Research and Analysis by Title

A 10-Year Review of the Supplemental Security Income Program

The 1944 International Labor Conference

The 1946 Amendments to the Railroad Retirement and Railroad Unemployment Insurance Acts

1955 Amendments to the Railroad Retirement Act

1956 Amendments to the Railroad Retirement Act

1959 Amendments to the Railroad Retirement Act

1959 Amendments to the Railroad Unemployment Insurance Act

1961 Amendments Affecting the Civil Service Retirement Act

1972 Survey of Disabled and Nondisabled Adults: Chronic Disease, Injury, and Work Disability

The 1973 CPS-IRS-SSA Exact Match Study

The 1973 CPS-IRS-SSA Exact Match Study

1981 and 1982 Changes in the Unemployment Insurance Program

The 1982 New Beneficiary Survey: An Introduction

The 1982 New Beneficiary Survey: An Introduction

The 1984 Amendments to the Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act

The 1984 Federal Poverty Income Guidelines

The 1985 Federal Poverty Income Guidelines

The 1993 SIPP and CPS Surveys

The 2006 Earnings Public-Use Microdata File: An Introduction

This article introduces the 2006 Earnings Public-Use File (EPUF), a data file containing earnings records for individuals drawn from a 1-percent sample of all Social Security numbers issued before January 2007. The EPUF contains selected demographic and earnings information for 4.3 million individuals. It provides aggregate earnings data for 1937 to 1950 and annual earnings data for 1951 to 2006.

A Comprehensive Social Security Program: Excerpts From the President's Messages

A National Health Program: Message From the President

Access Restrictions and Confidentiality Protections in the Health and Retirement Study

Organizations involved in statistical surveys of human subjects face two important and competing challenges: protecting data confidentiality while maximizing data accessibility to potential researchers. This note examines how the Health and Retirement Study (HRS), conducted by the Institute for Social Research of the University of Michigan, attempts to balance data confidentiality with the desire to broaden the pool of potential data users. Current HRS procedures are summarized and compared with those of organizations with similar programs, and potential ways to expand HRS use without compromising confidentiality are discussed.

Access to Social Security Microdata Files for Research and Statistical Purposes

The Accuracy of Survey-Reported Marital Status: Evidence from Survey Records Matched to Social Security Records

Many researchers have concluded that, in surveys, divorced persons often fail to report accurate marital information. In this paper, I revisit this issue using a new source of data—surveys exactly matched to Social Security data. I find that divorced persons frequently misreport their marital status, but there is evidence that the misreporting is unintentional. A discussion of possible improvements in surveys is presented. Implications for the study of differential mortality and the study of poverty among aged women are discussed.

Activities and Expenditures of Preretirees

Actual Costs of the Social Security System Over the Years Compared with 1935 Estimates

Actuarial Aspects of Financing Old-Age and Survivors Insurance

Actuarial Aspects of Financing Old-Age and Survivors Insurance

Actuarial Cost Estimates For OASDI and HI and for Various Possible Changes in OASDI

Actuarial Factors in Old-Age and Survivors Insurance

Actuarial Status of the HI and SMI Trust Funds

Actuarial Status of the HI and SMI Trust Funds

Actuarial Status of the HI and SMI Trust Funds

Actuarial Status of the HI and SMI Trust Funds

Actuarial Status of the HI and SMI Trust Funds

Actuarial Status of the HI and SMI Trust Funds

Actuarial Status of the HI Trust Fund

Actuarial Status of the Hospital Insurance and Supplementary Medical Insurance Trust Funds

Actuarial Status of the OASI and DI Trust Funds

Actuarial Status of the OASI and DI Trust Funds

Actuarial Status of the OASI and DI Trust Funds

Actuarial Status of the OASI and DI Trust Funds

Actuarial Status of the OASI and DI Trust Funds

Actuarial Status of the OASI and DI Trust Funds

Actuarial Status of the OASI and DI Trust Funds

Actuarial Status of the OASI and DI Trust Funds

Actuarial Status of the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and Disability Insurance Trust Funds

Actuarial Status of the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and Disability Insurance Trust Funds

Actuarial Status of the SMI Trust Fund

Actuarial Status of the Social Security and Medicare Programs

Actuarial Status of the Social Security and Medicare Programs

Actuarial Status of the Social Security and Medicare Programs

Adding Immigrants to Microsimulation Models

Given immigration's recent resurgence as an important demographic fact in the U.S. economy, U.S. policy modelers are just beginning to grapple with how best to integrate immigrants into policy models. Building on the research reviewed in the first article of this series, this article puts forth a conceptual basis for incorporating immigration into a key type of policy model—microsimulation—with a focus on the projection of immigrant earnings.

Addressing the Challenges Facing SSA's Disability Programs

An outline of the current initiatives—for example, the implementation of the Ticket to Work program and various demonstration projects designed to promote work resumption—undertaken to address the challenges facing SSA's disability programs. The article also contains a summary of the agency's efforts to enhance the efficiency of its administration of the disability programs, including the establishment of an eDib electronic disability folder and the creation of a workgroup to consider ideas for simplifying the SSI program.

Adequacy of Benefit Duration in Michigan, 1938-39: A Survey of Experience in a Minor Depression

Adequacy of the Income of Beneficiaries Under Old-Age and Survivors Insurance

Adequacy of Unemployment Benefits in the Detroit Area During the 1938 Recession

Adjusted Estimates of the Size Distribution of Family Money Income for 1972

It is well-known that for most purposes income size distribution data collected in household surveys are far from ideal. The problems with those data can be separated into two types: the data items that are collected, and the accuracy of the data collected. Usually, although there are important exceptions, the income data collected are confined to cash income before taxes, thus ignoring the effects of both taxes and noncash income of all types. Also, the income estimates usually are for one year, which often is not the best accounting period for analysis. Furthermore, there usually is a lack of adequate detail by income type, and the data ordinarily are not sufficiently detailed to adjust for changes in the composition of the family unit during the income accounting period.

Adjusting Administration to War Time

Adjustment of Old-Age Pensions in Foreign Programs

Administering Social Security: Challenges Yesterday and Today

During its 75-year history, the Social Security Administration (SSA) has faced many administrative challenges. This article depicts some of those challenges—involving legislative demands, staffing and workloads, infrastructure and technology, logistics and procedures, emergency response operations, and other matters—and the steps that SSA has taken to deal with them.

Administering Unemployment Insurance

Administration and Service Delivery in the SSI Program: The First 10 Years

The Administration of General Relief in the States During 1940

Administration of the Servicemen's Dependents Allowance Act of 1942

Administrative Costs for Social Security Programs in Selected Countries

Administrative Costs for Social Security Programs in Selected Countries

Administrative Costs for Social Security Programs in Selected Countries

Administrative Developments in the Social Security Programs Since 1965

Administrative Expenses of the Social Security Program

Administrative Expenses Under OASDI

The Administrative Review in Federal-State Social Security Programs

Administrative Review in Public Assistance

Adoption of Children in 1951

Adoptions in 1955

Adult Assistance Programs Under the Social Security Act

The Advantages and Disadvantages of Different Social Welfare Strategies

Advisory Council on Social Security: Reports on Permanent and Total Disability Insurance and on Public Assistance

AFDC: Good Cause Claims for Refusing to Cooperate in Establishing Paternity or Securing Child Support

After Fifteen Years: A Report on Old-Age and Survivors Insurance

Age and Sex of Persons Receiving Both OASI Benefits and OAA Payments

Age Differences in Health Care Spending, Fiscal Year 1974

Age Differences in Health Care Spending, Fiscal Year 1975

Age Differences in Health Care Spending, Fiscal Year 1976

Age Differences in Health Care Spending, Fiscal Year 1977

Age Differences in Medical Care Spending, Fiscal Year 1972

Age Differences in Medical Care Spending, Fiscal Year 1973

Age Distribution of Workers in Industries Under Old-Age and Survivors Insurance

Age of the Population and Per Capita Income, by State, 1953

Age of Wife When Husband Retires

Age of Workers in Covered Employment: Industry Differences, 1949

Age, Work and Capacity Devaluation

To be awarded Disability Insurance benefits, an individual must have an objectively determinable, severe medical condition or impairment that, according to Social Security regulations, is serious enough that it can be presumed to keep the individual from working. We know, however, that some people who have medical conditions serious enough to qualify them for disability benefits are nevertheless able to continue working, while others who consider themselves unable to work do not have a serious enough impairment to qualify them for benefits. Whether or not a seriously impaired individual files for Social Security Disability Insurance benefits (SSDI) will depend, in part, on his or her own self-assessment of his ability to work, i.e., whether he considers himself to be severely disabled. This self-assessment depends upon many factors in addition to the actual severity of the individual's medical condition. These factors, therefore, become important elements in the decision to apply for SSDI benefits. This report examines how the relationship between measures of actual individual functional capacity and individual self-assessments of work capacity vary by age and other important job-related attributes.

The Age-18 Redetermination and Postredetermination Participation in SSI

This article describes the outcomes of the redetermination of Supplemental Security Income (SSI) eligibility when a child recipient reaches age 18. Statistics on the characteristics of youth whose eligibility is redetermined are presented using 8 years of administrative data, and the relationship between these characteristics and both an initial cessation decision and a successful appeal or reapplication for SSI are discussed.

Aged Beneficiaries of OASI

Aged Beneficiaries of Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and the Aged Population

Aged Beneficiaries of Old-Age and Survivors Insurance: Highlights on Health Insurance and Hospitalization Utilization, 1957 Survey

Aged Beneficiaries, Assistance Recipients, and the Aged in the General Population

The Aged in The Population in 1960 and Their Income Sources

The Aged Negro and His Income

Aged OASDHI Beneficiaries: Interstate Migration

Aged OASI Beneficiaries Outnumber OAA Recipients

Aged Persons Receiving Both OASDHI and OAS, Early 1970

Aged Persons Receiving Both OASDI and OAA, Early 1967

Aged Persons Receiving Both OASDI and PA, Early 1963

Aged Persons Receiving Both OASDI and PA, Early 1966

Aged SSI Recipients: Income, Work History, and Social Security Benefits

Aged Widows and OASDI: Age At and Economic Status Before and After Receipt of Benefits

Aged Women OASDI Beneficiaries: Income and Characteristics, 1971

The Aged, Family and Friends

The Agricultural Wage Worker In Employment Covered by Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance

Aid to Dependent Children in a Postwar Year

Aid to Dependent Children of Unemployed Parents: The First Seven Months of Operation

Aid to Families Width Dependent Children: Characteristics of Recipients in 1979

Aid to Families With Dependent Children: An Overview, October 1977

Aid to Families With Dependent Children: Initial Findings of the 1961 Report on the Characteristics of Recipients

Aid to the Blind: Earned Income of Recipients, September 1950

Aid to the Permanently and Totally Disabled

Aid to the Permanently and Totally Disabled: Characteristics of Men and Women Recipients

Aid to the Permanently and Totally Disabled: Recipients with Heart Disease

Aid to the Permanently and Totally Disabled: The Young Recipients

Alcoholics and Drug Addicts Receiving SSI Payments, August 1977

Alimony and Public Income Support: Fifteen Countries

Allocation of Time and Resources by Married Couples Approaching Retirement

Allotment Formula, Hospital Survey and Construction Act

Alternate Measures of Replacement Rates for Social Security Benefits and Retirement Income

Replacement rates are common and useful tools used by individuals and policy analysts to plan for retirement and assess the sufficiency of Social Security benefits and overall retirement income. Because the calculation and meaning of replacement rates differs depending on the definition of preretirement earnings, this article examines four alternative measures: final preretirement earnings, constant income payable from the present value of lifetime earnings (PV payment), wage-indexed average of lifetime earnings, and inflation-adjusted average of lifetime earnings (CPI average). The article also calculates replacement rates for Social Security beneficiaries aged 64–66 in 2005.

Alternative Estimates of Economic Well-Being by Age Using Data on Wealth and Income

Most analyses of economic status use only income as the measure of resources. It is clear, however, that wealth also plays an important role in economic well-being. The existence of both income and asset tests for eligibility purposes in several government transfer programs (e.g., Supplemental Security Income, Aid to Families with Dependent Children, food stamps) suggests the importance of both wealth and income. Units of the same age, income, and needs are not equally well off if they have different amounts of wealth. A fully satisfactory way of taking differences in wealth into account in a combined income-wealth measure is not available. Particularly controversial is the comparison of different age groups when such measures are used. This exploratory paper examines the use of income-wealth measures for the analysis of the distribution of economic well-being for age groups in the current period.

Amended OASI Benefit Formula

Amendments to Australia's National Health Act

Amendments to the Civil Service Retirement Act

Amendments to the Civil Service Retirement Act

Amendments to the Civil Service Retirement Act

Amendments to the Civil Service Retirement Act, 1962

Amendments to the Public Assistance Provisions of the Social Security Act, 1961

Amendments to the Railroad Unemployment Insurance Act

Amendments to the Railroad Unemployment Insurance Act

American Indian SSI Recipients in Selected Areas

An Analysis of Medicare Administrative Costs

Analysis of Nonparticipation in the SSI Program

Analysis of Social Security Proposals Intended to Help Women: Preliminary Results

One aspect of the current debate about changing the Social Security program concerns how new rules might affect elderly women, many of whom have low income. This paper examines three possible changes: (1) a reduction in spousal benefits combined with a change in the computation of the survivor benefit, (2) a redefined minimum benefit, and (3) a 5 percent increase in benefits for persons aged 80 or older. The paper assesses the cost, distributional consequences, and antipoverty impact of each option.

An Analysis of the Administrative Expenses of 28 Public-Assistance Agencies During 1938-39

Analysis of the Advisory Council's Proposal to Tax One-Half of Social Security Benefits

This paper presents analysis of the distributional and other effects of a change from the existing income tax exclusion of Social Security benefits to the proposed 50 percent inclusion. In emphasizing the differences between these two policies, very limited attention will be given to other policy alternatives.

Annual Earnings and the Taxable Maximum for OASDHI

Annual Wage Trends for Supplemental Security Income Recipients

As a means-tested program, the Supplemental Security Income program considers a recipient's income from wages and other sources when determining eligibility and the monthly benefit amount. This study examines annual earnings for a sample of Supplemental Security Income recipients and, in the case of child recipients, their spouses and parents to evaluate the feasibility of using average annual wages in place of monthly wages when determining benefit amounts. The data show substantial variation in earnings from one year to the next. The results do not point to any clear distinctions in wage patterns among recipients or ineligible spouses and parents that would make any one group a better candidate for estimating and verifying wages on an annual basis.

Another Dimension to Measuring Early Retirement

Another Look at Workmen's Compensation

Antecedents of Mortality Among the Old-Age Assistance Population

Antipoverty Policies and Changing Welfare Concepts in Canada

The Appeals System in Old-Age and Survivors Insurance

Appeals Under Old-Age and Survivors Insurance

Appeals Under the SSI Program: January 1974-August 1976

Applicants for Account Numbers, 1948

Applicants for Account Numbers, 1949

Applicants for Account Numbers, 1950

Applicants for Account Numbers, 1951

Applicants for Account Numbers, 1952

Applicants for Account Numbers, 1953

Applicants for Account Numbers, 1954

Applicants for Account Numbers, 1955

Applicants for Account Numbers, 1956

Applicants for Account Numbers, 1957

Applicants for Account Numbers, 1958

Applicants for Account Numbers, 1959

Applicants for Account Numbers, 1960

Applicants for Account Numbers, April–June 1949

Applicants for Account Numbers, January–March 1951

Application of Experimental Poverty Measures to the Aged

This article examines poverty among persons aged 65 or older under experimental measures, which are based on a 1995 report released by the National Academy of Sciences. When compared with the official measure, the experimental measure produces higher poverty rates for all groups and narrower differences in poverty rates across groups.

Applications Received in 1987 and Allowance Rates for Supplemental Security Income

Argentina's Pensions System

Arkansas Missile-Site Disaster: Survivor Benefits Payable

As the Bulletin Turns Fifty…

Assessing the Economic Status of the Aged and Nonaged Using Alternative Income-Wealth Measures

Assessing the Performance of Life-Cycle Portfolio Allocation Strategies for Retirement Saving: A Simulation Study

The investment performance of life-cycle portfolio allocation strategies is evaluated using a stochastic simulation based on historical asset returns during 1926–2008. Lifetime contribution streams to the accounts are determined using the actual earnings histories of 13,000 workers born in 1915–1942. The results are compared with those of four alternative strategies that vary in terms of investor exposure to stock and bond market risk.

