IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/umc/wpaper/1701.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

The Effects of Differential Income Replacement and Mortality on U.S. Social Security Redistribution

Author

Listed:
  • Li Tan

    (Department of Economics at the University of Missouri)

  • Cory Koedel

    (Department of Economics and Truman School of Public Affairs, at the University of Missouri)

Abstract

We study redistribution via the United States Social Security retirement system for cohorts of men born during the second half of the 20th century. Our focus is on redistribution across race and education groups. The cohorts we study are younger than cohorts studied in previous, similar research and thus more exposed to recent increases in earnings inequality. All else equal, this should increase the degree of progressivity of Social Security redistribution due to the structure of the benefit formula. However, we find that redistribution is only modestly progressive for individuals born as late as 1980. Differential mortality rates across race and education groups are the primary explanation. While black-white mortality gaps have narrowed some in recent years, they remain large and dull progressivity. Mortality gaps by education level are also large and unlike the gaps by race, they are widening, which puts additional regressive pressure on Social Security redistribution.

Suggested Citation

  • Li Tan & Cory Koedel, 2017. "The Effects of Differential Income Replacement and Mortality on U.S. Social Security Redistribution," Working Papers 1701, Department of Economics, University of Missouri, revised Jun 2019.
    • Handle: RePEc:umc:wpaper:1701
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1jR2eeCj-EzsrVZ78hiTmrwWNea5yvmNg/view?usp=sharing
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Garrett, Daniel M, 1995. "The Effects of Differential Mortality Rates on the Progressivity of Social Security," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 33(3), pages 457-475, July.
    2. Garret Christensen & Edward Miguel, 2018. "Transparency, Reproducibility, and the Credibility of Economics Research," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 56(3), pages 920-980, September.
    3. Peter Arcidiacono & Cory Koedel, 2014. "Race and College Success: Evidence from Missouri," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 6(3), pages 20-57, July.
    4. Jonah B. Gelbach, 2016. "When Do Covariates Matter? And Which Ones, and How Much?," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 34(2), pages 509-543.
    5. Andrew G. Biggs, 2011. "Social Security: The Story of Its Past and a Vision for Its Future," Books, American Enterprise Institute, number 6033, September.
    6. Gustman, Alan L. & Steinmeier, Thomas L., 2001. "How effective is redistribution under the social security benefit formula?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(1), pages 1-28, October.
    7. Jeffrey B. Liebman, 2002. "Redistribution in the Current U.S. Social Security System," NBER Chapters, in: The Distributional Aspects of Social Security and Social Security Reform, pages 11-48, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Kashin, Konstantin & King, Gary & Soneji, Samir, 2015. "Explaining Systematic Bias and Nontransparency in U.S. Social Security Administration Forecasts," Political Analysis, Cambridge University Press, vol. 23(3), pages 336-362, July.
    9. Harriet Duleep, 1989. "Measuring socioeconomic mortality differentials over time," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 26(2), pages 345-351, May.
    10. Roger Koenker & Ivan Mizera, 2014. "Convex Optimization, Shape Constraints, Compound Decisions, and Empirical Bayes Rules," Journal of the American Statistical Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 109(506), pages 674-685, June.
    11. Dana P. Goldman & Peter R. Orszag, 2014. "The Growing Gap in Life Expectancy: Using the Future Elderly Model to Estimate Implications for Social Security and Medicare," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 104(5), pages 230-233, May.
    12. Jeffrey Brown & Jeffrey B. Liebman & Joshua Pollet, 2002. "Appendix. Estimating Life Tables That Reflect Socioeconomic Differences In Mortality," NBER Chapters, in: The Distributional Aspects of Social Security and Social Security Reform, pages 447-458, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    13. Gopi Shah Goda & John B. Shoven & Sita Nataraj Slavov, 2011. "Differential Mortality by Income and Social Security Progressivity," NBER Chapters, in: Explorations in the Economics of Aging, pages 189-204, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    14. Steven Caldwell & Melissa Favreault & Alla Gantman & Jagadeesh Gokhale & Thomas Johnson & Laurence J. Kotlikoff, 1999. "Social Security's Treatment of Postwar Americans," NBER Chapters, in: Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 13, pages 109-148, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    15. Congressional Budget Office, 2015. "CBO’s 2015 Long-Term Projections for Social Security: Additional Information," Reports 51047, Congressional Budget Office.
    16. Boll, Stephan & Raffelhuschen, Bernd & Walliser, Jan, 1994. "Social Security and Intergenerational Redistribution: A Generational Accounting Perspective," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 81(1-2), pages 79-100, October.
    17. Robert Breunig & Joseph Mercante, 2010. "The Accuracy of Predicted Wages of the Non‐Employed and Implications for Policy Simulations from Structural Labour Supply Models," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 86(272), pages 49-70, March.
