Social Security Claiming: Trends and Business Cycle Effects

Haaga, Owen; Johnson, Richard W.

doi:10.1037/e552152012-001

Cited by 16 publications

(20 citation statements)

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“…11 We can show that under the assumption that claiming age is 66, instead of 62, the impact of the different reforms that we analyze on the female employment rate is of the same order of magnitude. 12 According to Haaga and Johnson (2012) and the RAND HRS the distribution of claiming age for the cohort of men born in the 1940s is as follows: 44% at 62, 14% at 63, 8% at 64, 21% at 65, and 13% at 66 or older. 13 See Human Fertility Database for the US.…”

Section: Parameters and Targetsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effect of public pensions on women's labor market participation over a full life cycle

Sánchez-Marcos¹,

Bethencourt²

2018

Quantitative Economics

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Spousal and survivor pensions are two important provisions of the US Social Security pension system. In this paper, we assess the impact of these benefits on the female employment rate in the context of a full life‐cycle model in which households decide on female labor supply and savings. One important aspect of our model is that we allow for returns to labor market experience so that participation decisions affect not only current earnings and Social Security pension eligibility but also future earnings. We quantify the effect on female labor supply and on household inequality of (i) removing spousal benefit, (ii) removing both spousal and survivor pension benefits, and (iii) extending from 35 to 40 the number of periods of the working career that are considered when calculating the retired worker's pension. We find that reforms (i) and (ii) significantly increase female employment throughout the life cycle, whereas reform (iii) has a very mild effect. The effect of (ii) on income inequality in older household is large, whereas the effect on consumption inequality is small. All three reforms have substantial effects on Social Security expenditure and fiscal revenues.

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Section: Parameters and Targetsmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effect of public pensions on women's labor market participation over a full life cycle

Sánchez-Marcos¹,

Bethencourt²

2018

Quantitative Economics

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“…In Haaga and Johnson (2012), which examined the 1920-1944 SIPP birth cohorts, Figures 3 and 4 likewise reveal that among those who were age 62 by 2006, the percentage claiming Social Security benefits at age 62 was always close to or above 50% for both men and women. Moreover, their Figure 6 shows that during 1990-2009, Notes: Scatterplots represent national averages of suicides per 1,000 population by single year of age over the period, coded as (year of age + 0.5), for (A) females and (B) males.…”

Section: A Social Security Versus Retirementmentioning

confidence: 90%

“…4 While the average retirement age over the period was in fact younger than age 62 (Rutledge, Gillis, and Webb 2015), nearly half of recipients claim Social Security retirement benefits within a few months after turning 62 years old (Henriques 2012). Additionally, men and women have similar age patterns of retirement (Rutledge, Gillis, and Webb 2015), but differ in the Social Security benefit level turning age 62 triggers (Henriques 2012) and potentially the responsiveness of their suicide behavior to income (Daly, Wilson, and Johnson 2013;Denney et al 2009), while several of the same socioeconomic characteristics predict both early benefit claims (Haaga and Johnson, 2012) and higher rates of suicide (Daly, Wilson, and Johnson 2013;Denney et al 2009;Ross, Masters, and Hummer 2012). Furthermore, the magnitude of the age 62 suicide decline became more pronounced beginning in the mid-2000s, coinciding with an increase in family incomes of individuals age 62 and slightly older relative to those slightly younger.…”

Section: Figurementioning

confidence: 99%

Suicide and the Social Security Early Retirement Age

DeSimone

2017

Contemporary Economic Policy

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Using a regression discontinuity framework, this paper documents a previously unnoticed drop of 7%-8% in the U.S. suicide rate upon reaching age 62 during 1990-2014. This decline is concentrated among men, nearly doubled in size over the most recent decade as the income gap between those just older and younger narrowed, and represents the only trend break among ages 45-79. These findings, along with the observed timing of retirement and benefit claims and research on how income affects suicide, suggest that the likely explanation is Social Security early retirement benefit eligibility rather than retirement per se. (JEL I12, H55) 3. In contrast to this finding for mortality specifically from suicide, ongoing work by Fitzpatrick and Moore, using RD with individual-level administrative data and more precise information on date of birth, suggests that overall mortality increases upon reaching age 62 (abstract available at http://crr.bc.edu/about-us/grants/howdoes-early-retirement-affect-mortality/).

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“…Burkhauser, Couch, and Phillips (1996) and Panis et al (2002) find that the majority of them are in good health and receiving employer-sponsored pension benefits. Haaga and Johnson (2012) find that early claiming is more prevalent among women, adults with limited education, and those with health problems, and that it varies significantly with macroeconomic conditions, such as high unemployment. Von Wachter (2009) also finds that trends in earnings inequality and the education distribution have significantly impacted the claiming age.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 98%