Social security

About: Social security is a research topic. Over the lifetime, 13485 publications have been published within this topic receiving 183403 citations. The topic is also known as: welfare payment & Social security schemes.

Social Security, Induced Retirement, and Aggregate Capital Accumulation

Abstract: For the great majority of Americans, the most important form of household wealth is the anticipated social security retirement benefits. In 1971 the aggregate value of these annuities was approximately $2 trillion or some 60 percent of other household assets. This paper uses an extended life-cycle model to analyze the impact of social security on the individual's simultaneous decision about retirement and saving. Econometric evidence, using an estimated time series of "social security wealth," indicates that social security depresses personal saving by 30-50 percent. Implications of this research for the theory of consumption and for the level and distribution of income are discussed.

Social Security and Retirement around the World

Abstract: Introduction and Summary Jonathan Gruber and David A. Wise 1. Social Security and Retirement in Belgium Pierre Pestieau and Jean-Philippe Stijns 2. Social Security and Retirement in Canada Jonathan Gruber 3. Social Security and Retirement in France Didier Blanchet and Louis-Paul Pele 4. Social Security and Retirement in Germany Axel Borsch-Supan and Reinhold Schnabel 5. Social Security and Retirement in Italy Agar Brugiavini 6. Social Security and Retirement in Japan Naohiro Yashiro and Takashi Oshio 7. Social Security and Retirement in the Netherlands Arie Kapteyn and Klaas de Vos 8. Social Security and Retirement in Spain Michele Boldrin, Sergi Jimenez-Martin, and Franco Peracchi 9. Social Security, Occupational Pensions, and Retirement in Sweden Marten Palme and Ingemar Svensson 10. Pensions and Retirement in the United Kingdom Richard Blundell and Paul Johnson 11. Social Security and Retirement in the United States Peter Diamond and Jonathan Gruber

How Social Security and Medicare affect retirement behavior in a world of incomplete markets

Abstract: This paper provides an empirical analysis of how the U.S. Social Security and Medicare insurance system affect the labor supply of older males in the presence of incomplete markets for loans, annuities, and health insurance. We estimate a detailed dynamic programming (DP) model of the joint labor supply and Social Security acceptance decision, focusing on a sample of males in the low to middle income brackets whose only pension is Social Security. The DP model delivers a rich set of predictions about the dynamics of retirement behavior, and comparisons of actual vs. predicted behavior show that the DP model is able to account for wide variety of phenomena observed in the data, including the pronounced peaks in the distribution of retirement ages at 62 and 65 (the ages of early and normal eligibility for Social Security benefits, respectively). We identify a significant fraction of "health insurance constrained" individuals who have no form of retiree health insurance other than Medicare, and who can only obtain fairly priced private health insurance via their employer's group health plan. The combination of significant individual risk aversion and a long tailed (Pareto) distribution of health care expenditures implies that there is a significant "security value" for these individuals to remain employed until they are eligible for Medicare coverage at age 65. Overall, our model suggests that a number of heretofore puzzling aspects of retirement behavior can be viewed as artifacts of particular details of the Social Security rules, whose incentive effects are especially strong for lower income individuals and those who do not have access to fairly priced loans, annuities, and health insurance.

Social Insurance and Allied Services

Abstract: 3 ... The first task of the Committee has been to attempt for the first time a comprehensive survey of the whole field of social insurance and allied services, to show just what provision is now made and how it is made for many different forms of need. The results of this survey are set out in Appendix B describing social insurance and the allied services as they exist today in Britain. The picture presented is impressive in two ways. First, it shows that provision for most of the many varieties of need through interruption of earnings and other causes that may arise in modern industrial communities has already been made in Britain on a scale not surpassed and hardly rivalled in any other country of the world. In one respect only of the first importance, namely limitation of medical service, both in the range of treatment which is provided as of right and in respect of the classes of persons for whom it is provided, does Britain's achievement fall seriously short of what has been accomplished elsewhere; it falls short also in its provision for cash benefit for maternity and funerals and through the defects of its system/or workmen's compensation. In all other fields British provision for security, in adequacy of amount and in comprehensiveness, will stand comparison with that of any other country; few countries will stand comparison with Britain. Second, social insurance and the allied services, as they exist today, are conducted by a complex of disconnected administrative organs, proceeding on different principles, doing invaluable service but at a cost in money and trouble and anomalous treatment of identical problems for which there is no justification. In a system of social security better on the whole than can be found in almost any other country there are serious deficiencies which call for remedy. 4. Thus limitation of compulsory insurance to persons under contract of service and below a certain remuneration if engaged on non-manual work is a serious gap. Many persons working on their own account are poorer and more in need of State insurance than employees; the remuneration limit for non-manual employees is arbitrary and takes no account of family responsibility. There is, again, no real difference between the income needs of persons who are sick and those who are unemployed, but they get different rates of benefit involving different contribution conditions and with meaningless distinctions between persons of different ages. An adult insured man with a wife and two children receives 38/- per week should he become unemployed; if after some weeks of unemployment he becomes sick and not available for work, his insurance income falls to 18/-. On the other hand a youth of 17 obtains 9/-when he is unemployed, but should he become sick his insurance income rises to 12/- per week. There are, to take another example, three different means tests for non-contributory pensions, /or supplementary pensions and for public assistance, with a fourth test--for unemployment assistance--differing from that /or supplementary pensions in some particulars. 5. Many other such examples could be given; they are the natural result of the way in which social security has grown in Britain. It is not open to question that, by closer co-ordination, the existing social services could be made at once more beneficial and more intelligible to those whom they serve and more economical in their administration. THREE GUIDING PRINCIPLES OF RECOMMENDATIONS 6. In proceeding from this first comprehensive survey of social insurance to the next task--of making recommendations--three guiding principles may be laid down at the outset. 7. The first principle is that any proposals for the future, while they should use to the full the experience gathered in the past, should not be restricted by consideration of sectional interests established in the obtaining of that experience. Now, when the war is abolishing landmarks of every kind, is the opportunity for using experience in a clear field. …

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

Abstract: 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.