    18. Coronado Julia Lynn & Fullerton Don & Glass Thomas, 2011. "The Progressivity of Social Security," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 11(1), pages 1-45, November.
    19. Alan J. Auerbach & Kerwin K. Charles & Courtney C. Coile & William Gale & Dana Goldman & Ronald Lee & Charles M. Lucas & Peter R. Orszag & Louise M. Sheiner & Bryan Tysinger & David N. Weil & Justin W, 2017. "How the Growing Gap in Life Expectancy May Affect Retirement Benefits and Reforms," The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice, Palgrave Macmillan;The Geneva Association, vol. 42(3), pages 475-499, July.
    20. Jinjing Li & Cathal O'Donoghue, 2013. "A survey of dynamic microsimulation models: uses, model structure and methodology," International Journal of Microsimulation, International Microsimulation Association, vol. 6(2), pages 3-55.
    21. Feldstein, Martin & Liebman, Jeffrey B. (ed.), 2002. "The Distributional Aspects of Social Security and Social Security Reform," National Bureau of Economic Research Books, University of Chicago Press, edition 1, number 9780226241067, September.
    22. Martin Feldstein & Jeffrey B. Liebman, 2002. "The Distributional Aspects of Social Security and Social Security Reform," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number feld02-1.
    23. Murphy, Kevin M & Welch, Finis, 1990. "Empirical Age-Earnings Profiles," Journal of Labor Economics, University of Chicago Press, vol. 8(2), pages 202-229, April.
    24. Imrohoroglu, Selahattin & Kitao, Sagiri, 2009. "Labor supply elasticity and social security reform," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 93(7-8), pages 867-878, August.
    25. John Bound & Michael F. Lovenheim & Sarah Turner, 2010. "Why Have College Completion Rates Declined? An Analysis of Changing Student Preparation and Collegiate Resources," American Economic Journal: Applied Economics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(3), pages 129-157, July.
    26. Jiaying Gu & Roger Koenker, 2017. "Rebayes: an R package for empirical bayes mixture methods," CeMMAP working papers CWP37/17, Centre for Microdata Methods and Practice, Institute for Fiscal Studies.
    27. Jing Guo & Marilyn Moon, 2018. "Lifetime Taxpayer Contributions And Benefits Of Medicare And Social Security," Contemporary Economic Policy, Western Economic Association International, vol. 36(3), pages 483-492, July.
    28. Hyeok Jeong & Yong Kim & Iourii Manovskii, 2015. "The Price of Experience," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 105(2), pages 784-815, February.
    29. David H. Autor & Lawrence F. Katz & Melissa S. Kearney, 2008. "Trends in U.S. Wage Inequality: Revising the Revisionists," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 90(2), pages 300-323, May.
    30. Konstantin Kashin & Gary King & Samir Soneji, 2015. "Systematic Bias and Nontransparency in US Social Security Administration Forecasts," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 29(2), pages 239-258, Spring.
    31. Congressional Budget Office, 2015. "CBO’s 2015 Long-Term Projections for Social Security: Additional Information," Reports 51047, Congressional Budget Office.
    32. James Poterba, 1999. "Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 13," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number pote99-2.
    33. Koenker, Roger & Mizera, Ivan, 2014. "Convex Optimization in R," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 60(i05).
    34. Shoven, John B. & Slavov, Sita Nataraj, 2014. "Does it pay to delay social security?," Journal of Pension Economics and Finance, Cambridge University Press, vol. 13(2), pages 121-144, April.
    35. Jiaying Gu & Roger Koenker, 2017. "Unobserved Heterogeneity in Income Dynamics: An Empirical Bayes Perspective," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(1), pages 1-16, January.
    36. Gustman, Alan L. & Steinmeier, Thomas L. & Tabatabai, Nahid, 2013. "Redistribution under the Social Security benefit formula at the individual and household levels, 1992 and 2004," Journal of Pension Economics and Finance, Cambridge University Press, vol. 12(1), pages 1-27, January.
    37. Rebecca Cassells & Ann Harding & Simon Kelly, 2006. "Problems and Prospects for Dynamic Microsimulation: A review and lessons for APPSIM," NATSEM Working Paper Series 63, University of Canberra, National Centre for Social and Economic Modelling.
    38. Alan L. Gustman & Thomas L. Steinmeier, 1999. "What People Don't Know About Their Pensions and Social Security: An Analysis Using Linked Data from the Health and Retirement Study," NBER Working Papers 7368, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    39. John Bound & Arline Geronimus & Javier Rodriguez & Timothy Waidmann, 2014. "The Implications of Differential Trends in Mortality for Social Security Policy," Working Papers wp314, University of Michigan, Michigan Retirement Research Center.
    40. Alberto Palloni & Elizabeth Arias, 2004. "Paradox lost: Explaining the hispanic adult mortality advantage," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 41(3), pages 385-415, August.
    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. Alan J. Auerbach & Kerwin K. Charles & Courtney C. Coile & William Gale & Dana Goldman & Ronald Lee & Charles M. Lucas & Peter R. Orszag & Louise M. Sheiner & Bryan Tysinger & David N. Weil & Justin W, 2017. "How the Growing Gap in Life Expectancy May Affect Retirement Benefits and Reforms," The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice, Palgrave Macmillan;The Geneva Association, vol. 42(3), pages 475-499, July.

