IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/h/nbr/nberch/12222.html
   My bibliography  Save this book chapter

Implicit Taxes on Work from Social Security and Medicare

In: Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 25

Author

Listed:
  • Gopi Shah Goda
  • John B. Shoven
  • Sita Nataraj Slavov

Abstract

Implicit taxes are present in many government programs and can create substantial work disincentives. The implicit tax created by Social Security is the payroll tax used to fund the retirement portion of Social Security minus the present value of the incremental retirement benefits associated with the earnings. While the payroll tax is always 10.6%, the implicit tax varies over a worker's career because additional earnings translate nonlinearly into additional retirement benefits. We show that workers at the start of their careers experience lower implicit tax rates, as the increase in benefits from additional work is relatively large. However, workers who are closer to retirement earn little or no additional benefit from additional work. The main implicit tax in Medicare lies in the Medicare as Secondary Payer (MSP) policy, which requires Medicare to be a secondary payer for Medicare-eligible workers whose employers offer a health plan and have 20 or more employees. Thus, affected workers effectively forgo the Medicare benefits that they would have received if they had not been working. We investigate a combination of policies that can reduce average implicit tax rates on older workers by as much as 45%.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Gopi Shah Goda & John B. Shoven & Sita Nataraj Slavov, 2010. "Implicit Taxes on Work from Social Security and Medicare," NBER Chapters, in: Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 25, pages 69-88, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberch:12222
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/chapters/c12222.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Eric French, 2005. "The Effects of Health, Wealth, and Wages on Labour Supply and Retirement Behaviour," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 72(2), pages 395-427.
    2. John Laitner & Daniel Silverman, 2006. "Consumption, Retirement, and Social Security: Evaluating the Efficiency of Reform with a Life-Cycle Model," Working Papers wp142, University of Michigan, Michigan Retirement Research Center.
    3. Liebman, Jeffrey B. & Luttmer, Erzo F.P. & Seif, David G., 2009. "Labor supply responses to marginal Social Security benefits: Evidence from discontinuities," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(11-12), pages 1208-1223, December.
    4. Gopi Shah Goda & John B. Shoven & Sita Nataraj Slavov, 2009. "Removing the Disincentives in Social Security for Long Careers," NBER Chapters, in: Social Security Policy in a Changing Environment, pages 21-38, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Aaron S. Edlin, 1993. "Is College Financial Aid Equitable and Efficient?," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 7(2), pages 143-158, Spring.
    6. Dickert, Stacy & Houser, Scott & Scholz, John Karl, 1994. "Taxes and the Poor: A Microsimulation Study of Implicit and Explicit Taxes," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 47(3), pages 621-638, September.
    7. Nada Eissa & Hilary W. Hoynes, 2006. "Behavioral Responses to Taxes: Lessons from the EITC and Labor Supply," NBER Chapters, in: Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 20, pages 73-110, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Cushing, Matthew J., 2005. "Net Marginal Social Security Tax Rates Over the Life Cycle," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 58(2), pages 227-245, June.
    9. Dick, Andrew W. & Edlin, Aaron S., 1997. "The implicit taxes from college financial aid," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 65(3), pages 295-322, September.
    10. Gopi Shah Goda & John Shoven & Sita Slavov, "undated". "A Tax On Work For The Elderly: Medicare As A Secondary Payer," Discussion Papers 08-60, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
    11. David M. Cutler & Jonathan Gruber, 1996. "Does Public Insurance Crowd out Private Insurance?," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 111(2), pages 391-430.
    12. Moffitt, Robert A., 2002. "Welfare programs and labor supply," Handbook of Public Economics, in: A. J. Auerbach & M. Feldstein (ed.), Handbook of Public Economics, edition 1, volume 4, chapter 34, pages 2393-2430, Elsevier.
    13. Gruber, Jonathan & Simon, Kosali, 2008. "Crowd-out 10 years later: Have recent public insurance expansions crowded out private health insurance?," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 201-217, March.
    14. Jonathan Gruber & Kosali Simon, 2007. "Crowd-Out Ten Years Later: Have Recent Public Insurance Expansions Crowded Out Private Health Insurance?," NBER Working Papers 12858, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Butrica, Barbara A. & Johnson, Richard W. & Smith, Karen E. & Steuerle, C. Eugene, 2006. "The Implicit Tax on Work at Older Ages," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 59(2), pages 211-234, June.
    16. Feldstein, Martin, 1995. "College Scholarship Rules and Private Saving," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(3), pages 552-566, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Yuanyuan Deng & Hugo Benítez-Silva, 2021. "An Empirical Model of Medicare Costs: The Role of Health Insurance, Employment, and Delays in Medicare Enrollment," Econometrics, MDPI, vol. 9(2), pages 1-32, June.
