Social Security Amendments of 1977: legislative history and summary of provisions

This article describes the legislative history of the Social Security Amendments of 1977 and contains a summary of the amendments. The major provisions revise the benefit structure so that future replacement rates--initial benefits as a percent of previous earnings--will be relatively stable and revise the tax structure to restore the financial soundness of the program in the short range and into the 21st century. Other significant provisions include: An increased special minimum benefit for long-term workers with future automatic adjustment to prices; a minimum benefit frozen at the December 1978 level (roughly $121) with automatic adjustment only for those on the rolls; a higher retirement test exempt amount of beneficiaries aged 65 and over; an annual measure of "quarter of coverage" and other changes in annual wage reporting provisions; and authorization for agreements with foreign countries for limited coordination between social security systems.     

Social Security Amendments of 1983: legislative history and summary of provisions

This article traces the legislative history of the new law from the report, on January 20, 1983, of the recommendations of the National Commission on Social Security Reform (which formed the basis of this legislation) to enactment, on April 20, 1983, of Public Law 98-21. It also analyzes the provisions of Public Law 98-21, which, among other things, delay the annual cost-of-living adjustments in benefits from July to January of each each year, make up to one-half of the benefits received by higher-income beneficiaries subject to income taxes, gradually raise the retirement age early in the next century, call for the earlier implementation of schedule payroll tax increases, and put new Federal employees under the Social Security program. The legislation also establishes a new system of prospective payment for hospital services under Medicare and extends supplementary unemployment compensation benefits that otherwise would have expired in March 1983.     

Social security: a program and policy history

Many of the federal and state programs that provide income security to U.S. families have their roots in the Social Security Act (the Act) of 1935. This Act provided for unemployment insurance, old-age insurance, and means-tested welfare programs. The Great Depression was clearly a catalyst for the Social Security Act of 1935, and some of its provisions--notably the means-tested programs--were intended to offer immediate relief to families. However, the old-age insurance program-the precursor to today's Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance, or Social Security, program-was not designed specifically to deal with the economic crisis of that era. Indeed, monthly benefit payments, under the original Act, were not scheduled to begin until 1942. In addition, from the beginning, the Social Security program has embodied social insurance principles that were widely discussed even before the onset of the Great Depression. The first four decades of the Social Security program were, in general, ones of expansion. In fact, the program was expanded even before it became truly operational. In 1939, amendments added child, spouse, and survivor benefits to the retirement benefits authorized by the 1935 Act. Those amendments also allowed for monthly benefits to begin in 1940. Although the program was not changed substantially during the war years and the initial postwar period, the 1950s were a transformational decade in the program's history: benefit amounts were increased substantially, coverage under the program became close to universal, and a new disability insurance benefit was offered. The 1960s witnessed additional growth in Social Security, but the most important development in social insurance occurred in health insurance, with the creation of the Medicare program in 1965. Legislative actions in the 1970s had profound effects on the Social Security program and, indeed, set the stage for many of today's reform debates. Large benefit increases, a new benefit formula that was erroneously generous, and other changes in the early 1970s created a situation in which annual program costs, as a share of gross domestic product, increased during a 12-year period from about 3 percent to 5 percent. In 1977, amendments to the Act corrected the flawed benefit formula and made other changes in the financing of the system to shore up the program. Thus, the 1970s represent a watershed in the program's history-program growth gave way to increasing concerns about the program's finances. Those concerns were reflected in the amendments to the Act in 1983, which were the last major changes to the program. These amendments, based largely on recommendations from a commission chaired by Alan Greenspan, adjusted benefits and taxes to address pressing near-term financing problems faced by the system. Although the Greenspan Commission focused to a large extent on short-range issues, the resulting reforms have generated large surpluses in the program and the buildup of a substantial trust fund. However, the looming retirement of the baby boomers and several other demographic factors will, according to projections, result in the exhaustion of the trust fund by 2042.     

后金融危机时代的中国国家安全

深刻认识国际金融危机的时代特征,科学分析国际金融危机对我国国家安全的复杂影响,准确把握后金融危机时代我国国家安全面临的机遇,正确应对国家政治、经济、社会、外交、国防等领域面对的新挑战,对于我国经济在未来更长时期内持续稳定快速发展,实现全面建设小康社会目标具有重要意义.     

Lifetime redistribution under the Social Security program: a literature synopsis.

This article provides a brief overview of the more important studies of lifetime redistribution under the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) and Disability Insurance (DI) programs. Studies are categorized into two types, those that focus on redistribution across successive cohorts of workers or typical members of those cohorts and those that focus on the distribution of results across characteristics of interest within particular cohorts of workers. A list of related studies is provided at the end of the article for those interested in additional reading.     

Employment among Social Security disability program beneficiaries, 1996-2007

We use linked administrative data from program and earnings records to summarize the 2007 employment rates of Social Security disability program beneficiaries at the national and state levels, as well as changes in employment since 1996. The findings provide new information on the employment activities of beneficiaries that should be useful in assessing current agency policies and providing benchmarks for ongoing demonstration projects and future return-to-work initiatives. The overall employment rate--which we define as annual earnings over $1,000--was 12 percent in 2007. Substantial variation exists within the population. Disability Insurance beneficiaries and those younger than age 40 were much more likely to work relative to other Social Security beneficiaries. Additionally, substantial regional variation exists across states; employment rates ranged from 7 percent (West Virginia) to 23 percent (North Dakota). Moreover, we find that the employment rates among beneficiaries were sensitive to the business cycle and persistent over time.     

