Transition Paths and Social Security Reform

Transition Paths and Social Security Reform

Farmers and Social Security Reform

For several years, reports from the Trustees of the Social Security system have warned us that at the current rate of benefits and given the current age structure of our population, the Social Security system will go broke sometime between 2038 and 2042. To address Social Security Trustees’ concerns, President Bush, in his postelection speech, reported that one of the legacies of his administra...

Social Security Sustainability and Reform

Social Security is the foundation of retirement and disability income support in the United States, paying out $615 billion in benefits in 2008 to nearly 51 million beneficiaries. Although the core functions of Social Security remain largely unchanged, the system now faces an exceptional challenge: It is not financially sustainable in its current form. In the coming years, efforts to meet this ...

Anyone for Social Security Reform?

A reform of a pay-as-you-go social security makes the pensioners worse off and the working generations better off in the period of the reform (in a dynamically efficient economy without altruism). The observed reluctance across all age groups to support such reforms is usually explained by the insurance properties of these schemes. I propose an alternative in a two sector setting. Since the old...

Social Security Reform in Denmark

Recent social security reforms in Denmark have had the effect of simplifying program administration and expanding the means-testing of benefits, thereby presumably reducing future program costs.’ At the beginning of 1984, the three old-age, survivor, and disability insurance (OASDI) groups were reduced to only two groups-old-age pensioners in one, and all other potential social security recipie...