    2. John Sabelhaus & Alice Henriques Volz, 2020. "Social Security Wealth, Inequality, and Life-Cycle Saving," NBER Chapters, in: Measuring Distribution and Mobility of Income and Wealth, pages 249-285, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. John Sabelhaus & Alice Henriques Volz, 2020. "Social Security Wealth, Inequality, and Lifecycle Saving," NBER Working Papers 27110, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Bishnu, Monisankar & Guo, Nick L. & Kumru, Cagri S., 2019. "Social security with differential mortality," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    5. Gustafsson, Johan, 2021. "Public Pension Reform and the Equity-Efficiency Trade-off," Umeå Economic Studies 992, Umeå University, Department of Economics.
    6. John Sabelhaus & Alice Henriques Volz, 2020. "Social Security Wealth, Inequality, and Life-cycle Saving: An Update," Working Papers wp416, University of Michigan, Michigan Retirement Research Center.
    7. Monisankar Bishnu & Nick L. Guo & Cagri S Kumru, 2017. "Social Security: Progressive Benefits but Regressive Outcome?," ANU Working Papers in Economics and Econometrics 2017-656, Australian National University, College of Business and Economics, School of Economics.
    8. John B. Shoven & Sita Nataraj Slavov, 2012. "The Decision to Delay Social Security Benefits: Theory and Evidence," NBER Working Papers 17866, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gopi Shah Goda & John Shoven & Sita Slavov, "undated". "A Tax On Work For The Elderly: Medicare As A Secondary Payer," Discussion Papers 08-60, Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research.
    2. Kane, Thomas J., 1997. "Beyond Tax Relief: Long-Term Challenges in Financing Higher Education," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association, vol. 50(2), pages 335-49, June.
    3. Louis Kaplow, 2007. "Optimal income transfers," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 14(3), pages 295-325, June.
    4. Gross, Tal & Notowidigdo, Matthew J., 2011. "Health insurance and the consumer bankruptcy decision: Evidence from expansions of Medicaid," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 95(7-8), pages 767-778, August.
    5. Goda, Gopi Shah & Shoven, John B. & Slavov, Sita Nataraj, 2019. "Work incentives in the Social Security Disability benefit formula," Journal of Pension Economics and Finance, Cambridge University Press, vol. 18(2), pages 165-189, April.
    6. Long, Mark, 2004. "The impact of asset-tested college financial aid on household savings," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 88(1-2), pages 63-88, January.
    7. Kane, Thomas J., 1997. "Beyond Tax Relief: Long-Term Challenges in Financing Higher Education," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 50(2), pages 335-349, June.
    8. Kane, Thomas J., 1998. "Savings Incentives for Higher Education," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association;National Tax Journal, vol. 51(3), pages 609-620, September.
    9. Phillip B. Levine & Diane Schanzenbach, 2009. "The Impact of Children's Public Health Insurance Expansions on Educational Outcomes," NBER Chapters, in: Frontiers in Health Policy Research, volume 12, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Kane, Thomas J., 1998. "Savings Incentives for Higher Education," National Tax Journal, National Tax Association, vol. 51(n. 3), pages 609-20, September.
    11. Liebman, Jeffrey B. & Luttmer, Erzo F.P. & Seif, David G., 2009. "Labor supply responses to marginal Social Security benefits: Evidence from discontinuities," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(11-12), pages 1208-1223, December.
    12. Tansel Yilmazer, 2008. "Saving for Children’s College Education: An Empirical Analysis of the Trade-off Between the Quality and Quantity of Children," Journal of Family and Economic Issues, Springer, vol. 29(2), pages 307-324, June.
    13. Kristy Fan & Tyler J. Fisher & Andrew A. Samwick, 2021. "The Insurance Value of Financial Aid," NBER Working Papers 28669, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Phillip B. Levine & Robin McKnight & Samantha Heep, 2009. "Public Policy, Health Insurance and the Transition to Adulthood," NBER Working Papers 15114, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Souleles, Nicholas S., 2000. "College tuition and household savings and consumption," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 77(2), pages 185-207, August.
    16. Braga, Breno & Malkova, Olga, 2020. "Hope for the Family: The Effects of College Costs on Maternal Labor Supply," IZA Discussion Papers 12958, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    17. Thomas DeLeire & Leonard Lopoo & Kosali Simon, 2011. "Medicaid Expansions and Fertility in the United States," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 48(2), pages 725-747, May.
    18. von Hinke Kessler Scholder, Stephanie, 2013. "School meal crowd out in the 1980s," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 32(3), pages 538-545.
    19. Eric French & John Jones, 2012. "Public pensions and labor supply over the life cycle," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 19(2), pages 268-287, April.
    20. Caroline M. Hoxby, 1998. "Tax Incentives for Higher Education," NBER Chapters, in: Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 12, pages 49-82, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nbr:nberch:12222. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.