply decisions: we estimate that a 10% increase in the net-of-tax share reduces the two-year retirement hazard by a statistically significant 2.0 percentage points from a base rate of 15%. The evidence with regard to labor supply responses on the intensive margin is more mixed: we estimate that the elasticity of hours with respect to the net-of-tax share is 0.42 and statistically significant, but we do not find a statistically significant earnings elasticity. Though we lack statistical power to estimate results within subsamples precisely, the retirement response is driven mostly by the female subsample, while the hours response comes from the male subsample.     

Labor market shocks and retirement: Do government programs matter?

This paper argues that labor market conditions are an important and often overlooked determinant of retirement transitions. In our analysis, we examine how the unemployment rate affects retirement and whether the Social Security (SS) system and Unemployment Insurance (UI) system influence how older workers respond to labor market shocks. We use pooled cross-sectional data from the March Current Population Survey (CPS) in our analysis. We find that downturns in the labor market increase retirement transitions and that the magnitude of this effect is comparable to that associated with moderate changes in financial incentives to retire and to the threat of a health shock facing older workers. Interestingly, retirements only increase in response to an economic downturn once workers become SS-eligible, suggesting that retirement benefits may help to alleviate the income loss associated with a weak labor market. We also estimate the impact of UI generosity on retirement and find little consistent evidence of an effect. This suggests that in some ways SS may serve as a more effective form of unemployment insurance for older workers than UI.     

A model of social insurance with variable retirement

Models are studied, in which ability to supply labour is affected by a random variable (health) not observable by government. When ill-health strikes, the consumer must retire, but he may choose to retire in any case. Optimal social insurance policies are found for one-period, two- period, and continuous-time models. It is found that, under plausible conditions, at the optimums consumers are indifferent whether to work or not, but do work when able. Insurance contributions decrease with age, and insurance benefits increase with age of retirement. It is desirable to prevent private saving. Some comments on the U.S. Social Security system are added.     

Equilibrium unemployment and retirement

We first propose some new empirical evidence on the fact that the labor market conditions matter for the retirement decision at the individual level: we investigate whether unemployed workers retire before employed workers, other things being equal. Our main objective in this paper is then to propose an equilibrium unemployment approach to retirement decisions that allows us to derive the positive and normative features of retirement decisions when search and matching frictions are considered. Two main conclusions emerge: the retirement decision of unemployed workers depends on the labor-market frictions whereas that of employed workers does not; the existence of search externalities makes the retirement age of unemployed workers intrinsically suboptimal. Considering Social Security policy issues, we show that the complete elimination of the implicit tax on continued activity is not necessarily welfare-optimizing in a second best world where the labor market equilibrium suffers from distortions.     

Policy Effects in Hyperbolic vs. Exponential Models of Consumption and Retirement

This paper constructs a structural retirement model with hyperbolic preferences and uses it to estimate the effect of several potential Social Security policy changes. Estimated effects of policies are compared using two models, one with hyperbolic preferences and one with standard exponential preferences. Sophisticated hyperbolic discounters may accumulate substantial amounts of wealth for retirement. We find it is frequently difficult to distinguish empirically between models with the two types of preferences on the basis of asset accumulation paths or consumption paths around the period of retirement. Simulations suggest that, despite the much higher initial time preference rate, individuals with hyperbolic preferences may actually value a real annuity more than individuals with exponential preferences who have accumulated roughly equal amounts of assets. This appears to be especially true for individuals with relatively high time preference rates or who have low assets for whatever reason. This affects the tradeoff between current benefits and future benefits on which many of the retirement incentives of the Social Security system rest.Simulations involving increasing the early entitlement age and increasing the delayed retirement credit do not show a great deal of difference whether exponential or hyperbolic preferences are used, but simulations for eliminating the earnings test show a non-trivially greater effect when exponential preferences are used.     

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.     

美国延迟退休激励机制分析——兼论对中国延迟退休年龄改革的启示

美国社会保障法案的颁布标志着现代社会保障制度的建立。在人口老龄化的背景下,美国对法定退休年龄和养老金领取年龄进行改革,逐步废除法定退休年龄,提高正常退休年龄,同时对养老保险制度中的退休收入核查制度进行调整,建立延迟退休补助制度,由此增强延迟退休对老年劳动力延迟退休的激励。美国废除法定退休年龄和延迟正常退休年龄的改革对中国延迟退休年龄改革提供了有益借鉴。     

The looming retirement crisis

A retirement crisis looms in the United States due to a number of recent and emerging trends that affect government retirement programs, employer- and union-sponsored retirement benefits and personal savings arrangements. The crisis can be averted, but only with well-thought-out action on a number of issues, particularly Social Security and Medicare reform.     

New evidence on earnings and benefit claims following changes in the retirement earnings test in 2000

This paper examines the labor force activity and timing of benefit claims of workers aged 65–69 in response to the removal of the retirement earnings test in 2000. We use the 1% sample of longitudinal Social Security administrative data that covers the period from 4 years before to 4 years after the removal of the test. Using a reduced-form quantile regression method, we find that effects on earnings are limited to workers with earnings just around the test threshold and above, as predicted by economic theory. Our estimated effects suggest that labor supply elasticities with respect to the net-of-tax rate are approximately 0.05–0.07 for working primary beneficiaries aged 65–69 whose earnings are between the median and the 80th percentile. Further, results show that applications for Social Security benefits following the earnings test removal accelerated by 2 to 5 percentage points among individuals aged 65–69 and by 3 to 7 percentage points among those reaching age 65.     

SOCIAL SECURITY DEPENDENT BENEFITS,NET PAYROLL TAX,AND MARRIED WOMEN'S LABOR SUPPLY

This paper examines how Social Security dependent benefits impact the labor supply of married women aged 25–54. Specifically, I investigate whether the decrease in the rate of return to women's work discourages them from participating in the labor force by simulating expected net payroll tax rates and dependent benefits. Dependent benefits may reduce the net return to women's work, as they usually pay the full payroll tax without receiving marginal benefits for additional earnings if they claim benefits based on their husbands' earnings records. The results show that high net payroll tax rates reduce married women's work incentives, particularly those near retirement age. (JEL H24, H55, J22)     

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.     

Earnings,social security legislation and retirement decisions: the Austrian experience

This paper analyses the labour supply behaviour of elderly males in Austria and asks how far it is determined by the characteristics of the Austrian Social Security System. This is of particular interest because old age insurance in Austria is dominated by the public pension plan, so that private pension plans are of minor importance. I argue that from a theoretical point of view the actuarial unfairness of the insurance plan creates a strong incentive to withdraw from the labour force at the minimum retirement age. Secondly, the rising earnings replacement ratio might be responsible for the decreasing average retirement age. These hypotheses are tested empirically. A pooled time-series cross-sections labour force participation model is estimated for single birth year cohorts of elderly males. I find strong evidence for the proposition, that the age-participation pattern might be determined by the incentives created by social security and that the decrease in labour force participation rates over time may be due to the rising earnings replacement ratio. Remaining differences in labour force participation of elderly males may be attributable to cohort population size and to a long run trend.     

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.     

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     

International differences in social security and saving

The U.S. Social Security Administration, in cooperation with similar agencies in other countries, recently developed estimates of social security benefits for twelve major industrial countries. The present paper uses these data to estimate the effects of social security benefits on saving and retirement in an extended life cycle model. The parameter estimates indicate that, with retirement behavior given, social security significantly reduces private saving; an increase of the benefit-to-earnings ratio by 10 percentage points reduces the saving rate by approximately 3 percentage points.