Development and evaluation of a survey-based type of benefit classification for the Social Security program

This attempt to classify Social Security beneficiaries by type of benefit using the new Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) has yielded promising results. Evaluations of the classification algorithm based on comparison of the estimated number of beneficiaries in each of the several categories to independent estimates of the number of beneficiaries indicate that in most instances a high percentage of each category has been identified. For the most part, age and monthly benefit amount size distributions seem reasonable. Furthermore, very few persons in the sample who were identified as Social Security beneficiaries could not be assigned to one or another of the benefit groups. The classification procedure also represents a marked improvement over earlier efforts to classify type of beneficiary that relied on data from the March Supplement to the Current Population Survey (CPS). Most importantly, the benefit classification scheme based on SIPP data appears to provide reasonably reliable distinctions between retired-worker and widow benefits for widowed women and permits the identification of retired-worker benefits for those women dually entitled to retired-worker and spouse benefits. In addition, the distinction between disabled- and retired-worker benefits for recipients aged 62-64 appears to be reasonably reliable, and for women under age 65, the classification procedure distinguishes between disabled-worker benefits on the one hand and widow and widowed mother benefits on the other. Finally, SIPP procedures for identifying minor child beneficiaries yield markedly better estimates than those available from the Current Population Survey. These improvements in the SIPP context are due entirely to the presence of information not collected in the CPS. The enhancement of the SIPP data set in turn resulted directly from an assessment of earlier work carried out by Projector and Bretz in the CPS context and on extensive research into the nature of Social Security reporting errors in the CPS. The superiority of the SIPP data set is linked principally to the presence of three pieces of information: the Medicare BIC, the direct question on reasons for benefit receipt asked of persons under age 65, and the direct measurement of recipiency and amount of benefits for minor children. Other items of some import include self-reported work disability, retirement status (ever retired from a job), previous marital status for currently married women, age first prevented from working due to a health condition, and Supplemental Security Income misreporting items.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)     

Early retirees under Social Security: health status and economic resources

Some proposals to change the Social Security program to ensure long-run solvency would reduce or eliminate benefits for early retirees. This article documents the health and financial resources of Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) beneficiaries aged 62-64. It identifies a substantial minority of early retirees who might be economically vulnerable if either the early eligibility age or normal retirement age was raised. Attention is directed at the extent to which poor health limits work in this age group and the extent to which curtailment of early OASI benefits might lead to increases in the Disability Insurance (DI) program rolls. Using a set of comprehensive health measures, we estimate that over 20 percent of OASI beneficiaries aged 62-64 have health problems that substantially impair their ability to work. This finding implies that in this age range, as many severely disabled persons receive OASI benefits as disability benefits. In fact, 12 percent of early beneficiaries would meet a more stringent criterion for being classified "disabled"--SSA's medical standard for disability benefits. The evidence therefore indicates that OASI functions as a substantial, albeit unofficial, disability program for early retirees. Compared with those who have no health problems or are less severely impaired, early OASI beneficiaries who meet the medical criteria for disability benefits are more likely to be living alone and more likely to be poor or "near poor." The great majority of the group--almost 80 percent--are women. Analysis of their earnings histories suggests that most of these beneficiaries do not satisfy the insured-status requirements for Disability Insurance benefits. The article considers the different roles of the OASI program and the DI program for health-impaired individuals aged 62-64. Disability modelers sometimes overlook an important aspect of program administration. Under customary screening procedures implemented in Social Security field offices, applicants for early OASI benefits who appear to be severely impaired simultaneously apply for DI benefits if they are disability insured. If they are found eligible for DI benefits, those applicants become DI beneficiaries. The implication is that raising the earliest entitlement age would have little impact on the DI rolls. Unless there are changes in eligibility criteria, the DI program would not serve as a safety net for many of the most severely disabled early retirees.     

Noncitizens and the Supplemental Security Income program

The Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program, established by the Social Security Amendments of 1972 (Public Law 92-603), was designed to provide cash assistance to needy aged, blind, and disabled citizens, and noncitizens lawfully admitted for permanent residence or permanently residing under color of law. Since then, this means-tested program has undergone many legislative changes that affect the eligibility status of noncitizens. This article, presented in three parts, discusses the legislative history of noncitizen eligibility, and details relevant laws enacted since the program's inception; provides current data on the trends and changes of the noncitizen population; and describes the larger population of foreign-born SSI recipients, of which the noncitizens are a part. Data on the number of SSI recipients born abroad but who had become citizens before applying for SSI payments were not previously available. Analytical data are from the Supplemental Security Record (SSR) matched to the Social Security Number Identification (Numident) file.     

论内保工作发展趋势——走社会保安服务之路

传统内保工作体制受到市场经济的挑战,改革这种体制是大势新趋.本文认为内保工作走社会保安服务之路是社会化分工的需要,是经济发展的趋势,是西方发达国家政府鼓励发展的方向,它比传统的内保工作具有明显的优势,走社会保安服务之路是今后内保工作发展的趋势.     

A note on sampling variance estimates for Social Security program participants from the Survey of Income and Program Participation

The Census Bureau's Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) provides data that can be used to study the characteristics of Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (OASDI) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program participants. It is important that estimates of sampling errors accompany such studies because the estimates may have large sampling errors due to the small number of sample cases available for specific analyses. The generalized sampling variances provided by the Census Bureau did not identify separately either program's participants and, therefore, do not pertain directly to analyses of these groups. This article describes an approach to the direct computation of sampling variances for OASDI and SSI program participants. The approach uses the pseudo stratum and half-sample codes available in SIPP public use data files. A table of generalized standard errors is constructed for participants of both programs aged 18 or older. Generalized standard errors could not be computed for child beneficiaries under age 18 because of a wide variation of design effects across subpopulation estimates.     

Generational equity or privatization of social security?

He is primary author of Ties That Bind: The Interdependence of Generations,a study that examines the framing of the generational equity debate. He is currently doing research for a book concerning the planning of retirement of the baby boom generation.