Our project uses DYNASIM3, the Urban Institute’s dynamic microsimulation model of the U.S. population, to simulate several alternative systems of Social Security auxiliary benefits. We specifically consider earnings sharing, a system in which a husband’s and a wife’s earnings records are...

While growing fiscal pressures and increasing life expectancy have prompted calls to raise retirement ages so that lifetime benefits would be concentrated in older ages, some fear that this change - without other adjustments - might harm long-career, lower-wage workers. Tying retirement benefit...

Some Social Security reforms would provide guarantees that individuals would not receive less under a reformed system than would be provided by current law. However, the "current law" benefit formula increases benefits when wages rise. Any reform successfully adding to economic growth,...

As interest in proposals to restore Social Security solvency rises, it's timely to examine whether current policy analyses provide adequate information on important distributional questions. This project explores measures of changes in Social Security benefits' adequacy, horizontal equity, and...

Traditional analyses of retirement decisions focus on the age, from birth, of the individual making choices about how much to work, consume, and save for old age. However, remaining life expectancy is arguably a better way of examining these issues. As mortality rates decline, people at a given...

Traditional analyses of retirement decisions focus on the age, from birth, of the individual making choices about how much to work, consume, and save for old age. However, remaining life expectancy is arguably a better way of examining these issues. As mortality rates decline, people at a given...