Assessment of Retirement Plan Coverage by Firm Size Using W-2 Tax Records

Of particular interest in this article is the relationship between firm size and pension coverage and participation because small businesses tend to be less likely to offer retirement benefits to their employees than do large businesses. This relationship is particularly important given the current administration's retirement proposals to create automatic individual retirement accounts. Obviously, accurate information is important not only in formulating retirement income security policies that target workers without retirement plan coverage, but also to assess the impact of such policies on workers' retirement plan participation.

An Assessment of the Economic Status of the Aged

This paper discusses what is known about the economic status of the aged. Numerous complexities involved in the assessment of the economic status of the aged are discussed. Compared with most other recent assessments, this study shows a less favorable status for the aged relative to other age groups. The focus is on an examination of detailed age groups, rather than summary aged and nonaged groups, thus providing a more complete picture of age differences. More than most other assessments, this study stresses uncertainty about the relative status of the aged and emphasizes what we do not know. The need for better adjustments for differences in needs among age and other subgroups of the population is stressed. The need for consistency between the definition of resources and the specification of needs is also emphasized. The vulnerability of the aged to economic risks is discussed.

Asset Holdings of the Newly Disabled: Findings From the New Beneficiary Survey

Assets and Net Worth of Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Beneficiaries: Highlights From Preliminary Data, 1957 Survey

Assets Held by Aged Beneficiaries of Old-Age and Survivors Insurance at End of 1951

Assets of New Retired-Worker Beneficiaries: Findings From the New Beneficiary Survey

Assets of the Aged in 1962: Findings of the 1963 Survey of the Aged

Assets of the Elderly as They Retire

Assets on the Threshold of Retirement

Assistance Expenditures Per Inhabitant, 1940–50

Assistance Expenditures Per Inhabitant, 1949

Assistance Expenditures Per Inhabitant, 1950–51

Assistance Expenditures Per Inhabitant, 1951–52

Assistance Expenditures Per Inhabitant, 1952–53

Assistance Expenditures Per Inhabitant, 1953–54

Assistance Expenditures Per Inhabitant, 1954-55

Assistance Expenditures Per Inhabitant, 1955–56

Assistance Expenditures Per Inhabitant, 1956–57

Assistance Expenditures Per Inhabitant, 1957–58

Assistance Expenditures Per Inhabitant, 1958–59

Assistance Expenditures Per Inhabitant, 1959–60

Assistance Expenditures Per Inhabitant, 1960–61

Assistance Expenditures Per Inhabitant, 1961–62

Assistance Payments in Relation to Federal Maximums

Assistance Payments to Patients in Public Medical Institutions

Attrition in the New Beneficiary Survey and Followup, and Its Correlates

In this article we explore the extent of and reasons for attrition in the New Beneficiary Survey (NBS) between the first interview in 1982 and the followup interview in 1991. We examine a variety of potential determinants of attrition, separating the probability of attrition due to death from a refusal to be interviewed. Because the NBS sample is drawn from and linked to Social Security administrative records, information on mortality as a cause of attrition is exact. Hence, we are able to examine differences in the patterns and predictors of attrition due to these two causes of attrition and differences between attrition among retired and disabled workers.

Austrian Experience with Retraining to Meet Labor-Market Needs

Automatic Adjustment of OASDHI Cash Benefits

Automatic Cost-of-Living Adjustment of Pensions in Foreign Countries

Automatic Increases Under the Social Security Programs

Automatic Increases Under the Social Security Programs

Average Wages for 1985–90 for Indexing Under the Social Security Act

A Basic Minimum Program of Social Security

The Basic Skill in Social Security

Basis and Background of the Retirement Test

Behavioral and Psychological Aspects of the Retirement Decision

The majority of research dealing with the retirement decision has focused on the health and wealth aspects of retirement. Research in the areas of judgment and decision making and behavioral economics suggests that there may be a number of behavioral factors that influence the retirement decision as well. This review highlights such factors and offers a unique perspective on potential determinants of retirement behavior, including anchoring and framing effects, affective forecasting, hyperbolic discounting, and the planning fallacy. The author describes findings from previous research, as well as draws novel connections between existing decision-making research and the retirement decision.

The Bellmon Report

Beneficiaries Affected by Annual Earnings Test in 1973

Beneficiaries Affected by the Annual Earnings Test in 1975

Beneficiaries Affected by the Annual Earnings Test in 1977

Beneficiaries Affected by the Annual Earnings Test in 1978

Beneficiaries Affected by the Annual Earnings Test in 1980

Beneficiaries Affected by the Annual Earnings Test in 1982

Beneficiaries Affected by the Annual Earnings Test, 1989

Beneficiaries Prefer to Work

Beneficiaries With Minimum Benefits: Their Characteristics in 1967

Beneficiaries With Minimum Benefits: Work-History of Retired Workers Newly Entitled in 1966

Benefit Adequacy Among Elderly Social Security Retired-Worker Beneficiaries and the SSI Federal Benefit Rate

The federal benefit rate (FBR) of the Supplemental Security Income program provides an inflation-indexed income guarantee for aged and disabled people with low assets. Some consider the FBR as an attractive measure of Social Security benefit adequacy. Others propose the FBR as an administratively simple, well-targeted minimum Social Security benefit. However, these claims have not been empirically tested. Using microdata from the Survey of Income and Program Participation, this article finds that the FBR is an imprecise measure of benefit adequacy; it incorrectly identifies as economically vulnerable many who are not poor, and disregards some who are poor. The reason for this is that the FBR-level benefit threshold of adequacy considers the Social Security benefit in isolation and ignores the family consumption unit. The FBR would provide an administratively simple but poorly targeted foundation for a minimum Social Security benefit. The empirical estimates quantify the substantial tradeoffs between administrative simplicity and target effectiveness.

Benefit Adequacy in State Workers' Compensation Programs

This article summarizes several different methods used to measure the adequacy of wage replacement in state workers' compensation systems in the United States. Empirical research casts serious doubt on benefit adequacy, especially in the case of more serious disabilities.

[Errata: The electronic versions of this article that were originally posted contained incorrect labels on the lines in Chart 3. The labels have been updated in the electronic versions and are correct in the print publication.]

Benefit Amounts Under 1971 Amendments

Benefit Increases Resulting From the Conversion of Monthly Rates Under the 1965 Amendments

Benefit Levels and Socio-economic Characteristics: Findings from the 1969 Survey of the Aged

Benefit Levels of Newly Retired Workers: Findings from the Survey of New Beneficiaries

A Benefit of One's Own: Older Women's Entitlement to Social Security Retirement

Using data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) and linked administrative records, we explore differences in old-age benefits between men and women attributable to differences in length of work life and pay. We find that most women are fully insured for Social Security purposes, but those who are not would have to work substantially more to become eligible. Among those who are eligible, additional work would translate into only slightly higher benefits.

Benefit Rights Under Multiple Social Insurance and Public Retirement Systems

Benefit Rights Under Unemployment Insurance, April-June 1948

Benefit Suspensions and "Dry Spells" When Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Beneficiaries Go to Work

Benefits and Beneficiaries Under Public Employee Retirement Programs, 1980

Benefits and Beneficiaries Under Public Employee Retirement Systems, 1979

Benefits and Beneficiaries Under Public Employee Retirement Systems, 1981 and 1982

Benefits and Beneficiaries Under Public Employee Retirement Systems, 1983

Benefits and Beneficiaries Under Public Employee Retirement Systems, Calendar Year 1977

Benefits and Beneficiaries Under Public Employee Retirement Systems, Fiscal Year 1987

Benefits and Beneficiaries Under Public Employee Retirement Systems, Fiscal Year 1989

Benefits and Beneficiaries Under Public Employee Retirement Systems, Fiscal Year 1990

Benefits and Beneficiaries Under Public Employee Retirement Systems, Fiscal Year 1991

Benefits and Beneficiaries Under the Civil Service Retirement Act

Benefits and Contributions Under National Compulsory Health Insurance Programs

Benefits Awarded Under 1965 Amendments, September–November 1965

Benefits for Grandchildren and Certain Blind Persons Under 1972 Amendments

Benefits for Individual Retired Workers and Couples Now Approaching Retirement Age

Benefits for Survivors of Men Lost on the U.S.S. Thresher

Benefits in Current-Payment Status, State Distribution

Benefits Paid Abroad Under OASDHI

Bermuda's New Social Security Law

Bibliography on War Measures of Foreign Countries in Social Insurance and Related Fields

Big-City Dropouts and Illiterates

Bipartisan Commission on Entitlement and Tax Reform

Black Lung Amendments of 1977

Black Lung Benefits Revision

Black Lung Benefits, July 1970

Black Lung Benefits: An Administrative Review

Blacks and Social Security Benefits: Trends, 1960–73

Black-White Differences in Private Pensions: Findings From the Retirement History Study

Blind and Disabled Persons Awarded Federally Administered SSI Payments, 1975

Blue Cross Provisions for Aged Persons, Late 1958

Born To Be Poor: Birthplace and Number of Brothers and Sisters As Factors in Adult Poverty

British Commonwealth Areas of the Caribbean

British National Health Services Expenditures

British Proposals for the Future of Social Insurance and Services

The British White Paper on Employment Policy

British White Paper On Social Security Reform

Budget for an Elderly Couple

A Budget for an Elderly Couple

Budget for an Elderly Couple: Interim Revision by the Bureau of Labor Statistics

Budget Summary, 1949–50

Budgeting To Meet Total Needs

Bulgaria Revises Family Allowances

The Bulletin Turns Forty

Canada Pension Plan Amended

Canada Pension Plan of 1965

The Canada Pension Plan's Experience with Investing Its Portfolio in Equities

This article examines the experience of the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) in investing its surplus funds in equities. The CPP investment policy is viewed by some experts as a possible model for increasing the investment income of Social Security. The article discusses the key features of this policy, its implementation, and results to date.

Canada's Federal-Provincial Program of Hospitalization Insurance

Canada's New Unemployment Insurance Act

Canada's Old-Age Security Program: First Decade of Operations

Canadian Act for Assistance to Disabled Persons

Canadian Medical Care Insurance Inaugurated

Canadian Programs for the Aged

Canadian Provisions for Aid for Dependents of Members of the Army and Air Force

The Canadian Safety Net for the Elderly

Canada's Public Pensions System is widely applauded for reducing poverty among the elderly. This article reviews benefits provided to Canada's older people and compares the Canadian system to the U.S. Supplemental Security Income program. Although Canada's system would probably be judged prohibitively expensive for the United States, the authors argue that there are nevertheless lessons to be learned from the Canadian experience.

Canadian Unemployment Insurance Amendments

A Career in Public Service

Caregiver Credits in France, Germany, and Sweden: Lessons for the United States

Analysts have long considered caregiver credits, or pension credits, provided to individuals for time spent out of the workforce caring for dependent children and sick or elderly relatives, as a way to improve the adequacy of retirement benefits for women in the United States. This article examines the experiences of France, Germany, and Sweden with caregiver credits, focusing particularly on the design, administration, and cost of these programs.

Case Management at Work for SSA Disability Beneficiaries: Process Results of the Project NetWork Return-to-Work Demonstration

This article presents the results of the process analysis of the evaluation of the Project NetWork demonstration, a Federal demonstration undertaken by the Social Security Administration (SSA) in 1991 to test alternative methods of providing rehabilitation and employment services to SSA's Disability Insurance beneficiaries and Supplemental Security Income disabled and blind applicants and recipients. The major findings are: (1) from an operational standpoint, it is feasible to expand access to vocational rehabilitation (VR) services to a broad spectrum of SSA beneficiaries, and (2) roughly similar results are achieved, in terms of client intake and provision of services, when case management services are provided by SSA staff, contracted out to State VR agencies, or contracted with private VR providers. Later evaluation reports will trace demonstration impacts on earnings and disability benefits and report the overall benefits and costs of return-to-work services for this population.

Cash Benefits for Short-Term Sickness, 1948–69

Cash Benefits for Short-Term Sickness, 1948–70

Cash Benefits for Short-Term Sickness, 1948–71

Cash Benefits for Short-Term Sickness, 1948–72

Cash Benefits for Short-Term Sickness, 1948–74

Cash Benefits for Short-Term Sickness, 1948–76

Cash Benefits for Short-Term Sickness, 1948–81

Cash Benefits For Short-Term Sickness, 1970–94

Cash Benefits for Short-Term Sickness, 1973

Cash Benefits for Short-Term Sickness, 1975

Cash Benefits For Short-Term Sickness, 1977

Cash Benefits for Short-Term Sickness, 1979

Cash Benefits for Short-Term Sickness: Thirty-five Years of Data, 1948–83

Casting up Accounts in Social Security

A Causative Matrix Approach to Mobility Studies

Markov models have been widely used for the analysis and prediction of shifts in population distribution over time. The point of departure for most of these analyses has been the finite state, time stationary Markov chain. The usual Markov chain model has, however, been shown to be inadequate for most social science applications.

This paper presents a particular kind of discrete time nonstationary Markov chain. Such chains will be built using a mathematical quantity called a causative matrix.

Centralizing Welfare Program Data in Canada and the U.S.

Certification of Disability in Social Insurance

The Challenge of the 21st Century: Innovating and Adapting Social Security Systems to Economic, Social, and Demographic Changes in the English-Speaking Americas

The Social Security Programs in the United States are complex and have evolved over a long span of years. However, it is possible to categorize much of this experience into two different eras in which Social Security functioned in a distinctive environment, and a third era that is now beginning. The middle third of this century was an "age of invention," in which the programs grew rapidly under favorable social and economic conditions. Since then, the programs have experienced an "age of accommodation," in which growing financial constraints have permitted only limited changes in the program. We can look forward to an "age of maturation" in the decades to come, as most persons reaching retirement will have been covered by Social Security during their entire working careers. The declining ratio of workers to beneficiaries and a wide range of demographic and social changes will present significant challenges. The Social Security programs must change considerably to respond to the demands of a new era, and vigorous efforts to do so are underway.

Changes in Food Expenditures, 1969–73: Findings From the Retirement History Study

Changes in Italian Social Security System

Changes in the Demographic and Economic Characteristics of SSI and DI Beneficiaries Between 1984 and 1999

During the past 20 years, legislative and judicial actions have affected Supplemental Security Income and Disability Insurance beneficiaries. This article compares important changes in demographics, income sources and amounts, and poverty status of beneficiaries of both programs between 1984 and 1999, using data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation matched to administrative data from the Social Security Administration. The average age of both groups has decreased, while their education levels increased. In 1999, Disability Insurance beneficiaries and their families relied less on Social Security, while their poverty rate remained fairly constant. The Supplemental Security Income population had a lower poverty rate, while beneficiaries were slightly more reliant on Social Security for personal income.

Changes in the Incomes of Age Groups, 1984–1989

In recent years there has been great interest in the economic status of the aged, especially in connection with the debates about the appropriate level of Social Security benefits and Medicare coverage and financing. The economic status of the aged relative to other age groups has been of particular interest in these debates. This paper examines changes in the before-tax cash income of the aged and of other age groups from 1984 to 1989. Earlier research found that the real income of the aged rose substantially, both absolutely and relative to the income of the nonaged, from about 1970 to the mid-1980s. It is shown here that from 1984 to 1989 the real income of the aged rose slowly, and fell slightly relative to the income of the nonaged. The different rates of income growth for different aged groups are explored in this paper, with the emphasis on differences between the aged and nonaged. This paper also serves as an update of an earlier paper that contained estimates for the 1967–1984 period. The estimates in this paper generally are consistent with those presented in the earlier article.

Changes in the Incomes of Age Groups, 1984–89

Changes in the Resources of Beneficiary Groups in St. Louis

Changes in the Sickness Insurance Program in Sweden

Changing Commitments of American Women to Work and Family Roles

The Changing Impact of Social Security on Retirement Income in the United States

This article assesses the role of Social Security and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) in the economic well-being of baby-boomer retirees and their predecessors. The results suggest that, similar to current retirees, Social Security will account for about two-fifths of projected income for baby-boomer retirees. On average, SSI will contribute almost nothing to total income and will be received by fewer baby-boomer retirees than by current retirees. Although baby boomers can expect higher incomes and lower poverty rates at retirement than current retirees have, they can also expect lower replacement rates. The decline in replacement rates is driven, in part, by a decline in Social Security replacement rates.

Changing Social Security Benefits to Reflect Child-Care Years: A Policy Proposal Whose Time Has Passed?

