Modernizing social security: an overview
- Collection:
- Health Policy and Services Research
- Series Title(s):
- Issue in brief (Center for Retirement Research)
- Author(s):
- Munnell, Alicia H., author Eschtruth, Andrew D., author
- Contributor(s):
- Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, issuing body.
- Publication:
- Chestnut Hill, MA : Center for Retirement Research at Boston College, May 2018
- Language(s):
- English
- Format:
- Text
- Subject(s):
- Social Security -- economics Social Security -- organization & administration Caregivers -- economics Income Widowhood -- economics Humans United States
- Genre(s):
- Technical Report
- Abstract:
- While talk of Social Security reform typically focuses on the program's long-term financing gap, many policy experts also support targeted benefit changes to help economically vulnerable groups. Such changes are aimed at modernizing the system to account for evolving social, economic, and demographic circumstances such as the rising labor force participation of women, the decline in marriage rates, longer life spans, and sluggish wage growth. These trends have undermined the support that Social Security offers for caregivers, widows, the "oldest old," and very low earners. The most discussed changes would: 1) provide credits for those who care for children; 2) improve support for widows; 3) ensure adequate income for retirees at advanced ages; and 4) offer a meaningful benefit to very low earners. Several of these improvements have been proposed by bipartisan commissions, suggesting widespread support. This brief provides an overview of the four areas ripe for change; each one will be covered in-depth in separate briefs. The discussion proceeds as follows. The first section explains the basics of Social Security benefits. The second section describes the program's current long-term financial status. The third section introduces proposals for targeted benefit changes. The fourth section addresses the cost of these changes and the need to adjust other benefits to offset the costs. The final section concludes that targeted changes could clearly help vulnerable groups but--given fiscal pressures--it is important to fully understand the nature of the problems, consider alternative ways to address them, and identify offsets to ensure that any changes are cost neutral.
- Copyright:
- Reproduced with permission of the copyright holder. Further use of the material is subject to CC BY license. (More information)
- Extent:
- 1 online resource (1 PDF file (7 pages))
- Illustrations:
- Illustrations
- NLM Unique ID:
- 101751824 (See catalog record)
- Permanent Link:
- http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/101751824