Tag Archives: Fairness

Reforming Social Security Benefits

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Excerpt from “Reforming Social Security Benefits,” Testimony Before the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Social Security.

In this testimony, I would like to focus on the need for Social Security benefit reform regardless of the current imbalances in the system or the taxes raised to support the system.

Why? Despite Social Security’s great success, its growth in lifetime benefits over time has been decreasingly targeted at its major goals. Even while programs for children and working families are being cut, combined lifetime benefits for couples turning 65 rise by an average of about $20,000 every year, so that couples in their mid-40s today are scheduled to get about $1.4 million in lifetime benefits, of which $700,000 is in Social Security. Continue reading →

Wealth Accumulation by Race Over the Life Cycle

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While the income inequality among different racial and ethnic groups is significant, it is nothing compared to wealth inequality. In 2010, whites had six times more average wealth than blacks and Hispanics ($632,000 versus $103,000). The income gap, by comparison, was twofold ($89,000 versus $46,000). In a recent study, several colleagues and I examine in more depth how these ratios are affected by wealth accumulation over a person’s lifetime. Early in wealth-building years (when adults are in their 30s), white families have 3.5 to 4 times the wealth of families of color. As adults age these initial racial differences grow both absolutely and relatively. Continue reading →

Should Social Security Taxes Affect All Wages? A Modest Rise Is Fine, but It’s Not a Panacea

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Arithmetic tells us we must either decrease the growth of Social Security spending or increase taxes as a share of gross domestic product.

But we should do it with an eye on fairness, growth and efficiency. We’re all in this together, so higher-income families must give up something to deal both with Social Security shortfalls and those in the budget more generally. A modest increase in the wage base for Social Security has some justification since that base has eroded in recent years. But if extended too far, it exacerbates the squeeze on other government programs. Continue reading →

On Dementia, Cost-of-Living Adjustments, and the Right Way to Reform Programs for the Elderly

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While the increase in dementia among the elderly and the president’s proposal to change the index used to provide cost-of-living adjustments (or COLAs) to Social Security recipients have both received prominent headlines recently, the discussions have largely been independent of one another. Yet any principled attempt to reform our elderly programs, including Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid long-term care, should consider them together. Continue reading →

Any Way You Look at It, Young Americans Have Less Wealth than Their Parents

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My colleagues and I recently published research showing that younger age groups are falling behind their parents in wealth accumulation and explaining the story behind our numbers. Some have raised questions about how we use our data, and I want to take some time to further explain our research.

Our study shows that the average wealth, or net worth, of these younger age groups has fallen fairly dramatically relative to older age groups. In response, some have said that median wealth is more important than average wealth. In fact, both are important. Average wealth tells us how a group is prospering as a whole relative to other groups; median wealth tells us how some “typical” person might be doing. Continue reading →

Lost Generations? Wealth Building Among the Young

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The young have been faring poorly in the job market for some time now, a condition only exacerbated by the Great Recession. Now comes disturbing news that they are also falling behind in their share of society’s wealth and their rate of wealth accumulation.

Signe Mary McKernan, Caroline Ratcliffe, Sisi Zhang, and I recently examined how different age groups have shared in the rising net wealth of the U.S. economy. Despite the recent recession, our economy in 2010 was about twice as rich both in terms of average incomes and net worth as it was 27 years earlier in 1983. But not everyone shared equally in that growth. Continue reading →

Getting the Facts Straight on Retirement Age

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On the front page of the Washington Post on March 11, 2013, Michael Fletcher connects different the life expectancies of the poor and rich to the debate over whether Social Security should provide more years of retirement support as people live longer. He mistakenly leaves the impression that adjusting the retirement age for increases in life expectancy hurts the poor the most. In fact, such adjustments take more away from the rich. Let me explain how. Continue reading →