    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. Jeffrey R. Brown & Julia Lynn Coronado & Don Fullerton, 2009. "Is Social Security Part of the Social Safety Net?," NBER Chapters, in: Tax Policy and the Economy, Volume 23, pages 37-72, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Jeffrey B. Liebman, 2002. "Redistribution in the Current U.S. Social Security System," NBER Chapters, in: The Distributional Aspects of Social Security and Social Security Reform, pages 11-48, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Tim Krieger & Christine Meemann & Stefan Traub, 2022. "Inequality, Life Expectancy, and the Intragenerational Redistribution Puzzle - Some Experimental Evidence," CESifo Working Paper Series 9677, CESifo.
    4. Coronado Julia Lynn & Fullerton Don & Glass Thomas, 2011. "The Progressivity of Social Security," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 11(1), pages 1-45, November.
    5. Eytan Sheshinski & Frank N. Caliendo, 2021. "Social Security and the increasing longevity gap," Journal of Public Economic Theory, Association for Public Economic Theory, vol. 23(1), pages 29-52, February.
    6. Guan Gong & Anthony Webb, 2008. "Mortality Heterogeneity and the Distributional Consequences of Mandatory Annuitization," Journal of Risk & Insurance, The American Risk and Insurance Association, vol. 75(4), pages 1055-1079, December.
    7. Yuh, Yoonkyung & Yang, Jaehwan, 2011. "The Valuation and Redistribution Effect of the Korea National Pension," Hitotsubashi Journal of Economics, Hitotsubashi University, vol. 52(1), pages 113-142, June.
    8. Alan L. Gustman & Thomas L. Steinmeier & Nahid Tabatabai, 2011. "The Effects of Changes in Women’s Labor Market Attachment on Redistribution Under the Social Security Benefit Formula," Working Papers wp248, University of Michigan, Michigan Retirement Research Center.
    9. Alan J. Auerbach & Kerwin K. Charles & Courtney C. Coile & William Gale & Dana Goldman & Ronald Lee & Charles M. Lucas & Peter R. Orszag & Louise M. Sheiner & Bryan Tysinger & David N. Weil & Justin W, 2017. "How the Growing Gap in Life Expectancy May Affect Retirement Benefits and Reforms," The Geneva Papers on Risk and Insurance - Issues and Practice, Palgrave Macmillan;The Geneva Association, vol. 42(3), pages 475-499, July.
    10. Edward N. Wolff, 2005. "Is the Equalizing Effect of Retirement Wealth Wearing Off?," Economics Working Paper Archive wp_420, Levy Economics Institute.
    11. Haan, Peter & Kemptner, Daniel & Lüthen, Holger, 2020. "The rising longevity gap by lifetime earnings – Distributional implications for the pension system," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 17(C).
    12. Dennis Fredriksen & Nils Martin Stølen, 2015. "Life time pension benefits relative to life time contributions," Discussion Papers 825, Statistics Norway, Research Department.
    13. Huang, Rachel J. & Tsai, Jeffrey T. & Tzeng, Larry Y., 2008. "Government-provided annuities under insolvency risk," Insurance: Mathematics and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(3), pages 377-385, December.
    14. Liqun Liu & Andrew J. Rettenmaier, 2003. "Social Security Outcomes by Racial and Education Groups," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 69(4), pages 842-864, April.
    15. Geoffrey T. Sanzenbacher & Jorge D. Ramos-Mercado, 2016. "Calculating Expected Social Security Benefits by Race, Education, and Claiming Age," Working Papers, Center for Retirement Research at Boston College wp2016-14, Center for Retirement Research.
    16. Sánchez-Romero, Miguel & Prskawetz, Alexia, 2017. "Redistributive effects of the US pension system among individuals with different life expectancy," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 10(C), pages 51-74.
    17. Martin Feldstein, 2005. "Structural Reform of Social Security," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 19(2), pages 33-55, Spring.
    18. Gustman, Alan L. & Steinmeier, Thomas L., 2001. "How effective is redistribution under the social security benefit formula?," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 82(1), pages 1-28, October.
    19. Irena Dushi & Leora Friedberg & Anthony Webb, 2021. "Is the Adjustment of Social Security Benefits Actuarially Fair, and If So, for Whom?," SCEPA working paper series. 2021-04, Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis (SCEPA), The New School.
    20. Laun, Tobias & Markussen, Simen & Vigtel, Trond Christian & Wallenius, Johanna, 2018. "Health, Longevity and Pension Reform," Working Paper Series 2018:9, Uppsala University, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Earnings forecast; Bayesian forecasting; Social Security; Social Security progressivity; Social Security projections;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • H55 - Public Economics - - National Government Expenditures and Related Policies - - - Social Security and Public Pensions
    • J18 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Demographic Economics - - - Public Policy
    • J32 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - Wages, Compensation, and Labor Costs - - - Nonwage Labor Costs and Benefits; Retirement Plans; Private Pensions

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:umc:wpaper:1701. 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: Chao Gu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/edumous.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.