This article estimates the effects of proposals to increase the retirement benefits of women who reduce their earnings to care for young children. Using the 1990 Survey of Income and Program Participation file—exactly matched to the Social Security Administration's record of lifetime earnings—the authors present the distribution of child-care dropout years by retirement cohort and other demographic characteristics, and estimate the dollar impact of adjustments for caregiving years. The policies examined do increase the retirement benefits of some women, but the increases on average are small, are lowered with each successive retirement cohort, and benefit women from the more privileged socioeconomic groups. Thus, because the policy effects are small and will diminish in the future, the time of efficacy for these proposals has passed. Subsidizing child-care dropout years does not seem to be a well-targeted policy.

Changing the Method for Calculating Quarters of Coverage: The Impact on Workers' Insured Status

Changing the Taxable Maximum: Effect on Social Security Taxes by Industry and Firm Size

Characteristics and Incomes of Families Assisted by Aid to Dependent Children

Characteristics and Taxable Wages of Negro Workers, 13 Selected Southern States, 1938

Characteristics of Aged Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Beneficiaries Who Receive Public Assistance

Characteristics of Applicants for Childhood Disability Benefits, 1957

Characteristics of Disabled- Worker Beneficiaries with Workmen's Compensation Offset

Characteristics of Disabled-Worker Beneficiaries Receiving Workers' Compensation or Public Disability Benefits Compared With Disabled-Worker Beneficiaries Without These Additional Benefits

Characteristics of Employees Under Old-Age Insurance in 1938

Characteristics of Individuals with Integrated Pensions

This article uses data from the Health and Retirement Survey to examine the characteristics of individuals who are covered under integrated pension plans by comparing them with people covered by nonintegrated plans and those with no pension plan.

Characteristics of Individuals with Integrated Pensions

Employer pensions that integrate benefits with Social Security have been the focus of relatively little research. Potentially this is an important omission given the current Social Security reform debate. Since changes in Social Security benefit levels and other program characteristics can affect the benefit levels and other features of integrated pension plans, it is important to know who is covered by these plans. This paper uses data from the Health and Retirement Survey to examine the characteristics of individuals who are covered under integrated pension plans by comparing them with people covered by non-integrated plans and those with no pension plan. The results show that individuals who are female, white, non-unionized, or do not have postgraduate education are significantly more likely to be in an integrated employer pension plan.

Characteristics of 'New' Old-Age Assistance Recipients, 1965

Characteristics of Newly Awarded Recipients of the Social Security Regular Minimum Benefit

Characteristics of Noninstitutionalized DI and SSI Program Participants

Characteristics of Student OASDI Beneficiaries in 1973: An Overview

Characteristics of Supplemental Security Income Recipients, December 1984

Characteristics of the Longest Job for New Disabled Workers: Findings From the New Beneficiary Survey

Characteristics of the Longest Job for New Retired Workers: Findings From the New Beneficiary Survey

Characteristics of Workers With Pension Coverage on Longest Job: New Beneficiaries

Child Support Enforcement Program

Child Support Payments and the SSI Program

In determining the benefit amount for a child, the Supplemental Security Income program excludes one-third of child support payments from countable income. Legislation reauthorizing the 1996 welfare reform law contains provisions that would encourage states to allow children receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) to keep more of the child support paid by an absent parent. These potential changes provide impetus to revisit the way the SSI program treats child support.

Child Tax Benefits: A Comparison of the Canadian and U.S. Programs

Child Welfare Services: Report of the Advisory Council

Childhood Disability Beneficiaries, 1957–64: Characteristics and Geographic Distribution

Children and Family Income

Children and Family Security

Children From Public Assistance Families Who Receive Child Welfare Services

Children of the Poor

Children Receiving SSI Payments, December 1991

Children Receiving SSI Payments, December 1992

Children Served by Public Child Welfare Programs, 1946–57

Children's Allowances and Income-Tested Supplements: Costs and Redistributive Effects

Children's Allowances in Japan

Children's Allowances in the United Kingdom

Children's Allowances: Their Size and Structure in Five Countries

Children's Contributions to Old-Age Assistance Recipients in North Dakota and South Dakota

Chile Changes its Health Care System

Chile Changes Social Security

Chile's Next Generation Pension Reform

Since its inception in 1981, Chile's system of mandatory individual retirement accounts has become a model for pension reformers around the world. A March 2008 comprehensive pension reform law made major changes that address some key policy challenges including worker coverage, gender equity, pension adequacy, and administrative fees. The cornerstone of the new law sets up a basic universal pension as a supplement to the individual accounts system.

Choice and Other Determinants of Employee Contributions to Defined Contribution Plans

Understanding the role that 401(k) plan characteristics, such as investment choice, play in participation and employee contributions is important as more workers rely on this type of retirement plan and as proposals for Social Security solvency include individual savings plans. Using the 1992 Health and Retirement Study, this article investigates which individual and job characteristics are associated with asset choice in defined contribution plans. Investment choice is found to substantially increase contributions to such plans.

Chronology of Health Insurance Proposals, 1915–76

Citizenship and Family Security

Civil Service Refunds

Civil Service Retirement Act Amendments, 1954

Civil Service Retirement Act Amendments, 1955

Civil Service Retirement Act Amendments, 1957

Civil Service Retirement Act Amendments, 1958

Civil Service Retirement Act Amendments, 1960

Civil Service Retirement System Annuitants and Social Security

The Civilian War Benefits Program: SSA's First Disability Program

Civil-Service Refunds

Civil-Service Refunds

Civil-Service Retirement Program, 1959

Civil-Service Retirement Program, October 20, 1969

Claimants and Job Openings in Three Cities

Claimants Awaiting Recall—Their Special Problems of Availability and Suitability of Work

Coefficients of Between-Group Inequality: A Review

The quest for suitable indices to summarize the inequality between two groups has lagged behind the effort to obtain summary coefficients of within-group inequality. Numerous measures of within-group inequality were proposed, and their merits and shortcomings debated. Yet, apparently, at the same time, there was little exploration of alternative indices to the ratio-of-medians and ratio-of-means for measuring differences between groups.

Cohort Changes in the Retirement Resources of Older Women

This article uses different sources of United States data to focus on the retirement resources of women aged 55–64 in 2004, 1994, and 1984. Notable changes have occurred with women's pathways into retirement resulting from increased education and lifetime work experience. There appear marked cohort differences in potential retirement outcomes.

Cohort Differences in Wealth and Pension Participation of Near-Retirees

This article examines pension participation and nonpension net worth of two cohorts of near retirees. Particularly, the authors look at people born in 1933 through 1939 who were ages 55–61 in 1994, and the more recent cohort consisting of people of the same age in 2004 who were born in 1943 through 1949. Data are from the Health and Retirement Study, a longitudinal, nationally representative survey of older Americans.

Cohort-Specific Effects of Social Security Policy

Social Security has sizable obligations to workers who contributed and made savings decisions in the anticipation of future benefits, and the assessment of future options must explicitly account for impacts on these as well as future participants. To this end, our paper develops cohort-specific, general-equilibrium comparisons of concrete policy alternatives.

Cohort-Specific Measures of Lifetime Net Social Security Transfers

This paper develops estimates of lifetime net transfers across cohorts under the Social Security Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) program. Estimates are developed both from the perspective of individual cohorts, indicating the extent to which each cohort has received or can expect to receive its money's worth from the program, and from the perspective of the OASI program, indicating the extent of redistribution across cohorts. This paper also contrasts intercohort redistribution under the present OASI program with the redistribution that would have occurred under two counterfactual pay-as-you-go programs that incorporate different implicit standards of fairness. The data sources and techniques employed in this analysis provide a more accurate and extensive description of the treatment of different cohorts under the OASI program than has been available to date. Estimates based on past or projected data are presented for all cohorts participating in the OASI program since its inception through the cohort born in 2050.

Cohort-Specific Measures of Lifetime Social Security Taxes and Benefits

Coinsurance and the Demand for Physician Services: Four Years Later

Collecting Information on Disability in the 2000 Census: An Example of Interagency Cooperation

This article reports research and analysis undertaken by a very successful collaborative, federal interagency work group on disability, convened by the Office of Management and Budget and charged with the development of a short set of disability questions for Census 2000. The process that culminated in the final disability questions on Census 2000 is described, along with a discussion of the complexities of defining and measuring disability.

Commentary: Actuarial Research and Analysis

Commentary: Continuous Work History Sample

Commentary: Disability Research

Commentary: Earnings Replacement Rate of Old-Age Benefits: An International Comparison

Commentary: Economic Status of the Aged

Commentary: Interagency Data Matching Projects for Research Purposes

Commentary: Measuring Expenditures for Social Welfare Programs

Commentary: SSI and the Low-Income Population

Commentary: Survey Research in Social Security

Commentary: The Poverty Measure

Commercial Nursing and Boarding Homes in Philadelphia

Commission Studies Rising Health Costs in Austria

Commitment to Work and the Self-Perception of Disability

Community Hospital Expenses and Revenues: Pre-Medicare Inflation

Community Prerogative and the Legal Rights and Freedom of the Individual

The Comparability of Public Assistance Payments and Social Insurance Benefits

Comparing Beneficiaries of the Medicare Savings Programs with Eligible Nonparticipants

This note focuses on participation in two entitlement programs that help reduce out-of-pocket expenses for low-income Medicare beneficiaries: the Qualified Medicare Beneficiary (QMB) program and the Specified Low-Income Medicare Beneficiary (SLMB) program. As of 1999, about 2.75 million eligible, noninstitutionalized individuals were not enrolled in these Medicare savings programs. The eligible nonparticipants differed substantially from the QMB and SLMB participants in that they were less likely to be Supplemental Security Income beneficiaries and more likely to be elderly, nonblack, and in relatively good health. These findings, which could help target future outreach efforts, are based on Survey of Income and Program Participation data matched with administrative records from the Social Security Administration.

Comparing Earnings Estimates from the 2006 Earnings Public-Use File and the Annual Statistical Supplement

The Social Security Administration recently released the 2006 Earnings Public-Use File (EPUF). The EPUF contains earnings information for individuals drawn from a systematic random 1-percent sample of all Social Security numbers issued before January 2007. This note presents the process of evaluating the earnings data in EPUF. It also identifies and explains four key differences between the data in EPUF and the estimates published in the Annual Statistical Supplement to the Social Security Bulletin. The note specifically compares EPUF data with Annual Statistical Supplement estimates of earnings, number of workers with earnings, median earnings by sex and age group, and percentage of workers with earnings below the taxable maximum by sex. After accounting for the expected differences, the remaining discrepancies between EPUF and Annual Statistical Supplement estimates are relatively small.

Comparing Replacement Rates Under Private and Federal Retirement Systems

This article presents a comparison of replacement rates for employees of medium and large private establishments to replacement rates for federal employees under the Civil Service Retirement System and the Federal Employees Retirement System. This analysis shows the possibility of replacement rates exceeding 100 percent for FERS employees who contribute 6 percent of earnings to the Thrift Savings Plan over a full working career. Private-sector replacement rates were quite similar for workers with both a defined benefit and a defined contribution pension plan.

Comparing the Financial Position of the Aged in Britain and the United States

Comparison of Actual Experience With Estimates in the Trustees' Reports

Comparison of Aged OASDI and SSI Recipients, 1974

Comparison of Benefit Schedules, Unemployment Compensation and Workmen's Compensation

Comparison of Individual Characteristics and Death Rates of Disabled-Worker Beneficiaries Entitled in 1972 and 1985

A Comparison of Social Security Taxes and Federal Income Taxes

A Comparison of Social Security Taxes and Federal Income Taxes, 1980–90

A Comparison of the Recovery Termination Rates of Disabled-Worker Beneficiaries Entitled in 1972 and 1985

Compensating Workers for Permanent Partial Disabilities

There is substantial variability in how state workers' compensation laws provide benefits to workers who have a permanent partial disability. The basic approaches used by the states can be classified into four groupings, although important differences exist within each group. Depending on the approach used, workers with similar injuries can receive substantially different amounts of benefits. Because compensating permanent partial disabilities frequently involves contention, the matters in dispute will depend on the approach used to determine benefits. The continuation of such differences in approach suggests that the states have not found a single "best practice" for determining what such benefits should be.

A Comprehensive Social Security Program: Recommendations from the Annual Report

Compulsory Health Insurance in Hawaii

Compulsory Retirement Among Newly Entitled Workers: Survey of New Beneficiaries

Concurrent Receipt of OAA Payments and OASI Benefits

Concurrent Receipt of OASDI and Workmen's Compensation, December 1960

Concurrent Receipt of Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and Public Assistance

Concurrent Receipt of Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and Public Assistance

Concurrent Receipt of Public Assistance and Old-Age and Survivors Insurance

Concurrent Receipt of Public Assistance and Old-Age and Survivors Insurance

Concurrent Receipt of Public Assistance and Old-Age and Survivors Insurance

Concurrent Receipt of Public Assistance and Old-Age and Survivors Insurance

Concurrent Receipt of Public Assistance and Old-Age Survivors Insurance

Concurrent Receipt of Public Assistance and Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance

Concurrent Receipt of Public Assistance and Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance

Concurrent Receipt of Public Assistance and Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance, Early 1961

Concurrent Receipt of Public Assistance and Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance, Early 1962

Concurrent Supplemental Security Income Payments and OASDI Cash Benefits

The Conference on Aging

Conference Recommendations on Juvenile Delinquency

Considerations for Potential Proposals to Change the Earliest Eligibility Age for Retirement

The earliest eligibility age (EEA) interacts with many other Social Security program rules, including the benefit formula and insured status requirements. Proposals to increase the EEA could affect some or all of these other rules depending on how policymakers design the proposal. By using a hypothetical proposal that increases the EEA, this policy brief illustrates how these interactions work and discusses the options that policymakers would need to consider.

Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1985

Constant-Attendance Allowances for Non-Work-Related Disability

Constitutional Background to the Social Security Act of 1935

Consumer Price Indexes for the Elderly: British Experience

The Continuous Work History Sample Under Old-Age and Survivors Insurance

The Continuous Work-History Sample: The First 12 Years

Contrasts in HMO and Fee-for-Service Performance

Contribution and Benefit Increases in Switzerland

Conversions to Supplemental Security Income From State Assistance: A Program Records Study

Cooperative Research and Demonstration Grant Program of the Social Security Administration

Coordination Between the Railroad Retirement and Social Security Systems

Coping with the Demographic Challenge: Fewer Children and Living Longer

This article examines the demographic challenge of an aging population on the U.S. Social Security system and the well-being of the elderly. It describes policy implications and some potential policy solutions to this challenge.

Cost Estimates for National Health Insurance, 1948

Cost of the British Social Services, 1938–52

Cost-Neutral Policies to Increase Social Security Benefits for Widows: A Simulation for 1992

Among older women, widows are more likely to live in poverty than married women. Thus, increasing Social Security benefits to widows seems desirable. Shifting some Social Security benefits from the period when women live as part of a couple to the period when they are widows could reduce poverty. This article uses the 1991 Survey of Income and Program Participation exactly matched to the Social Security Administration's record of benefits to evaluate the effect on poverty rates of four cost-neutral proposals that transfer Social Security benefits from married couples to surviving widows. The policies would moderately decrease poverty rates among older women by reducing the rate for widows more than the slight increase in the rate for couples. The evaluated proposals include a proposal supported by the majority of the 1994-96 Advisory Council on Social Security that would calculate the survivor's benefit as 75 percent of the couple's benefit, reduce the spouse's benefit from 50 to 33 percent of the husband's benefit, and reduce benefits by 1.5 percent.

Cost-of-Living Increases for Railroad Retirement Benefits

Cost-of-Living Increases in Military Retired Pay

Costs and Benefits Under Prepayment Medical-Service Plans

Costs of Medical Care of Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Beneficiaries in St. Louis and 12 Ohio Cities

Countercyclical U.S. Fertility and its Implications

Counting the Disabled: Using Survey Self-Reports to Estimate Medical Eligibility for Social Security's Disability Programs

This paper develops an approach for tracking medical eligibility for the Social Security Administration's (SSA's) disability programs on the basis of self-reports from an ongoing survey. Using a structural model of the disability determination process estimated on a sample of applicants, we make out-of-sample predictions of eligibility for nonbeneficiaries in the general population. This work is based on the 1990 panel of the Survey of Income and Program Participation. We use alternative methods of estimating the number of people who would be found eligible if they applied, considering the effects of sample selection adjustments, sample restrictions, and several methods of estimating eligibility/ineligibility from a set of continuous probabilities. The estimates cover a wide range, suggesting the importance of addressing methodological issues. In terms of classification rates for applicants, our preferred measure outperforms the conventional single variable model based on the "prevented" measure.

