Publications -- Social Security

Mar 13, 2001

BA #351 – Medicaid Waivers: Wrong Cure for High Drug Prices

The Health Care Financing Administration (the agency that runs Medicare and Medicaid) can waive some federal requirements for Medicaid eligibility to allow states to experiment with new ways of delivering health care to the poor. Near the end of the Clinton administration, HCFA granted waivers to Maine and Vermont for programs allowing many people ineligible for Medicaid to get Medicaid prescription drug coverage.

Jan 31, 2001

ST #241 – Saving the Surplus

A surplus is political manna, enabling politicians to fund their favorite programs.  The fundamental choice is between using the Social Security surpluses to reduce the federal debt and using them to prepay future Social Security benefits. All other policy choices derive from this choice. Thus, the bulk of our analysis deals with the choice between retiring debt and prepaying future benefits.

Jan 31, 2001

ST #240 – Social Security and Education

This paper considers Social Security as an investment for different classes of workers based on their level of education. Why education, rather than income? Everyone's income will vary a lot over the course of a 40- to 45-year work life. As a result, level of education is a better predictor of expected Social Security taxes and benefits than current wages.

Oct 12, 2000

BA #343 – The Power of Compounding and Social Security

Albert Einstein called it the greatest mathematical discovery of all time. Benjamin Franklin supposedly said it was the eighth wonder of the world. MasterCard, Visa and American Express use it - with devastating effects for unwary cardholders. The tool is compounding, and if harnessed correctly, it can save Social Security while ensuring a safe, comfortable and secure retirement for even the lowest-income Americans.

Oct 02, 2000

ST #236 – Social Security and Race

In general, older generations are receiving reasonable rates of return from Social Security, especially among couples with dependent spouses.  But almost all future retirees will, on the average, have worse rates of return than they would have received if their tax payments had been privately invested.

Sep 26, 2000

BA #341 – Facts about Social Security

Social Security reform has emerged as one of the defining issues of the 2000 election. Proposals to "save" Social Security have fueled an onslaught of criticism and praise of the current system - some accurate, some in the neighborhood and some not even close. A number of myths and half-truths about Social Security have clouded the dialogue.

Aug 14, 2000

BA #333 – Americans Support Personal Retirement Accounts

Polls consistently demonstrate the popularity of personal retirement accounts as an alternative to the current Social Security system. Younger voters overwhelmingly favor moving to a new system in which they can invest a portion of their payroll tax in a personal account that they can own and control. Indeed, Social Security reform has moved to the top of the agenda in the 2000 presidential race, with both candidates proposing competing visions of reform - and both including some form of personal retirement accounts.

Aug 10, 2000

BA #332 – Reducing the Social Security Benefits Tax

Since 1993, middle- and upper-income Social Security recipients have been subject to income tax on up to 85 percent of their benefits. On July 27, the House of Representatives voted to repeal this provision, leaving up to 50 percent of benefits still subject to taxation. The tax reduction would total $117.4 billion over 10 years. The vote was 265-159, with 213 Republicans and 52 Democrats in favor - a margin not large enough to override a presidential veto. The Senate must now consider the bill.

Jun 28, 2000

BA #329 – MySocialSecurity.org

Social Security has emerged as a key election year issue. Proposals have been introduced in Congress to allow younger workers to save a portion of their payroll taxes in personal retirement accounts. To help you understand how such personal accounts could affect retirement benefits, the NCPA has developed a Social Security calculator that compares the return from the Social Security payroll tax with the return if the entire amount were invested in a personal retirement account. (The calculator is not based on any of the proposals, all of which call for investing only a portion of the total payroll tax.)

Mar 31, 2000

BA #317 – Patient Power and the Internet

The growth of the Internet and the vast amount of information it makes available are dramatically changing health care and medicine. As many as 100 million people in the United States now have access to the Internet, and that number is expected to grow by 50 percent over the next few years. Health information is some of the most popular content on the Internet.