This paper describes an analysis of career earnings patterns developed for predicting the impact of Social Security reform. We produce estimates of age-earnings profiles of American men and women born between 1931 and 1960. The estimates are obtained using lifetime earnings records maintained by...

This paper describes an analysis of career earnings patterns developed for predicting the impact of Social Security reform. We produce estimates of age-earnings profiles of American men and women born between 1931 and 1960. The estimates are obtained using lifetime earnings records maintained by...

This paper examines the trend in career earnings profiles and lifetime earnings inequality using a new data set that links micro-census information from a Census Bureau survey (the Survey of Income and Program Participation, or SIPP) with the summary earnings records (SER) maintained by the...

This paper examines the importance of annuity-like income as a share of total money income received by aged families. The analysis considers the aged (62) population as a whole as well as different parts of the aged families' income distribution during the period from the early 1980s through...

Recessions affect the timing of retirement through two channels, a weaker job market and losses in household wealth. The two phenomena have opposite effects. A weaker economy causes employers to increase permanent job separations and reduce new hires, accelerating retirements that would...

The Division of Policy Evaluation (DPE) at the Social Security Administration (SSA) is developing a model to evaluate the distributional effects of Social Security policy changes. The model is referred to as Modeling Income in the Near Term, or MINT, because the project sought to develop within...