Under our preferred estimate, 4.4 million people—2.9 percent of the nonbeneficiary population aged 18–64—would meet SSA's medical criteria for disability. Of that group, about one-third have average earnings above the substantial gainful activity limit. Those we classify as medically eligible are similar to allowed applicants in terms of standard measures of activity limitations.

Counting the Poor: Another Look at the Poverty Profile

Counting the Poor: Another Look at the Poverty Profile

Covariance Estimates for Regression Parameters from Complex Sample Designs: Application of the Weighted Maximum Likelihood Estimator to Linear and Logistic Regression Analysis in Which Observations Might Not be Independent

Statistical methods of variance estimation are presented in this paper for the analysis of survey data involving complex sample designs. With certain complex sample design, estimation of the covariance matrices in linear and logistic regression is not straightforward. The design may be complex because of disproportionate sampling of strata, necessitating the use of weights, or because the observations are not independent, or possibly both. Examples are given from projects at the Social Security Administration, and computer programs written in SAS (Statistical Analysis System) are provided.

Coverage and Vesting of Full-Time Employees Under Private Retirement Plans

Coverage Extension Under Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance

Coverage of Agricultural Workers Under Unemployment Insurance

Coverage of Ministers Under Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance

Coverage of State and Local Government Employees Under OASDI

Coverage of the Self-Employed Under Old-Age and Survivors Insurance: Foreign Experience

Coverage Patterns of Full-Time Employees Under Private Retirement Plans

Covered Employment and the Age Men Claim Retirement Benefits

Credit Unions Under State Charters, 1953

The Cuban Refugee Program

The Culture of Poverty in Puerto Rico and New York

Curbing Juvenile Delinquency

Current Developments in Social Security Financing

Current Medicare Survey: Hospital Insurance Sample

Current Medicare Survey: The Medical Insurance Sample

Cut-Backs and Unemployment Compensation, September 1943-April 1944

Deaths Represented in Social Insurance Survivor Benefit Awards

The Decision to Exclude Agricultural and Domestic Workers from the 1935 Social Security Act

The Social Security Act of 1935 excluded from coverage about half the workers in the American economy. Among the excluded groups were agricultural and domestic workers. Some scholars have attributed this exclusion to racial bias against African Americans. In this article, the author examines the evidence of the origins of the coverage exclusions in 1935 and concludes that this particular provision had nothing to do with race.

The Decline in Establishment Reporting: Impact on CWHS Industrial and Geographic Data

Deeming Rules and the Increase in the Number of Children With Disabilities Receiving SSI: Evaluating the Effects of a Regulatory Change

This article examines a source of the growth in the SSI children's program: a relatively minor and little-noticed change in the financial eligibility rules. The way parental earnings were counted as income, or "deemed" to children (to use SSA language) was changed. The new, more generous financial eligibility rules added a small but significant number of recipients to the rolls after 1992 and also increased the benefit amounts for many of those already receiving SSI. Using SSA administrative data and a simulation technique, this article estimates how much the deeming policy change contributed to the expansion of the rolls and the cost of the program. We estimate that program costs of the deeming rule change were approximately $63 million annually in 1993 dollars. The change led to a 2-percent increase in the number of children on the rolls.

Defense Trainees and Availability for Work

Deficit Reduction Act of 1983: Provisions Related to the AFDC Program

Deficit Reduction Act of 1984: Provisions Related to Medicare and Medicaid Programs

Deficit Reduction Act of 1984: Provisions Related to the OASDI and SSI Programs

Defined Contribution Pension Participation and Contributions by Earnings Levels Using Administrative Data

This article examines the relationship between earnings levels and participation and contribution rates in defined contribution (DC) retirement plans. Specifically, the article estimates DC plan participation and contribution rates in 2006 both by the worker's current earnings and by the annual average of real earnings over the 10-year period 1997–2006. Using these two different measures of earnings allows us to assess whether employing a longer period of earnings, such as a decade, provides a better representation of pension outcomes than the short-term measure of current earnings.

Defined Contribution Pension Plans and the Supplemental Security Income Program

This policy brief analyzes changes in the employer-sponsored pension system and the relationship of these changes to the Supplemental Security Income program's treatment of retirement plans. SSI does not treat assets in defined benefit and defined contribution retirement plans in the same manner. The primary difference is that a potential SSI recipient has access to the funds in a defined contribution plan, but a participant in the defined benefit plan has no access to the pension until attaining a specific age. The increasing prevalence of the defined contribution retirement plan and the decreasing prevalence of the defined benefit plan is one significant change—a trend that has gained momentum since the mid-1980s. The importance of these issues relates to the extent of pension plan holdings among SSI applicants and recipients, which is in turn directly related to their involvement in the labor force. The policy brief discusses three alternate approaches to SSI treatment of defined contribution retirement plans, one of which is to retain the current policy.

Definition of Disability in Private Pension Plans

Delayed Filing for Disability Benefits Under the Social Security Act

The Demand for Older Workers: The Neglected Side of a Labor Market

Despite extensive study of the work and retirement decisions of older individuals, the nature of employers' demand for older workers remains relatively unexplored. This paper investigates the plausibility, pervasiveness, and causes of limited employment opportunities for older workers by examining age discrimination, long-term employment relationships, and partial-retirement work options. The central theme is that much of the differential treatment of older workers that persists over time is likely to be part of a privately efficient, economic equilibrium. Provisional implications for Social Security and age-work policy choices are drawn.

Demographic and Economic Characteristics of Children in Families Receiving Social Security

Each month, over 3 million children receive benefits from Social Security, accounting for one of every seven Social Security beneficiaries. This article examines the demographic characteristics and economic status of these children using Social Security administrative records matched to the 1996 Survey of Income and Program Participation. Most child beneficiaries receive benefits based on the earnings of a deceased or disabled parent, and nearly two-thirds live in female-headed families. The families of child beneficiaries rely about equally on earnings and income from Social Security for economic support. On average, the family income of child beneficiaries was 25 percent lower than that of all children, but there was no statistically significant difference in the poverty rates of the two groups.

Demographic and Economic Characteristics of Nonbeneficiary Widows: An Overview

Demographic and Economic Differences in Survivor Experiences of Nonwhite and White Families

Demographic Characteristics of Disability Applicants: Relationship to Allowances

Demographic Factors in the Disability Determination Process: A Logistic Approach

Denial of SSI Applications Because of Excess Resources

Dental Insurance in Sweden

Dependents' Allowances in Social Insurance

Dependents' Allowances in Unemployment Insurance

Dependents' Allowances Under State Unemployment Insurance Laws

Dependents in Social Security Systems of Great Britain, New Zealand, Australia, and Canada

Dependents of Unemployment Compensation Claimants in Delaware

The Dependents of Workers: Selected Data on Numbers and Types

Design and Implementation Issues in Swedish Individual Pension Accounts

Sweden's new multipillar pension system includes a system of mandatory fully funded individual accounts. The Swedish system offers contributors more than 600 fund options from a variety of private-sector fund managers. However, in the most recent rounds of fund choice, more than 90 percent of new labor market entrants have not made an active choice of funds and thus have ended up in a government-sponsored default fund.

The Swedish system offers a number of lessons about implementing a mandatory individual account tier. Centralized administration keeps administrative costs down but requires considerable lead time. A very large number of fund options are likely to be offered unless strong entry barriers are in place. Engaging new labor market entrants in fund choice is likely to be difficult. A significant percentage of those making an active fund choice may choose funds that are very specialized and risky. Finally, special care must be devoted to designing a default fund and continual consumer communication.

Design of the Project NetWork Return-to-Work Experiment for Persons with Disabilities

Desirability of Expanding the Social Insurance Program Now

The Desirability of Extending Social Security to Employees of Nonprofit Institutions

Determinants of Divorce

Determinants of Interstate Migration of the Elderly

Determinants of the Growth in the Social Security Administration's Disability Programs—An Overview

This article examines factors affecting the growth in the Social Security Administration's disability programs. We synthesize recent empirical evidence on factors affecting trends in applications and awards for Disability Insurance and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits and duration on the rolls. Econometric analyses of pooled time-series, cross-sectional data for States provide strong evidence of business cycle effects on applications and, to a lesser extent, on awards. Substantial effects of cutbacks in State general assistance programs are also found, especially for SSI. Estimated effects of the aging of the baby boomers, growth in the share of women who are disability insured, the AIDS epidemic, and changes in family structure are also presented. Indirect evidence suggests the importance of programmatic factors, especially for awards, and especially in the mental and musculoskeletal impairment categories. The decline in the average age of new awardees has substantially increased duration, particularly for SSI. As a result, caseload growth would be expected to continue even in the absence of future award growth.

Determination of Suitable Work During Reconversion

Developing Work Units in a Child-Placing Agency

Development and Evaluation of a Survey-Based Type of Benefit Classification for the Social Security Program

The Development and History of the Poverty Thresholds

The Development and Use of Industry Data by the Social Security Administration

The Development of a New Geographic Coding System for the Continuous Work History Sample

This article describes the statistical development of the geographic coding system used to identify worker location for the Continuous Work History Sample. The new system—which is planned for implementation for data year 1993—will provide more accurate geographic distributions of workers within a residence concept than the old system could provide within an employer location concept. The article also presents the results of a pilot study that tested the operational aspects of the new system. The results provide some preliminary estimates of the effect of the revised codes on the geographic distribution of workers.

Development of Diagnostic Data in the 10-Percent Sample of Disabled SSI Recipients

Development of Federal Grant Allocations

The Development of Organized Recreation in the United States

The Development of Social Security in America

This article examines the origins and legislative development of the U.S. Social Security program over its 75-year history. It traces the major amendments adopted over the decades and provides a summary assessment of the impact and importance of Social Security as a central pillar of the U.S. social welfare system.

Development of the Continuous Work-History Sample in Old-Age and Survivors Insurance

The Development of the Project NetWork Administrative Records Database for Policy Evaluation

This article describes the development of SSA's administrative records database for the Project NetWork return-to-work experiment targeting persons with disabilities. The article is part of a series of papers on the evaluation of the Project NetWork demonstration. In addition to 8,248 Project NetWork participants randomly assigned to receive case management services and a control group, the simulation identified 138,613 eligible nonparticipants in the demonstration areas. The output data files contain detailed monthly information on Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Disability Insurance (DI) benefits, annual earnings, and a set of demographic and diagnostic variables. The data allow for the measurement of net outcomes and the analysis of factors affecting participation. The results suggest that it is feasible to simulate complex eligibility rules using administrative records, and create a clean and edited data file for a comprehensive and credible evaluation. The study shows that it is feasible to use administrative records data for selecting control or comparison groups in future demonstration evaluations.

Developments and Trends in Social Security, 1990–1992: Overview of Principal Trends

Developments in Foreign Social Security Plans

Developments in Foreign Social Security Plans

Developments in Other Countries

Developments in the Equalization of Treatment of Men and Women Under Social Security in the Federal Republic of Germany

Diagnoses in Disability Freeze Allowances, July 1955–December 1956

Diagnostic Trends of Disabled Social Security Beneficiaries, 1986–93

Growth in the number of applications and subsequent awards for Social Security disabled-worker benefits marked the period from 1986 through 1993. These increases resulted in the 37 percent rise in the number of disabled-worker beneficiaries, 6 out of 10 of whom had disabilities within three diagnostic groups: circulatory disorders; mental disorders (other than mental retardation); and musculoskeletal diseases. The percentage of disabled workers with a circulatory condition decreased from 21 to 14 percent, while the percentage with a mental disorder increased from 20 to 25 percent, and the percentage with musculoskeletal conditions increased from 18 to 21 percent. Musculoskeletal conditions (22 percent) were the leading diagnosis among disabled widows and widowers in 1993, while the disabled adult child population was dominated by the mental retardation diagnostic group (63 percent). Variations in diagnostic conditions of disabled workers by sex, age, and region were often substantial.

Differences in Sources and Size of Income: Findings of the 1963 Survey of the Aged

Disability and Medical Care Insurance: An Excerpt From the Board's Ninth Annual Report

Disability and Old-Age Benefits, by State, December 31, 1962

Disability and Old-Age Benefits, by State, December 31, 1963

Disability and Old-Age Benefits, by State, December 31, 1964

Disability Beneficiaries Eligible for Medicare

Disability Beneficiaries Who Work and Their Experience Under Program Work Incentives

Disability Beneficiary Recovery

In recent years, the number of workers awarded disability insurance benefits has rapidly increased, while there has been no corresponding increase in the numbers leaving the rolls for recovery. Concern has been expressed that cash benefit payments may be leading to disincentives to beneficiaries to return to work after medical improvement

To examine this question, a comparative analysis was made of the demographic, disability, and benefit characteristics of a sample of disabled workers who left the benefit rolls for recovery in contrast to the characteristics of those who remained on the rolls after award of disability benefits in 1972. Characteristics related to greater recovery included younger age, higher education, disability due to traumatic injury, residence in western states.

Disability Benefit Applications and the Economy

Disability Benefit Awards Affected by the Offset Provision, July–October 1957

Disability Benefit Coverage and Program Interactions in the Working-Age Population

It is widely known that about three-fourths of the working-age population is insured for Disability Insurance (DI), but the substantial role played by the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program in providing disability benefit coverage is not well understood. Using data from the 1996 panel of the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) we find that over one-third (36 percent) of the working-age population is covered by SSI in the event of a severe disability. Three important implications follow: (1) SSI increases the overall coverage of the working-age population; (2) SSI enhances the bundle of cash benefits available to disabled individuals; and (3) interactions with other public programs—most notably the SSI path to Medicaid coverage—also enhance the safety net. Ignoring these implications could lead to inaccurate inferences in analytic studies.

Disability Benefits Suspended or Terminated Because of Work

The authors use longitudinal Social Security administrative data to produce statistics on the number of Disability Insurance (DI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI)-only beneficiaries whose cash benefits were first suspended or terminated because of work and on the number of months thereafter that those beneficiaries remained in nonpayment status before their return to the program rolls, attainment of the full retirement age, or death—for each year from 2002 through 2006. We also explore differences by program title (DI versus SSI-only) and by participation in the Ticket to Work program. Finally, we examine outcome payments made on behalf of Ticket to Work participants in months of nonpayment status following suspension or termination because of work.

Disability Claimants Who Contest Denials and Win Reversals Through Hearings

This paper presents the social and demographic characteristics of those disability claimants whose cases go to hearing. Particular attention is given to how these characteristics may be related to (1) the individual decision to contest a denial or accept it; (2) the general increase in disability claims and contested applications in recent years; and (3) the high proportion of reversals in hearings.

Disability Filing Rates and Denial Rates

Disability Insurance and Aid to the Blind

Disability Insurance and Public Assistance: A Study of APTD Recipients

Disability Insurance Benefits in Current-Payment Status, by State, December 31, 1959

Disability Insurance Benefits In Current-Payment Status, By State, December 31, 1960

Disability Insurance Benefits in Current-Payment Status, by State, December 31, 1961

Disability Insurance Benefits in Current-Payments Status, by State, February 28, 1959

Disability Insurance for Railroad Workers

Disability Insurance Trust Fund, January–June 1957

Disability Insurance: Program Issues and Research

Disability Patterns Among SSI Recipients

In December 1993, about 3.8 million persons under age 65 received Supplemental Security Income (SSI) payments because of a disability. More than half of these recipients had some form of mental disorder. In recent years, the number of disabled SSI recipients has climbed sharply. At the same time, there has been a change in the disability patterns among these recipients. The proportion of recipients with mental disorders, particularly those with psychiatric illness, is increasing steadily. Many of these recipients enter the SSI program in their youth and may stay in the program for many years. Similar increases and disability patterns in the Social Security Administration's Disability Insurance (DI) program imply program related causes, including recent changes to the disability requirements and outreach efforts. These changing disability patterns have implications for the size and shape of future SSI caseloads.

Disability Process Redesign: The Proposal from the SSA Disability Process Reengineering Team

Disability Protection Under Public Programs

Disability Trends in the United States: A National and Regional Perspective

Disability, Welfare Reform, and Supplemental Security Income

The Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program serves as both a safety net and a way station for families with disabilities. According to most studies, at least a third of all households receiving these benefits include an adult or child with a disability. Surveys have found that persons with disabilities receiving these benefits were less likely to be working. Sanctioning rates of these families exceed those for families without disabilities, and continuing poverty is more common among cases that close. There is overlap between this welfare program and Supplemental Security Income; more than one out of every six of these families included a recipient of Supplemental Security Income in 2002.

