Social Security

Integrated Disability and Retirement Systems in Chile

People are living longer and healthier lives, yet disability benefits are the fastest growing portion of social security expenditures in the United States and many other countries.  What can be done t…
How Much Do Americans Depend on Social Security?

Social Security benefits over the next 75 years will exceed payroll tax revenues by $4.6 trillion. To close this enormous fiscal gap, one proposal is to cut the benefits of high-income workers. Many l…
The 2007 Trustees Report

The Current State of Social Security and Medicare
Work and Retirement

Over the next three decades, the number of retirees will double. However, due to declining fertility rates, the number of workers contributing to the system will fall from three for each retiree recei…
How Generous Are Social Security and Medicare?

Without changes, Social Security and Medicare will grow relative to the earnings and compensation of the workers who fund the programs. Further, the rate at which these entitlement benefits replace pr…
Taxing the Elderly

The Social Security benefits tax - while nominally a tax on Social Security benefits - is really a tax on other retirement income like pensions or personal savings. And it inflicts some of the highest…
Social Security Reform: Responding to the Critics

Critics of President Bush’s Social Security reform proposal have used findings by Robert Shiller, professor of economics at Yale University, to suggest that many workers will lose money if they open p…
Will the President’s Proposal Solve Social Security’s Crisis?

The Bush Administration has proposed a two-part Social Security reform plan that would reduce the growth in initial benefit payments awarded to higher earners and allow all younger workers to invest p…