Disability, Work, and Income Maintenance: Prevalence of Disability, 1966

Disabled Beneficiary Population, 1957–66

Disabled Old-Age Insurance Beneficiaries

The Disabled on Public Assistance

Disabled SSI Recipients Who Work

The Disabled Widow

The Disabled Worker Under OASDI

Disabled Workers and Rehabilitation Services

Disabled Workers and the Indexing of Social Security Benefits

This article presents the distributional effects of changing the Social Security indexing scheme, with an emphasis on the effects upon disabled-worker beneficiaries. Although a class of reform proposals that would slow the rate of growth of initial benefit levels over time—including price indexing and longevity indexing—initially appear to affect all beneficiaries proportionally, there can be different impacts on different groups of beneficiaries. The impacts between and within groups are mitigated by (1) the offsetting effect of changes in Supplemental Security Income benefits at the lower tail of the income distribution, and (2) the dampening effect of other family income at the upper tail of the income distribution. The authors present estimates of the size of these effects.

Disabled-Worker Beneficiaries and Disabled SSI Recipients: A Profile of Demographic and Program Characteristics

Disabled-Worker Beneficiaries Under OASDHI: Regional and State Patterns

Disabled-Worker Beneficiaries Under OASDI: Comparison With Severely Disabled PA Recipients

The Disappearing Defined Benefit Pension and Its Potential Impact on the Retirement Incomes of Baby Boomers

A large share of traditional defined benefit pension plans have frozen within the past decade and evidence suggests that this trend will continue in the future. This article uses the Model of Income in the Near Term (MINT) microsimulation model to project the impact on boomers' retirement incomes of freezing traditional pension plans and replacing them with 401(k)-type plans. The projections suggest that the largest impact will be for the most recent boomers born between 1961 and 1965.

The Distribution of Annual and Long-Run US Earnings, 1981–2004

During 1981–2004, long-run earnings inequality among men increased by about the same magnitude as the well-documented increase in annual earnings inequality. Although the growth in annual earnings inequality was greater for women during these years, there was very little increase in their long-run earnings inequality. This article explores the conditions that produce the divergent trends in long-run earnings.

Distribution of Family Income: Improved Estimates

Distribution of Income Sources of Recent Retirees: Findings From the New Beneficiary Survey

Distribution of Increased Benefits Under Alternative Earnings Tests

The Distribution of OASDI Taxes and Benefits by Income Decile

On average, persons receiving Social Security benefits tend to have lower current incomes than do persons paying Social Security taxes. This article documents OASDI's income distributional patterns by dividing the 1992 Current Population Survey population into 10 income deciles and tabulating benefits received and taxes paid by each decile. The benefits and taxes, when compared with non-Social Security income, are progressive: as income rises from decile to decile, the ratio of benefits to income falls, and, except at the highest deciles, the ratio of taxes to income rises.

A large component of the current income distributional pattern is associated with age: the young on average receive more income and pay more taxes; the old on average receive more benefits. However, when benefits and taxes are tabulated for income deciles within specific age groups, a general progressivity is still observable, although it is weaker than that for the population as a whole.

Distribution of Zero-Earnings Years by Gender, Birth Cohort, and Level of Lifetime Earnings

This note uses data from the Modeling Income in the Near Term (MINT) project to estimate the distribution of zero-earnings years by gender, birth cohort, and level of lifetime earnings from 1951 to 1996. The analysis is focused mainly on zero-earnings years that fall within a worker's highest 35 years of earnings, because only these years are used in the calculation of benefits.

Distribution Patterns in Old-Age Assistance Payments Approved in 1938-39

The Distributional Consequences of a "No-Action" Scenario

The 2001 report of the Social Security trustees projected that the combined trust funds for the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and Disability Insurance programs will be exhausted in 2038. This analysis explains the effects of insolvency on future retirement benefits and poverty rates of beneficiaries if no action is taken to strengthen Social Security.

The Distributional Consequences of a "No-Action" Scenario: Updated Results

Under the Social Security program, benefits are paid to retired workers, survivors, and disabled persons out of two trust funds—the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and the Disability Insurance (OASDI) Trust Funds. In their 2005 report, the Social Security Trustees projected that the combined OASDI trust funds would be exhausted in 2041. Because the trust funds are used to pay benefits, retirement benefits would have to be reduced somewhat in 2041 and more drastically in 2042.

If no action were taken to strengthen Social Security, the benefit reductions necessitated by the exhaustion of the trust funds would double the poverty rate of Social Security beneficiaries aged 64–78 in 2042, from 1.5 percent to 3.3 percent. However, this increased poverty rate would still be lower than the current poverty rate for beneficiaries aged 62–76, which is 4.6 percent. In addition, the trust funds' exhaustion could lead to lower returns on payroll taxes using traditional "money's-worth" measures.

Distributional Effects of Accelerating and Extending the Increase in the Full Retirement Age

This policy brief compares two options set forth by the Social Security Advisory Board to increase the full retirement age (FRA), the age at which claimants may receive unreduced Social Security old-age benefits. One option would raise the FRA from the current target of 67 years to 68 years; the other would raise the FRA to 70 years. The brief examines the effects of both options on the level of benefits of Social Security beneficiaries aged 62 or older in 2070 using Modeling Income in the Near Term (MINT) projections, and on Trust Fund solvency using estimates from the Social Security Administration's Office of the Chief Actuary. The brief finds that both options would reduce benefits, improve solvency, and slightly increase the poverty rate. Within each option, effects on benefits are relatively uniform across beneficiary characteristics, although some surviving spouse and disabled beneficiaries would be shielded from benefit reductions.

The Distributional Effects of Changing the Averaging Period and Minimum Benefit Provisions

This study evaluates the effects of changing the averaging period used to calculate Social Security benefits from 35 years to 38 or 40 years and the introduction of a minimum benefit provision for future retirees born during the early part of the baby boom generation. Proposals to change the averaging period have been recommended by a majority of the 1994–96 Advisory Council on Social Security. Based on the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) matched to Social Security Administration earnings records, the study projects retirement benefits for different subgroups of the population under existing and proposed benefit rules. The magnitudes of the retirees' benefit changes vary by demographic group. The minimum benefit provision substantially mitigates the effects of the change to a 40-year averaging period for some groups of women.

Distributional Effects of Increasing the Benefit Computation Period

The computation period is the number of highest earning years, currently 35, that are used to compute the career average earnings on which Social Security benefits are based. The brief uses MINT model projections to compare the distributional effects of two policy options discussed by the Social Security Advisory Board.

Distributional Effects of Price Indexing Social Security Benefits

This policy brief compares five options (four progressive price indexing and one full price indexing option) set forth by the Social Security Advisory Board to index initial benefits to price growth. It examines the distribution of benefits of Social Security beneficiaries aged 62 or older in 2030, 2050, and 2070 using Modeling Income in the Near Term (MINT) model projections. The brief finds that the full price indexing option Shield 0% would more than achieve long-term solvency by reducing benefits by about 35 percent in 2070 and would increase the aged poverty rate compared with scheduled levels. The four progressive price indexing options (Shields 30%, 40%, 50%, 60%) would produce smaller benefit reductions by exempting varying proportions of lower earners from price indexing. Those options would not increase poverty above scheduled levels, but would reduce benefits for some low earners because their auxiliary benefits come from the reduced benefits of a higher-earning spouse. The progressive price indexing options would make Social Security more progressive compared with scheduled and payable benefits, both when looking at household benefit reductions by household income in a given year and when examining the distribution of lifetime taxes and benefits.

Distributional Effects of Raising the Social Security Payroll Tax

This policy brief analyzes the lifetime tax effects of two options for addressing the Social Security system's long-range solvency by raising the Social Security payroll tax rate. The first, an immediate increase, would have raised the payroll tax rate from its current 12.4 percent to 14.4 percent in 2006; the second, a phased increase, would raise the payroll tax rate to 14.5 percent in 2020, and then to 16.6 percent in 2050. The brief also analyzes a comparative scenario in which the current tax rate is maintained through 2041 and then raised each year as needed to pay scheduled benefits. The lifetime taxes of people born 1936–2015 are analyzed using Modeling Income in the Near Term (MINT) projections. Results show that the longer a tax rate increase is delayed, the fewer workers are affected, but also the higher the increase in lifetime taxes for later generations. The results also show that both options reduce the cross-cohort variability in the ratio of benefits received to taxes paid.

Distributional Effects of Raising the Social Security Taxable Maximum

As of 2009, Social Security's Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance program limits the amount of annual earnings subject to taxation at $106,800, and this value generally increases annually based on changes in the national average wage index. This brief uses Modeling Income in the Near Term (MINT) projections to compare the distributional effects of four options for raising the maximum taxable earnings amount beyond its scheduled levels. Two of the options would raise this value so that it covers 90 percent of all covered earnings and two would remove the maximum completely. Within each set of options, the proposals are differentiated by whether the new taxable amounts are used in computing benefits. Most workers would not be affected by these proposals, but some higher earners would experience a substantial increase in taxes. Correspondingly, benefit increases are largely isolated to higher earners, although the return in benefits for taxes paid would also decline. Because the proposals are targeted toward high earners, Social Security's progressivity would increase.

Distributional Effects of Reducing the Cost-of-Living Adjustments

Each year, Social Security benefits increase automatically with the cost-of-living adjustment (COLA), which is based on the rise in the consumer price index for urban wage earners and clerical workers (CPI-W). The analysis uses Modeling Income in the Near Term (MINT) projections to compare the distributional effects of three policy options discussed by the Social Security Advisory Board to improve system solvency.

Distributional Effects of Reducing the Social Security Benefit Formula

A person's Social Security benefit, or primary insurance amount (PIA), is 90 percent of the lowest portion of lifetime earnings, plus 32 percent of the middle portion of lifetime earnings, plus 15 percent of the highest portion of lifetime earnings. This policy brief analyzes the distributional effects of three options (the three-point, five-point and upper) discussed by the Social Security Advisory Board to reduce the PIA. The first option would reduce the PIA by 3 percentage points; the second would reduce it by 5 percentage points; and the third would reduce the 32 and 15 percentages of the PIA to 21 and 10 percent, respectively. The third option would exempt about one quarter of the lowest earning beneficiaries, while reducing benefits by a median average of 19 percent in 2070. None would eliminate Social Security's long-term fiscal imbalance, although the third option would eliminate more (76 percent) of the deficit than the three-point (18 percent) and five-point (31 percent) options.

Divorced Women at Retirement: Projections of Economic Well-Being in the Near Future

This article describes the economic resources and economic well-being of future divorced women at retirement using data from the Social Security Administration's project on Modeling Income in the Near Term (MINT). The MINT model projects that in the near term, there will be more divorced women of retirement age. Because fewer of those women are projected to meet the 10-year marriage requirement, the proportion of economically vulnerable aged women is expected to increase when the baby boom retires.

Do Early Retirees Die Early? Evidence from Three Independent Data Sets

In a 2001 working paper, Links Between Early Retirement and Mortality (ORES Working Paper No. 93), the author used cross-sectional Current Population Survey (CPS) matched to longitudinal Social Security administration data and found that men who retire early die sooner than men who retire at age 65 or older. Estimates of relative mortality risk control for current age, year of birth, education, marital status in 1973, and race, and the sample is restricted to men who have lived to at least age 65.

This paper uses the 1982 New Beneficiary Survey and a 1 percent extract of the Social Security Administration's year 2000 Master Beneficiary Records to test whether the mortality differentials reported in the author's earlier work can be replicated in other independent data sets.

Does Retirement Education Teach People to Save Pension Distributions?

Education about retirement affects how employees use distributions from their defined contribution pension plans. Retirement education substantially increases the probability that participants age 40 and under will save a distribution but decreases the probability that college graduates and women will save one. These important differentials are concealed by estimates of the effect of retirement education on participants generally.

Domestic and Foreign Prescription Drug Prices

Domestic Workers Covered Under OASDHI, 1976

Dual Receipt of Disabled-Worker Benefits Under OASDHI and Workers' Compensation

Duration of Employment and Mobility of Workers: Industry Variations, 1947

Duration of Unemployment Benefit Payments in 27 States

Duration of Unemployment Benefit Payments, Benefit Years Ended in 1941

Duration of Unemployment Benefits, Benefit Years Ended in 1942

Duration of Unemployment Benefits, Benefit Years Ended in 1943

Early Effects of Medicare on the Health Care of the Aged

Early Experience Under the Supplemental Security Income Program

Early Labor-Force Withdrawal of Men: Participants and Nonparticipants Aged 58–63

Early Retirees Under Social Security: Health Status and Economic Resources

Policies that would reduce or eliminate Social Security benefits for early retirees could have adverse consequences for older workers in poor health. This article documents the health and financial circumstances of beneficiaries aged 62–64. It examines the extent to which poor health limits work among early retirees and assesses the extent to which curtailment of early retirement benefits might lead to increases in the Disability Insurance program rolls.

Early Retirees Under Social Security: Health Status and Economic Resources

Some proposals to change the Social Security program to ensure long-run solvency would reduce or eliminate benefits to some early retirees. To what extent might those benefit reductions cause hardship for individuals with precarious financial circumstances and whose health appears to limit their ability to offset reductions in Social Security income through increased earnings? Our research is intended to identify the size and characteristics of the population that might be at risk as a consequence of such changes.

The central finding is that over 20 percent of early Social Security retirees have health problems that substantially impair their ability to work. In fact, among those aged 62–64 who are severely impaired, there are as many Old-Age and Survivors Insurance beneficiaries as there are beneficiaries under SSA's two disability programs. The retirement program functions as a substantial, albeit unofficial, disability program for this age group. Moreover, the majority of the most severely impaired early retirees would not qualify for Disability Insurance benefits.

Early Retirement and Work-Life Experience

Earmarking Tax Funds for Welfare Purposes

Earners and Dependents in Urban Families in Relation to Family Income

Earners and Their Dependents in the Population in April 1948

Earnings Histories of SSI Beneficiaries Working in December 1997

This article looks at the history of earnings in covered employment for the 300,000 disabled SSI beneficiaries who were working in December 1997. It provides background information on beneficiaries essential to SSA's efforts to help them return to work.

Earnings Index and Old-Age Benefits in West Germany

Earnings of Black and Nonblack Workers Who Died or Became Disabled in 1996 and 1997

Social Security solvency proposals may affect blacks as a group differently than those of other races because of differences in earnings, mortality, and rates of disability. To provide some background for understanding this issue, this note examines the earnings of workers by age and race, comparing those who recently died or became entitled to Social Security disability benefits with those still alive. It does not analyze any specific proposal for changing benefits.

Earnings of Couples: A Cohort Analysis

Earnings of Disabled-Worker Beneficiaries

The Earnings Replacement Rate of Old-Age Benefits in 12 Countries, 1969–80

The Earnings Replacement Rate of Old-Age Benefits: An International Comparison

The Earnings Replacement Rate of Old-Age Benefits: An International Comparison

Earnings Replacement Rate of Old-Age Pensions for Workers Retiring at End of 1972

Earnings Replacement Rates and Total Income: Findings From the Retirement History Study

Earnings Replacement Rates of New Retired Workers

Earnings Replacement Rates of Retired Couples: Findings From the Retirement History Study

Earnings Sharing in Social Security: Projected Impacts of Alternative Proposals Using the MINT Model

Earnings sharing is an alternate method of calculating Social Security retirement benefits whereby earnings are assumed to be shared by married couples. This article presents a microsimulation analysis to estimate the impact of three earnings sharing proposals on the aged population of married, divorced, and widowed men and women in 2030. The impact of earnings sharing differs by marital status and sex, as measured by the percentage change in benefits and by the percentage of beneficiaries with increased and reduced benefits.

The Earnings Test and the Short-Run Work Response to Its Elimination

Earnings Test Under Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance: Basis, Background, and Experience

Earnings-Replacement Rate of Old-Age Benefits, 1965–75, Selected Countries

Econometric Models and the Study of the Economic Effects of Social Security

Economic and Social Status of Beneficiaries of Old-Age and Survivors Insurance

The Economic Consequences of a Husband's Death: Evidence from the HRS and AHEAD

Despite increased labor force participation rates among women and reforms under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act, widowhood remains an important risk factor for transition into poverty, although somewhat less so than 20 years ago. Women widowed at younger ages are at greatest risk for economic hardship after widowhood, and their situation declines with the duration of widowhood. We also find that women in households that are least prepared financially for widowhood are at greatest risk of a husband's death, because of the strong relationship between mortality and wealth.

The Economic Cost of Illness Revisited

Economic Effects of Internal Migration

Economic Factors in Long-Range Cost Estimates of Old-Age and Survivors Insurance

Economic Forecasting: Effect of Errors on OASDI Fund Ratios

Economic Policy, Intergenerational Equity, and the Social Security Trust Fund Buildup

Economic Resources of Persons Aged 65 and Over

Economic Retirement Studies: An Annotated Bibliography

This bibliography is a by-product of preparing a review of the economic literature on the effect of Social Security's retirement program on the labor supply of older workers. In the course of organizing a set of scribbled notes, the outline of the current document began to take shape. Several colleagues found earlier, incomplete drafts of these notes to be of some value in their own work, and encouraged me to offer them to a wider audience.

These notes are intended to provide a helpful overview of the models, data sources, and statistical procedures used by economists in recent years to investigate the work-retirement decision.

Economic Security of Farm Operators

Economic Security, 1935–85

Economic Situation of Aged Insurance Beneficiaries: An Evaluation

Economic Status of Aged Persons and Dependent Children

Economic Status of Aged Persons and Dependent Survivors

Economic Status of Aged Persons and Dependent Survivors, December 1951

Economic Status of Aged Persons and Dependent Survivors, December 1952

Economic Status of Aged Persons and Dependent Survivors, December 1953

Economic Status of Aged Persons and Dependent Survivors, June 1951

Economic Status of Aged Persons and Dependent Survivors, June 1952

Economic Status of Aged Persons and Dependent Survivors, June 1953

Economic Status of Aged Persons, June 1954

Economic Status of Black Persons: Findings from Survey of Newly Entitled Beneficiaries

The Economic Status of the Aged

Economic Status of the Aged and Dependent Survivors

Economic Status of the Aged in Urban Households

Economic Status of Widows and Paternal Orphans, June 1954

Economic Status, Unemployment, and Family Growth

The Economic Well-Being of Social Security Beneficiaries, with an Emphasis on Divorced Beneficiaries

There are numerous types of benefits paid under the Social Security programs of the United States, with each type of benefit having its own set of eligibility rules and benefit formula. It is likely that there is an association between the type of benefit a person receives and the economic circumstances of the beneficiary. This paper explores that association using records from the Current Population Survey exactly matched to administrative records from the Social Security Administration. Divorced beneficiaries are a particular focus of this paper.

Type of benefit is found to be a strong predictor of economic well-being. Two large groups of beneficiaries, retired-worker and aged married-spouse beneficiaries, are fairly well off. Other types of beneficiaries tend to resemble the overall U.S. population or are decidedly worse off. Divorced-spouse beneficiaries have an unusually high incidence of poverty and of serious health problems. A proposal to increase benefits for these beneficiaries is evaluated. Results indicate that much of the additional government expenditures would be received by those with low income.

The Economic Well-Being of Social Security Beneficiaries, with an Emphasis on Divorced Beneficiaries

There are numerous types of benefits paid under the Social Security programs of the United States, with each type of benefit having its own set of eligibility rules and benefit formula. It is likely that there is an association between the type of benefit a person receives and the economic circumstances of the beneficiary. This article explores that association using records from the Current Population Survey exactly matched to administrative records from the Social Security Administration. Divorced beneficiaries are a particular focus of this article.

Type of benefit is found to be a strong predictor of economic well-being. Two large groups of beneficiaries, retired-worker and aged married spouse beneficiaries, are fairly well-off. Other types of beneficiaries tend to resemble the overall U.S. population or are decidedly worse off. Divorced spouse beneficiaries have an unusually high incidence of poverty and an unusually high incidence of serious health problems. A proposal to increase benefits for these beneficiaries is evaluated. Results of the analyses indicate that much of the additional Government expenditures would be received by those with low income.

The Economic Well-Being of the Old Old: Family Unit Income and Household Wealth

This paper examines the family income and the household wealth and income of old old persons. Subgroups of the old old are compared, and the old old are compared with the young old. When the old old group is separated into three subgroups—widows living alone, other females, and males—the economic status of widows living alone is substantially below that of the other two subgroups. This difference is found when income, wealth, and combined income-wealth measures are used. When the old old group is compared with the young old group, the economic status of the old old is substantially lower for all measures examined. When the three subgroups within both the old old and young old groups are compared, the economic status of each subgroup is lower for the old old for most measures. Income data from the March 1991 Current Population Survey and wealth and income data from the 1984 Survey of Income and Program Participation are used.

Economic Well-Being of the Old Old: Family Unit Income and Household Wealth

Economically Dependent Persons Without Pension Coverage in Old Age

The Economics of Retirement: A Nontechnical Guide

This paper provides a nontechnical explanation of the basic ideas that underpin economists' thinking about work and retirement decisions and discusses and elaborates on the basic economic model of retirement. The paper begins with a simple economic model of an individual's work decision, to explain the construction and logic of this model, and to show how the model can be used to make basic predictions about factors that might plausibly affect the timing of retirement. From this starting point—which essentially describes the economic retirement models before the late 1970s—the paper then explains how the model has been extended during the past 2 decades. The increasing sophistication and complexity of the models reflect scientific progress in which new retirement research incorporates the findings of previous efforts, the desire to incorporate more realism into the models, and the availability of improved data. The progress in economic modeling is emphasized as the contributions of various influential studies are reviewed.

The Economics of Retirement: A Nontechnical Guide

Concern about the economic consequences of the aging of the United States population has prompted considerable research activity during the past two decades. Economists have carefully examined retirement patterns and trends, and sought to identify and measure the determinants of the timing of retirement by older workers. Much of the published retirement research is fairly technical by nature and is somewhat inaccessible to nonspecialist audiences. This article provides a nontechnical overview of this research. In contrast to other reviews of the retirement literature, this exposition emphasizes the basic ideas and reasoning that economists use in their research. In the course of recounting how economists' views about retirement have evolved in recent years, the article highlights landmark pieces of research, points out the specific advances made by the various researchers, and assesses what has been learned along the way.

Educational and Economic Characteristics of Student Beneficiaries: Black-White Differences

Effect of 1954 OASI Eligibility Provision on Public Assistance

Effect of Changing Technology on Hospital Costs

Effect of Coinsurance on Use of Physician Services

Effect of Coinsurance: A Multivariate Analysis

Effect of Financing Disabled Beneficiary Rehabilitation

The Effect of Health on Retirement

Effect of Hospital Management Practices on Hospital Performance

Effect of Increased Federal Participation in Payments for Old-Age Assistance in 1940

Effect of Increased Federal Participation in Payments for Old-Age Assistance, 1940-41, and Aid to Dependent Children, 1940-42

Effect of Increased OASI Benefits on Public Assistance, September–December 1954

The Effect of Liquidation of the WPA on Need for Assistance

Effect of Medical Staff Characteristics on Hospital Cost

Effect of OASDI Benefit Increase, June 1975

Effect of OASDI Benefit Increases

Effect of OASDI Benefit Increases, 1974

Effect of Recession on Financing of German Pension Program

Effect of Rehabilitation on Employment and Earnings of the Disabled: Sociodemographic Factors

The Effect of Removing 70- and 71-Year-Olds from Coverage Under the Social Security Earnings Test

This study attempts to determine how persons aged 65–69 would respond to eliminating the earnings test by looking at the changes in labor market behavior of 70- and 71-year-olds whose earnings test coverage was eliminated beginning in 1983. In particular, it tries to determine whether 70- and 71-year-olds increased their labor force participation and earnings once the earnings test was removed. This issue is important because proposals to eliminate the earnings test for persons aged 65–69 generally assume that a portion of the additional benefit expenses would be recovered by income and payroll taxes generated by increased work effort among this age group.

Effect of Social Security on Personal Saving

Effect of Social Security on Saving: Review of Studies Using U.S. Time-Series Data

Effect of SSI on Medicaid Caseloads and Expenditures

Effect of Substantial Gainful Activity Level on Disabled Beneficiary Work Patterns

The Effect of the SSI Program on Labor Supply: Improved Evidence from Social Security Administrative Files

We use public-use microdata linked to Social Security Administration records to reexamine the impact of the Supplemental Security Income program on work disincentives among older individuals nearing the age of eligibility for Supplemental Security Income for the aged and likely to use the program. The administrative records provide significant advantages relative to past research and yield strong evidence that the Supplemental Security Income program induces some individuals nearing the age of eligibility to reduce their labor supply.

Effect of the War Economy on Financing Public Assistance

The Effect of Vocational Rehabilitation and Work Incentives on Helping the Disabled-Worker Beneficiary Back to Work

This article is the second in a series of articles that use data from the New Beneficiary Followup survey to analyze the work effects of the Social Security Administration's Disability Insurance beneficiaries. Survival analysis techniques are used to determine the effect of vocational rehabilitation efforts and work incentive program provisions on actual work outcomes. The findings indicate that the demographic variables of age, gender, race, education, and marital status affect the tendency to return to work in the expected way. The results suggest a possible disincentive effect may be built into certain work incentive provisions of the program. The encouraging news is that the vocational rehabilitation efforts seem to have a positive effect on the tendency to return to work. Physical therapy, vocational training, general education, and job placement efforts all seem to increase the tendency to go back to work.

Effect of Vocational Rehabilitation on Employment and Earnings of the Disabled: State Variations

The Effect of War Displacements on the Detroit General Assistance Program

Effect of War-Risk Tax Provisions, 1943 and 1944

The Effect of Welfare Reform on SSA's Disability Programs: Design of Policy Evaluation and Early Evidence

Recent legislation has affected the populations served by the Social Security Administration's (SSA's) disability programs. The Contract with America Advancement Act of 1996 mandated that persons whose disability determination was based on drug addiction or alcoholism be removed from the Supplemental Security Income and Social Security Disability Insurance rolls. The Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (later amended by the Balanced Budget Act of 1997) tightened the SSI eligibility criteria for children and converted the Aid to Families with Dependent Children program into a block grant, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families. This article describes the design of three related studies evaluating the direct and indirect effects of these policy changes on SSA's disability populations. It describes the methodological challenges of the studies and the strategies used to overcome them. It also presents early evidence from the three studies and discusses future directions.

Effect on Benefits of Earnings at Ages 65 or Older, 1995

A major policy issue for the Social Security program is the treatment of earnings of persons who have attained retirement age. This article discusses the retirement test and recomputation of benefit provisions, and provides statistical data for 1995.

In 1995, about 806,000 persons aged 65–70 had significant earnings resulting in the withholding of benefits by the retirement test. About 1,659,000 persons aged 65 or older realized an increase in their benefit amount because of their earnings.

The Effect on Needy Families of Suspension of the Food Stamp Plan

Effective Retirement Savings Programs: Design Features and Financial Education

This article provides an overview of the literature on best practices for retirement savings plan design and financial education in the workplace. Without a successful plan design, financial education will not be effective and even a well-structured plan can fail to achieve retirement savings goals without financial education. The main components of a retirement savings program that employers must consider include options for enrollment, investment choices, employer matching of contributions, and distributions over the working career and at retirement. In addition, employers control the core aspects of financial education, such as the topics covered, the delivery methods used, the frequency with which it is offered, and its general availability.

The Effects of Changing Social Security Administration's Early Entitlement Age and the Normal Retirement Age

Effects of Migration on Unemployment Benefit Rights

Effects of OASDI Benefit Increase, December 1983

Effects of OASDI Benefit Increase, December 1984

Effects of OASDI Benefit Increase, June 1976

Effects of OASDI Benefit Increase, June 1977

Effects of OASDI Benefit Increase, June 1978

Effects of OASDI Benefit Increase, June 1979

Effects of OASDI Benefit Increase, June 1980

Effects of OASDI Benefit Increase, June 1981

Effects of OASDI Benefit Increase, June 1982

The Effects of Relating Weekly Benefit Amounts to Annual Earnings

Effects of Social Security Benefit Increase, December 1989

Effects of the OASDI Benefit Increase, December 1985

Effects of the Social Security Benefit Increase, December 1988

The Effects of the Social Security Earnings Test on the Labor-Market Activity of Older Americans: A Review of the Evidence

The Effects of Wage Indexing on Social Security Disability Benefits

Researchers David Autor and Mark Duggan have hypothesized that the Social Security benefit formula using the average wage index, coupled with a widening distribution of income, has created an implicit rise in replacement rates for low-earner disability beneficiaries. This research attempts to confirm and quantify the replacement rate creep identified by Autor and Duggan using actual earnings histories of disability-insured workers over the period 1979–2004. The research finds that disability replacement rates are rising for many insured workers, although the effect may be somewhat smaller than that suggested by Autor and Duggan.

Efforts Since 2000 to Simplify the SSI Program: Legislative and Regulatory Changes

Supplemental Security Income SSI is a federally administered, means-tested program that provides monthly payments to blind, disabled, or aged persons. This policy brief summarizes efforts since 2000 to simplify the SSI program through policy changes affecting the reporting of income and resources. The Social Security Protection Act (SSPA) of 2004 has provisions that simplify the treatment of infrequent and irregular income, interest and dividend income, income earned by a student, one-time income in an initial month of eligibility, military pay, and exclusion of certain income from countable resources. Final regulations published in 2005 contain simplifications in the definition of income to exclude clothing, household goods and personal effects, and automobiles from countable resources. This brief explains those changes and describes other options that have been considered.

Egyptian Social Security Law

The Elderly Aid The Elderly: The Senior Friends Program

Elderly Poverty and Supplemental Security Income

Provided here are the absolute and relative poverty status of 2002 elderly Supplemental Security Income (SSI) recipients. Official poverty estimates are generated from the Current Population Survey's Annual Social and Economic Supplement (CPS/ASEC). The poverty study presented here differs from previous studies in that it is based on CPS/ASEC income and weight records conditionally adjusted by matching Social Security administrative data. This effort improves the coverage of SSI receipt and the accuracy of SSI estimates. The adjusted CPS/administrative matched data reveal lower 2002 poverty rates among elderly persons (with and without SSI payments) than those generated from the unadjusted CPS/ASEC data.

Elderly Poverty and Supplemental Security Income, 2002–2005

This article is an extension of work reported in an earlier article entitled, "Elderly Poverty and Supplemental Security Income" (Social Security Bulletin 69(1): 45–73). Like the original work, the present study looks at the consequences of obtaining estimates of the prevalence of poverty among persons aged 65 or older by using administrative data to adjust incomes reported in the Current Population Survey. The original article looked at incomes in 2002; the present one covers measures of absolute and relative poverty status of the elderly during the 2003–2005 period. Again, we find that inclusion of administrative data presents challenges, but under the methodology we adopt, such adjustments lower estimated official poverty overall and increase estimated poverty rates for elderly SSI recipients by correcting for the misreporting of SSI, OASDI, and earnings receipt by CPS respondents.

Elective Coverage Under Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance

Eligibility for the Medicare Buy-in Programs, Based on a Survey of Income and Program Participation Simulation

Fewer people appear eligible for Medicare buy-in programs than most earlier research indicated, implying that participation rates may be higher than previously believed. The authors estimate a 63 percent rate of participation among those eligible for the combined Qualified Medicare Beneficiary and Specified Low-Income Medicare Beneficiary programs in 1999. The estimates are based on Survey of Income and Program Participation data matched to the Social Security Administration's administrative records. The matched data provide information of better quality than the data used in previous studies.

Eliminating the Medicare Waiting Period for Social Security Disabled-Worker Beneficiaries

Emergency Unemployment Compensation Act of 1971

An Empirical Study of the Effects of Social Security Reforms on Benefit Claiming Behavior and Receipt Using Public-Use Administrative Microdata

In the past few years, the Social Security Old-Age and Survivors Insurance benefit system in the United States has undergone some of the most significant changes since its inception. Using the public-use microdata extract from the Master Beneficiary Record, we are able to uncover a number of interesting trends in benefit claiming behavior and level of benefit receipt, which can help us understand how the changes in the system are shaping the retirement benefit claiming behavior of older Americans.

Employee-Benefit Plan Adjustments to Health Insurance for the Aged

Employee-Benefit Plans in 1966

Employee-Benefit Plans in 1968

Employee-Benefit Plans, 1950–67

Employee-Benefit Plans, 1954–58

Employee-Benefit Plans, 1954–60

Employee-Benefit Plans, 1954–62

Employee-Benefit Plans, 1971

Employee-Benefit Plans, 1972

Employee-Benefit Plans, 1973

Employee-Benefit Plans, 1975

Employee-Benefit Plans: Developments 1954–63

Employees and Their Wages Under Old-Age and Survivors Insurance, 1937-39

Employer Identification Numbers Assigned, 1937–50

Employers, Workers, and Earnings Under OASDI

Employers, Workers, and Earnings Under OASDI

Employers, Workers, and Earnings Under OASDI

Employers, Workers, and Earnings Under OASDI

Employers, Workers, and Wages Under OASI

Employers, Workers, and Wages Under OASI

Employers, Workers, and Wages Under OASI

Employers, Workers, and Wages Under OASI, April–June 1953

Employers, Workers, and Wages Under OASI, April–September 1954

Employers, Workers, and Wages Under OASI, January–March 1954

Employers, Workers, and Wages, April–June 1949

Employers, Workers, and Wages, April–June 1950

Employers, Workers, and Wages, First Quarter 1952

Employers, Workers, and Wages, First Quarter, 1949

Employers, Workers, and Wages, First Quarter, 1950

Employers, Workers, and Wages, First Quarter, 1951

Employers, Workers, and Wages, Fourth Quarter 1949

Employers, Workers, and Wages, Fourth Quarter 1951

Employers, Workers, and Wages, July–September 1950

Employers, Workers, and Wages, October 1952–March 1953

Employers, Workers, and Wages, October–December 1950

Employers, Workers, and Wages, Second Quarter, 1951

Employers, Workers, and Wages, Second Quarter, 1952

Employers, Workers, and Wages, Third Quarter 1951

Employers, Workers, and Wages, Third Quarter, 1948

Employers, Workers, and Wages, Third Quarter, 1952

The Employment Act of 1946

Employment among Social Security Disability Program Beneficiaries, 1996–2007

Using linked administrative data from program and earnings records, we summarize the 2007 employment rates of working-age (18–64) Social Security disability program beneficiaries at the national and state levels, as well as changes in employment since 1996. Substantial variation exists within the population. Disability Insurance beneficiaries and those younger than age 40 were much more likely to work relative to other Social Security beneficiaries. There are also strong regional differences in the employment rates among disability beneficiaries of working age, and these differences are persistent over time.

Employment and Earnings as Tests of Eligibility for Unemployment Benefits in South Carolina

Employment and Earnings Under Old-Age and Survivors Insurance During the First Year of the War

Employment and Supplemental Security Income

Employment and Wages of Workers Covered by State Unemployment Compensation Laws, 1939

Employment and Wages of Workers Covered by State Unemployment Compensation Laws, 1940

Employment and Wages Under Old-Age and Survivors Insurance, 1940

Employment and Work Adjustments of the Disabled: 1972 Survey of Disabled and Nondisabled Adults

Employment Characteristics of Interstate Workers in Covered Employment in 1938

Employment Covered by Social Insurance

Employment Covered by Social Insurance

Employment Covered by Social Insurance

Employment Covered by Social Insurance

Employment Covered Under the Social Security Program, 1935–84

Employment Covered Under the Social Security Program, 1985

Employment of Individuals in the Social Security Disability Programs

This article introduces and highlights the key findings of the other articles presented in this special issue, which focuses on the employment of beneficiaries in the Social Security Disability Insurance and Supplemental Security Income programs.

Employment of Older Workers and Size of Employing Units

Employment of Retired-Worker Women

Employment of Women in War Production

The Employment Opportunities for Disabled Americans Act: Legislative History and Summary of Provisions

Employment Problems of Older Workers

Employment Security Amendments of 1970

Employment Security and the Future

Employment Security in Great Britain During the First 14 Months of the War

The Employment Security Program in a Changing Economic Situation

Employment, Workers, and Wages Under OASDI

Enrollment in the Health Insurance Program for the Aged

Equality of Rights to Social Security

The Erosion of Retiree Health Benefits and Retirement Behavior: Implications for the Disability Insurance Program

The number of companies offering health benefits to early retirees is declining, although reductions in the percentage of early retirees covered by health insurance have been only slight to date. In general, workers who will be covered by health insurance are more likely than other workers to retire before the age of 65, when they become eligible for Medicare. What effect that will have on claims under the Disability Insurance program is not yet clear.

Estimated Employment and Wages of Workers Covered by State Unemployment Compensation Laws, 1940

Estimated Expenditures for Medical Care of Aged Persons, 1961

Estimated Prevalence of Blindness in the United States, July 1952

Estimated Prevalence of Long-Term Disability, 1954

Estimated Retirement Benefits in the Social Security Statement

Estimates of Aged Population, by State, 1940–48

Estimates of Unreported Asset Income in the Survey of Consumer Finances and the Relative Importance of Social Security Benefits to the Elderly

Through the 1990s and the early 2000s, the Income of the Population 55 or Older has reported a decline in the proportion of the elderly receiving asset income and the corresponding rise in the proportion receiving all of their income from Social Security. This analysis uses the Survey of Consumer Finances from 1992 to 2001 to examine financial asset holdings of the elderly and to determine if those who do not report asset income in fact might hold assets that are likely to generate income. Imputing asset income from likely income-producing holdings, the article examines the impact of probable missing asset income information upon measures of elderly income.

Estimating Distributions of Workers and Taxable Wages Under OASDHI

Estimating the First Instance of Substantive-Covered Earnings in the Labor Market

Estimation of Disability Status as a Single Latent Variable in a Model with Multiple Indicators and Multiple Causes

In this paper, we are concerned with the underlying structure of self-definitions of disability. Our purpose is to identify the contribution of exertional and nonexertional impairment and the contributions of such nonmedical factors as age, sex, and education to the individuals' assessment of their own situations. On a statistical level, we seek to accomplish a substantial reduction of a large number of data items into a form that can be used conveniently in subsequent behavioral analyses.

European Attitudes Toward Retirement

The European Experience in Social Health Insurance

European Multilateral Social Security Treaties

Evaluating the Initial Impact of Eliminating the Retirement Earnings Test

How did workers aged 65–69 respond to the removal of the retirement earnings test in 2000? Using Social Security administrative data matched with data from the Survey of Income and Program Participation, the author finds that the higher earners in this group increased their earnings, while the lower earners did not. The author reports an acceleration of benefit applications by workers aged 65–69 but no clear evidence of increased employment in this age group.

Evaluating Vocational Rehabilitation Programs for the Disabled: National Long-Term Followup Study

Evaluation of Disability Insurance Savings Due to Beneficiary Rehabilitation

Evidence on the Effects of Payroll Tax Changes on Wage Growth and Price Inflation: A Review and Reconciliation

The Social Security payroll tax rate is scheduled to increase by almost 1 percent for both employees and employers between now and 1990. One of the major elements of the recently adopted Social Security package was an acceleration of the timing of this increase. A number of economists have recommended that as an anti-inflationary policy scheduled increases be avoided or even that the current rates be rolled back.

The Evolution of Japanese Employer-Sponsored Retirement Plans

This article examines the development of Japanese voluntary employer-sponsored retirement plans with an emphasis on recent trends. Before 2001, companies in Japan offered retirement benefits as lump-sum severance payments and/or benefits from one of two types of defined benefit (DB) pension plans. One DB plan type was based on an earlier occupational pension model used in the United States. The other DB plan type allowed companies to opt out of the earnings-related portion of social security. Landmark laws passed in 2001 introduced a new generation of occupational retirement plans to employers and employees, creating three new DB plan designs and two new defined contribution types of plans. Since that time, the mix of employer-sponsored retirement plans offered in Japan has changed significantly, and overall employee coverage has declined. On balance, employer-sponsored retirement plans have remained largely DB in design.

The Evolution of Privacy and Disclosure Policy in the Social Security Administration

The Evolution of Social Security's Taxable Maximum

Since its inception, Social Security has featured a taxable maximum (or "tax max"). In 1937, payroll taxes applied to the first $3,000 in earnings. In 2011, payroll taxes apply to the first $106,800 in earnings. This policy brief summarizes the changes that have occurred to the tax max and to earnings patterns over this period. From 1937 to 1975, Congress increased the tax max on an ad-hoc basis. Increases were justified by the desire to improve system financing and maintain meaningful benefits for middle and higher earners. Since 1975, the tax max has generally increased at the same rate as average wages each year. Some policymakers propose increasing the tax max beyond wage-indexed levels to help restore financial balance and to reflect growing earnings inequality, as workers earning more than the tax max have experienced higher earnings growth rates than other workers in recent decades.

Examining Social Security Benefits as a Retirement Resource for Near-Retirees, by Race and Ethnicity, Nativity, and Disability Status

This article examines the distribution of Social Security benefits among recent cohorts of near-retirees, by (1) race and ethnicity, (2) nativity, and (3) disability status. Actual earnings history data help produce more accurate measures of benefits. The authors find that substantial differences in earnings levels and/or mortality levels among these subgroups interact with Social Security program provisions to produce sizable differences in values of benefit measures, such as Social Security wealth and earnings replacement rates.

An Example of the Use of Statistical Matching in the Estimation and Analysis of the Size Distribution of Income

This paper discusses the use of statistical matching in the estimation and analysis of the size distribution of family unit personal income. Statistical matching is a relatively new technique that has been used to combine, at the single observation level, data from two different samples, each of which contains some data items that are absent from the other file. In a statistical match, the information brought together from the different files ordinarily is not for the same person but for similar persons; the match is made on the basis of similar characteristics. In contrast, in an "exact" match, information for the same person from two or more files is brought together using personal identifying information.

Executive Summary from—Technical Panel on Assumptions and Methods (2003); Report to the Social Security Advisory Board

The full report is available at http://www.ssab.gov/documents/2003TechnicalPanelRept_000.pdf.

Exemption of Clergyman from Social Security Coverage

On the Existence of Pareto-Superior Reversals of Dynamically Inefficient Social Security Programs

Some proponents of the privatization of the Social Security program in the United States have suggested that, because privately available rates of return exceed the internal rate of return implicit in that program, it may be possible to find Pareto-superior privatization schemes. In a similar vein, Townley (1981) argues that, so long as the government can incur debt, a Pareto-superior scheme can always be found to convert a dynamically inefficient pay-as-you-go Social Security program to a fully funded basis. This note uses Townley's own model to demonstrate analytically that Pareto-superior schemes to reverse a dynamically inefficient pay-as-you-go social security program do not exist, either through privatization or through conversion of the program to a fully funded basis.

Expanding Access to Health Care for Social Security Disability Insurance Beneficiaries: Early Findings from the Accelerated Benefits Demonstration

The Accelerated Benefits (AB) demonstration project provides health benefits to Social Security Disability Insurance beneficiaries who have no health insurance during the 24-month period most beneficiaries are required to wait before Medicare benefits begin. This article describes the project and presents baseline survey results on health insurance coverage among newly entitled beneficiaries and the characteristics of those without coverage. A 6-month follow-up survey provides information on the effects of the AB health benefits package on health care utilization and on reducing unmet medical needs. The article also reports the costs of providing the health benefits package during the 24-month Medicare waiting period.

Expansion of Canada's Medicare

Expenditure Patterns of Welfare, Aged, and Disabled Households

Expenditures for Assistance Payments from State-Local Funds, 1954–55

Expenditures for Assistance Payments from State-Local Funds, 1955–56

Expenditures for Assistance Payments from State-Local Funds, 1956–57

Expenditures for Assistance Payments from State-Local Funds, 1957–58

Expenditures for Assistance Payments from State-Local Funds, 1958–59

Expenditures for Assistance Payments from State-Local Funds, 1959–60

Expenditures for Assistance Payments from State-Local Funds, 1960–61

Expenditures for Civilian Social Security and Related Public Programs

Expenditures for Hospital Care and Physicians' Services: Factors Affecting Annual Changes

Expenditures for Hospital Care, 1953–55

Expenditures for Medical Services in Public Assistance, 1946

Expenditures of the Aged

This article includes a short overview of existing research and reprints some of the charts available in the Expenditures of the Aged Chartbook. The goal of the chartbook is to improve the availability of statistics on expenditures of the aged. Data are based on the 2002 Consumer Expenditure Survey Public-Use File. Measures of standards of living, such as expenditures, help inform policymakers and researchers who are concerned about the adequacy of economic resources of the aged.

Experience in Appeals Under Old-Age and Survivors Insurance

Experience of Federal Annuitants Under OASDHI: Age and Sex

Experience Rating in Indiana, 1940

Experience Rating in Wisconsin, 1940

Experience Rating Under State Unemployment Insurance Laws During 1948

Experience Rating: Operations in 1945 and Future Trends

Experience Under Financial Interchange, OASDI and Railroad Retirement System

Experience-Rating Operations in 1941

Experience-Rating Operations in 1941 A Preliminary Survey

Experience-Rating Operations in 1942

Experience-Rating Operations in 1943

Experience-Rating Operations in 1944

Experience-Rating Operations in 1946

Experience-Rating Operations in 1947 and War-Risk Contributions in 1946

Experience-Rating Operations in Wisconsin, 1942

Exploring the Use of the Public's Views to Set Income Poverty Thresholds and Adjust Them Over Time

Extending the Social Security Program

Extension of Emergency Unemployment Compensation Act

Extension of Old-Age and Survivors Insurance: A Summary of the Consultants' Report

Extension of Social Security Coverage in Chile

Extension of the Scope of National Assistance Programs in Great Britain

Extension of Workmen's Accident Insurance in Japan

Extent of Total Disability in the United States

Facing Forward to Peace: Recommendations of the Social Security Board in Its Tenth Annual Report

Fact Finding in the Field Office

Fact-Finding for the White House Conference on Children and Youth

Factors Affecting the Work Efforts of Disabled-Worker Beneficiaries

Congress is currently placing considerable emphasis on returning disabled-worker beneficiaries to work. However, going back to work is only the first step in the complex process of program termination due to work and trust fund savings. Not only must the beneficiary get a job, but also the work effort must be sustained at what is considered a substantial gainful activity (SGA) level by the disability program (so that an SGA termination will result) and a reasonable living condition must be achieved by the beneficiary(so that the person is motivated to continue working and lose benefits). This articles focuses on those factors that affect the ability of the beneficiary to sustain such a work effort. Combined with previous findings about returning to work, we begin to see the overall effect of the factors on work efforts.

Beneficiaries who have physical therapy rehabilitation have a higher tendency to start working and a lower tendency to stop. Those with vocational training or general education have a higher tendency to start working, but these factors do not help to sustain the effort. Beneficiaries who were helped with job placement have a higher tendency to start work, but they also have a higher tendency to stop. If beneficiaries knew about the trial-work period, but not about either the extended period of eligibility or Medicare continuation, then they had a higher tendency to start work and a higher tendency to stop. However, if they knew about all three work-incentive provisions, then the tendency to work was not affected.

Factors Associated With School Dropouts and Juvenile Delinquency Among Lower-Class Children

Factors Influencing Trends in Employment of the Aged

Facts About Families

Family Benefits

Family Benefits in Current-Payment Status, December 31, 1952

Family Benefits in Current-Payment Status, December 31, 1953

Family Benefits in Current-Payment Status, June 30, 1949

Family Benefits in Current-Payment Status, June 30, 1951

Family Benefits in Current-Payment Status, June 30, 1953

Family Benefits in Current-Payment Status, June 30, 1955

Family Benefits in Current-Payment Status, June 30, 1956

Family Benefits in Current-Payment Status, June 30, 1959

Family Benefits in Current-Payment Status, June 30, 1960

Family Benefits in Current-Payment Status, June 30, 1961

Family Benefits in Current-Payment Status, June 30, 1962

Family Benefits in Current-Payment Status, June 30, 1963

Family Benefits Under Old-Age and Survivors Insurance, 1949

Family Budgets and Fee Schedules of Voluntary Agencies

Family Composition of Workers Represented in Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Claims

The Family Cycle and Income Development

Family Income, Age, and Size of Unit: Selected International Comparisons

This exploratory paper examines the role of age in the distribution of family income in several countries. Unlike most papers that compare the distribution of income across countries, the primary concern in this paper is not with comparisons of the overall degree of inequality. Instead we are more interested in two aspects of the cross-section relationship between age and income. First, we are interested in the relative economic well-being of income recipient units in different age (of head) groups in several developed countries. In the U.S. in recent years, in connection with modifications to the social security system, there has been considerable discussion of the "fair" level of income of the aged population. That discussion has led us to a particular interest in the relative economic well-being of the aged population in other developed countries. Where the data allow, the aged (age 65 and over) group is split into 65–69 and 70 and over age groups as at least partial recognition that economic well-being can differ markedly among subgroups of the aged population. (Other important characteristics such as labor force participation, sex, and the receipt of government retirement income could not be examined.) This paper attempts an initial look at the very complex subject of the relative economic well-being of different age groups in several countries.

The Family Labor Supply Response to Disabling Conditions

The role of time as an input into the utility maximization process has long been recognized in the labor/leisure decision. Expanded research has dealt with this input in a family context. Assuming a joint utility maximization model, the resulting labor supply functions can be determined for both spouses.

The model presented here is an extension of previous models by its incorporation of the effects of disabling conditions of the husband on the labor supply decisions of both spouses.

Because hours worked takes on a lower limit of zero, the standard simultaneous equation techniques would yield estimates lacking the ideal properties. Instead, the model is estimated using a simplification of a simultaneous TOBIT technique, which yields consistent estimates.

Family Relationships and Old-Age and Survivors Insurance

Family Resources To Meet Costs of a Worker's Last Illness and Death

Family Security and National Defense

Family Social Security Taxes Compared with Federal Income Taxes, 1979

Family Structure in the Preretirement Years

Family Unit Incomes of the Elderly and Children, 1994

The economic status of the elderly and the economic status of children are analyzed using a comprehensive definition of income that takes selected types of noncash income and taxes into account. Estimates are presented for detailed age groups over the entire age range and for socioeconomic classifications within the elderly subgroup and within the subgroup of children. The paper finds that children and the elderly are less well off than the middle age groups. This result is obtained using median incomes and the percentage of the group that has low income, as defined here. When results obtained with the measures presented in this paper are compared with results obtained with more commonly used measures, there are important differences for both the elderly and for children. For both groups, the composition of the low-income population differs in important ways from the composition of the official poverty population.

Farm Labor Market Conditions, January to October 15, 1941

Farmers and Farm Laborers in Employment Covered by Old-Age and Survivors Insurance

Farmers and Social Security

Farmers' Pensions and the Polish Economic Crisis

Fast Facts and Figures about Social Security

Fast Facts and Figures about Social Security

"Fast-Track" Strategies in Long-Term Public Disability Programs Around the World

This article examines fast-track procedures in long-term public disability programs in the United States and several other countries. Such procedures share a common goal of accelerating applicants—generally for those with severe disabilities, blindness, or facing terminal illness—through the disability determination process.

Federal Civil Defense Act of 1950: Summary and Legislative History

Federal Civil Service Adult Survivor Annuitants and Social Security, December 1975

Federal Civil Service and Military Retirement Programs Legislation, 94th Congress

Federal Civil-Service Annuitants and Social Security

Federal Civil-Service Annuitants and Social Security, December 1975

Federal Coal Mine Health and Safety Act of 1969

Federal Contributory Retirement Systems Other Than Civil Service

Federal Credit Union Loans, 1948

The Federal Credit Union System: A Legislative History

Federal Credit Unions

Federal Credit Unions, 1950

Federal Credit Unions, 1951

Federal Credit Unions: Origin and Development

Federal Credit Unions: Thirty Years of Service

Federal Credit Unions: Twenty-Five Years of Self-Help Security

Federal Employees Group Life Insurance Act Amendments

Federal Employees' Retirement System Act of 1986

Federal Grants to Individuals and Institutions

Federal Grants to State and Local Governments, 1948–49

Federal Grants to State and Local Governments, 1949–50

Federal Grants to State and Local Governments, 1950–51

Federal Grants to State and Local Governments, 1951–52

Federal Grants to State and Local Governments, 1952–53

Federal Grants to State and Local Governments, 1953–54

Federal Grants to State and Local Governments, 1954–55

Federal Grants to State and Local Governments, 1955–56

Federal Grants to State and Local Governments, 1956–57

Federal Grants to State and Local Governments, 1957–58

Federal Grants to State and Local Governments, 1958–59

Federal Grants to State and Local Governments, 1959–60

Federal Grants To State And Local Governments, 1965–66

Federal Grants to State and Local Governments, 1966–67

Federal Grants to State and Local Governments, 1967–68

Federal Grants to State and Local Governments, 1968–69

Federal Grants to State and Local Governments, 1969–70

Federal Grants to State and Local Governments, 1970–71

Federal Grants to State and Local Governments, 1971–72

Federal Grants to State and Local Governments, Fiscal Year 1973

Federal Grants to State and Local Governments, Fiscal Year 1974

Federal Grants to State and Local Governments, Fiscal Year 1975: A Quarter-Century Review

Federal Grants to State and Local Governments, Fiscal Year 1976 and Transition Quarter

Federal Grants to States, 1947–48

Federal Grants, 1961–62

Federal Grants, 1962–63

Federal Grants, 1963–64

Federal Grants, 1964–65

Federal Grants-in-Aid: A Bulwark of State Governments

Federal Income Taxes, Social Security Taxes, and the U.S. Distribution of Income, 1972

This paper reports on estimates of federal income tax and Social Security tax liabilities of family units in 1972 and summarizes the methods used to make the estimates. Distributions of income both before and after subtracting those liabilities are shown. Several microdata files were combined using both "exact" and "statistical" matching of individual observations in the process of making these estimates.

Federal Participation in Vendor Payments for Medical Care

Federal Responsibility for Payment of State Unemployment Insurance Administrative Expenses

Federal Social Security and Related Legislation, 1953

Federal Unemployment Insurance Legislation, 1954

The Federal-State Conference on Aging

Female Social Security Beneficiaries Aged 62 or Older, 1960–82

Fifteenth Trustees Report on OASI Trust Fund

Fifty Years of Credit Union Operations

Fifty Years of Operations in the Social Security Administration

Fifty Years of Service to Children and Their Families

Fifty Years of Social Security

Filial Responsibility and the Aging, or Beyond Pluck and Luck

The Final Participation of the Federal Government in State Welfare Programs

Financial Aspects of Medical Care Insurance

Financial Interchange Between Railroad Retirement Program and OASI

The Financial Outlook for the Social Security Disability Insurance Program

Social Security's Office of the Chief Actuary provides an overview on the current and projected financial condition of the Disability Insurance program.

Financial Policy in Old-Age and Survivors Insurance, 1935–50

Financial Position of Hospitals in the Early Medicare Period

The Financial Position of Private Community Hospitals, 1961–71

Financial Status of Social Security Program After the Social Security Amendments of 1977

Financial Status of the Social Security Program

Financing Basis of Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance and Health Insurance Under the 1967 Amendments

Financing of Disability Beneficiary Rehabilitation

Financing Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance: Report of the Advisory Council of Social Security Financing

Financing Public Child Welfare Services

Financing Public Welfare Programs

Financing Social Security 1939-1949: A Reexamination of the Financing Policies of this Period

Presented is an examination of the financing history of the U.S. Social Security system from the passage of the original law in 1935 up through the enactment of the 1950 Amendments to the Social Security Act. In particular, it focuses on the 1939 Social Security Amendments and the subsequent tax rate freezes enacted between 1939 and 1949. It examines the origins of these taxing policies and assesses the impact of the rate freezes on the long-range actuarial balance of the Social Security program during this period.

The First Decade in Social Security

First Findings of the 1972 Survey of the Disabled: General Characteristics

The First Inter-American Conference on Social Security

First Session of UN's Permanent Social Commission

The First Two Years of Social Insurance in Mexico

First Year Impact of SSI on Economic Status of 1973 Adult Assistance Populations

First Year Impact of SSI on Economic Status of 1973 Adult Assistance Populations

First Year of Sickness Insurance for Railroad Workers

Five Years of Disability Insurance Benefits: A Progress Report

Five Years of Medicare—A Statistical Review

Flexible Retirement Feature of German Pension Reform

Flexible Retirement Features Abroad

Follow-up of Former Drug Addict and Alcoholic Beneficiaries

The Food Stamp Program and Supplemental Security Income

The Food Stamp Program (FSP) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) are important parts of national public assistance policy, and there is considerable overlap in the populations that the programs serve. This article investigates FSP participation by households that include SSI recipients and assesses the importance of various provisions of the Food Stamp Program that favor SSI recipients.

Foreign Experience in Social Insurance Contributions for Agricultural and Domestic Workers

Foreign Health Programs: Changes in Population Covered

Foreign Provisions for the Dependents of Mobilized Men

Foreign Social Security Programs in 1958

Foreign Weighted Benefit Formulas

Foreign-Born Workers Awarded Retirement and Disability Benefits, 1978

Forfeiture of Civil-Service Retirement Benefits

Forging Linkages: Modifying Disability Benefit Programs to Encourage Employment

Former Welfare Families Independence and Recurring Dependency

Formulas for Variable Federal Grants-in-Aid

Forty-Fifth Anniversary of Social Security

The Fraction of Disability Caused at Work

Disability has high societal and personal costs. Various disparate federal and state programs attempt to address the economic and social needs of people with disabilities. Presumably workplace injuries and accidents are an important source of disability. Yet separate public policies and research literatures have evolved for these two social problems—disability and workplace injuries—despite their relatedness. This article seeks to document the overlap between these two phenomena in estimating the proportion of the disabled population whose disability was caused by workplace injury, accident, or illness using the Health and Retirement Study of 1992. The results point toward the need for initiatives to reduce disability that focus on work-related causes, which are a common pathway to disability, and that may result in substantial savings in federal programs.

France Gradually Lowers Retirement Age

From 1938 to 1988

Funding Under Private Pension Plans

Further Social Security Amendments in France

Future Citizens All: A Report on Aid to Dependent Children

The Future Financial Status of the Social Security Program

This article describes four concepts—solvency, sustainability, shortfalls, and solutions—as they apply to the financial status of the Social Security program as well as how Social Security financing fits in the general federal budget. The little-understood basis for future projected shortfalls is explained and detailed in relation to the possible solutions.

The Future of Medicine in Great Britain: A Review fo the Medical Planning Research Report

The Future of Social Security

The G.I. Bill of Rights: An Analysis of the Servicemen's Readjustment Act of 1944

Gainfully Employed Women in Chicago

The Galveston Plan and Social Security: A Comparative Analysis of Two Systems

This report presents a comparison of benefits under the Galveston Plan versus Social Security, based on different earner and family scenarios. These scenarios include single and married workers at the low, middle, high, and very high earnings levels.

General Characteristics of the Disabled Population

A General Model of Labor-Market Behavior of Older Persons

General Revenue Sharing Program: A Closer Look

Geographic Labor Mobility in the United States: Recent Findings

Geographic Patterns of Disability in the United States

German Provisions for Deferred Retirement

Gifts to the Trust Funds

Goldfarb and Mathews: Legal Challenges to the Dependency Test for Spouse's Benefits

Greater Equity in Public Assistance Financing

Group Annuities Supplementing Retirement Benefits Under Old-Age and Survivors Insurance

Group Health Insurance Coverage of Full-Time Employees, 1972

Group Life Insurance for Federal Employees

Group-Practice Prepayment Plans: 1954 Survey

Growth in Employee-Benefit Plans

Growth in Employee-Benefit Plans, 1950–65

Growth in Employee-Benefit Plans, 1954–57

The Growth in Protection Against Income Loss from Short-Term Sickness: 1948–54

The Growth in Protection Against Income Loss From Short-Term Sickness: 1948–55

Growth in Protection Against Income Loss From Short-Term Sickness: 1948–56

The Growth in Social Security Benefits Among the Retirement-Age Population from Increases in the Cap on Covered Earnings

This article investigates how raising the maximum level of earnings subject to the Social Security payroll tax leads to the "leakage" of portions of the additional revenue into higher benefit payments. Using data from the Health and Retirement Study, the authors simulate the effects of changes in maximum taxable earnings for cohorts approaching retirement age over a 24-year period. They find, roughly, that almost half of the additional tax revenue from having raised the maximum earnings subject to the payroll tax has leaked into higher benefits.

Growth of Employee-Benefit Plans, 1954–61

Growth of Pensions in Rumania

Growth of the Supplemental Security Income Program in 1974

The Growth of Voluntary Health Insurance: 1948–54

Guaranteed Children's Allowances in Belgium

Guaranteed Income for the Aged in Belgium

Guaranteed Income In Belgium

Guardianship of Children

A Guide to Social Security Money's Worth Issues

This paper discusses some of the major issues associated with the question of whether workers receive their money's worth from the Social Security program. An effort is made to keep the discussion as nontechnical as possible, with explanations provided for many of the technical terms and concepts found in the money's worth literature. Major assumptions, key analytical methods, and money's worth measures used in the literature are also discussed. Finally, the key findings of money's worth studies are summarized, with some cautions concerning the limitations and appropriate usage of money's worth analyses.

A Guide to Social Security Money's Worth Issues

This article discusses some of the major issues associated with the question of whether workers receive their money's worth from the Social Security program. An effort is made to keep the discussion as nontechnical as possible, with explanations provided for many of the technical terms and concepts found in the money's worth literature. Major assumptions, key analytical methods, and money's worth measures used in the literature are also discussed. Finally, the key findings of money's worth studies are summarized, with some cautions concerning the limitations and appropriate usage of money's worth analyses.

Have People Delayed Claiming Retirement Benefits? Responses to Changes in Social Security Rules

Using a 1 percent sample of Social Security Administration data, this article documents and analyzes responses in the entitlement age for old-age benefits following the recent changes in Social Security rules. Both rules, the removal of the retirement earnings test (RET) for persons who are at the full retirement age (FRA) through age 69 in 2000 or later and a gradual increase in the FRA for those who reach age 62 in 2000 or later, are expected to affect the age at which people claim Social Security retirement benefits (or entitlement age) and the work behavior of older Americans.

The Hazard of Mortality Among Aging Retired- and Disabled-Worker Men: A Comparative Sociodemographic and Health Status Analysis

Health Benefits for Laidoff Workers

Health Care Coverage of Survivor Families With Children: Determinants and Consequences

Health Care Expenditures in Nine Industrialized Countries, 1960–76

Health Care Expenditures: International Comparisons, 1970–80

Health in the Years Before Retirement

Health Insurance Coverage Among Recently Entitled Disability Insurance Beneficiaries: Findings From the New Beneficiary Survey

Health Insurance Coverage Complementary to Medicare

Health Insurance Coverage of the Aged and Their Hospital Utilization in 1962: Findings of the 1963 Survey of the Aged

Health Insurance for People Aged 65 and Over: First Steps in Administration

Health Insurance for the Aged: Amounts Reimbursed

Health Insurance for the Aged: Claims Reimbursed for Hospital and Medical Services

Health Insurance for the Aged: Participating Extended-Care Facilities

Health Insurance For The Aged: Participating Health Facilities, July 1968

Health Insurance for the Aged: Participating Home Health Agencies

Health Insurance for the Aged: Participating Independent Laboratories

Health Insurance for the Aged: Persons Insured, Mid-1966 to Mid-1970

Health Insurance for the Aged: The Statistical Program

Health Insurance for the Unemployed Abroad

Health Insurance Legislation in West Germany

Health Insurance Protection and Medical Care Expenditures: Findings from Three Family Surveys

Health Insurance Reform Legislation

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA), enacted on August 21, 1996 (Public Law 104-19), provides for improved access and renewability with respect to employment-related group health plans, to health insurance coverage sold in connection with group plans, and to the individual market (by amending the Public Health Service Act). The Act's provisions include improvements in portability and continuity of health insurance coverage; combating waste, fraud, and abuse in health insurance and health care delivery; promoting the use of medical savings accounts; improving access to long-term care services and insurance coverage; administrative simplification; and addressing duplication and coordination of Medicare benefits.

Health Maintenance Organization Act of 1973

Health Maintenance Organization Amendments of 1976

The Health of Very Early Retirees

A Health Service Plan for South Africa

Health Services for America's Indians

Health Status Among Low-Income Elderly Persons: Rural-Urban Differences

Health Status of New Retired-Worker Beneficiaries: Findings From the New Beneficiary Survey

Hearing and Review of Claims and Wage-Record Cases Under Old-Age and Survivors Insurance

Hearings in Public Assistance

Hearings in Public Assistance, January 1945–December 1947

Heterogeneity in Health and Mortality Risk Among Early Retiree Men

Conventional wisdom holds that the majority of early retirees are in good health and that only a minority are in poor health. This wisdom is based on examinations of levels of health among the early retiree population. In contrast, this paper looks at both the health and mortality risk of early retirees relative to the health and mortality risk of age 65 retirees. This paper finds substantial heterogeneity among early retirees in health and mortality risk related to the age at which they are entitled to Social Security benefits. Early retirees consist of a group in extremely poor health, a group with health equal to age 65 retirees, and a group with health in between. The majority of early retirees are in poorer health and have higher mortality risk than age 65 retirees, and only a minority have health and mortality risk as good as that of age 65 retirees.

Higher Education Institutions and the Social Security Act

Higher Educational Institutions and Social Security

Higher Family Allowances in France

Higher Old-Age Pensions in France

Highlights From Canadian Government Green Paper: Better Pensions for Canadians