The widow(er)'s limit provision of Social Security

Widow benefits have been a part of the Social Security program since the 1939 amendments to the Social Security Act (widower benefits were added later). For many years, the Social Security law called for paying a widow(er) a fraction of the deceased worker's primary insurance amount (PIA). However, the worker--while alive--may have received the full PIA as his or her retirement benefit. Over time, arguments were made that a widow(er) should be treated as generously as his or her spouse was. The 1972 amendments to the Social Security Act allowed for a widow(er) to receive a full PIA, subject to actuarial reductions if the widow(er) benefit was claimed before the normal retirement age (NRA) and subject to a new provision of the law commonly referred to as the widow(er)'s limit. Generally, the widow(er)'s limit specifies that if a worker received reduced retirement benefits (because the worker claimed benefits before the NRA), then the worker's widow(er) cannot receive a monthly benefit equal to the full PIA. Rather, the widow(er)'s benefit is generally limited to the amount the worker would receive if he or she was still alive. The limit provision appears to be motivated by the overall intent of the 1972 Congress to pay a benefit to a widow(er) that was comparable with what the worker received. A number of changes to the limit provision have been discussed. This article looks at the following options: Abolishing the limit, Raising the limit by requiring that it never be set below the average PIA among all retired-worker beneficiaries. Adjusting the limit for some widow(er)s--that is, only persons who are widowed before the NRA (the ARLA option), Making a simpler adjustment to the limit by abolishing it for persons who are widowed before age 62 (the SARLA option), and A proposal by Robert J. Myers that would make modest adjustments to the limit for cases in which the worker died before the NRA. The most fundamental change--abolishing the limit--would increase benefits for about 2.8 million widow(er)s and would cost about $3.1 billion a year. Most of the additional government expenditures would not go to the poor and the near poor. Another change would be more successful in aiding low-income widow(er)s: requiring that the limit amount never be set below the average PIA among all retired-worker beneficiaries. About 58 percent of the government expenditures from that option would be received by the poor and the near poor. Overall, 1.2 million widow(er)s would be helped, and the cost would be about $816 million a year. Although the limit provision is consistent with the overall intent of the 1972 Congress, it can have effects that may have been unintended and that some policymakers might consider unusual. Persons who delay receipt of Social Security benefits usually receive higher monthly benefit amounts, but a widow(er) who faces a limit cannot increase his or her monthly benefit through delayed receipt of benefits. Thus, many persons who are widowed before the NRA face strong incentives to claim benefits early. That is somewhat unusual because the actuarial adjustments under Social Security are approximately fair, so there are no cost savings to the Social Security program from "forcing" a widow(er) to claim early benefits as opposed to allowing him or her to delay receipt of benefits in exchange for a higher monthly amount. And many widow(er)s would be better off if they could use the Social Security program to, in effect, save (that is, delay receipt of benefits in exchange for a higher amount later). This article analyzes two other options that would provide widow(er)s with additional filing options under Social Security. The ARLA option would ultimately help about 229,000 widow(er)s, and the cost would be small (about $69 million a year). The SARLA option would help about 117,000 widow(er)s, and the cost would be about $41 million a year. Robert J. Myers, a former Chief Actuary of Social Security, has offered a proposal that would provide relief from the widow(er)'s limit in cases in which the worker dies shortly after retirement. That proposal would help about 115,000 widow(er)s, and the cost would be low (about $57 million a year).     

Assessing Instrument Mixes through Program‐ and Agency‐Level Data: Methodological Issues in Contemporary Implementation Research

Theories of policy instrument choice have gone through several “generations” as theorists have moved from the analysis of individual instruments to comparative studies of instrument selection and the development of theories of instrument choice within implementation “mixes” or “governance strategies.” Current “next generation” theory on policy instruments centers on the question of the optimality of instrument choices. However, empirically assessing the nature of instrument mixes is quite a complex affair, involving considerable methodological difficulties and conceptual ambiguities related to the definition and measurement of policy sector and instruments and their interrelationships. Using materials generated by Canadian governments, this article examines the practical utility and drawbacks of three techniques used in the literature to inventory instruments and identify instrument ecologies and mixes: the conventional “policy domain” approach suggested by Burstein (1991 ); the “program” approach developed by Rose (1988a ); and the “legislative” approach used by Hosseus and Pal (1997 ). This article suggests that all three approaches must be used in order to develop even a modest inventory of policy instruments, but that additional problems exist with availability and accessibility of data, both in general and in terms of reconciling materials developed using these different approaches, which makes the analysis of instrument mixes a time‐consuming and expensive affair.     

Two Cheers for Richards and Smith: Beyond Anti‐Politics?

In a recent issue of The Political Quarterly, Richards and Smith critiqued Flinders’ work on anti‐politics, suggesting that there needs to be much more focus on supply‐side explanations and recognising that much of the problem lies with politicians, contra Flinders. Here, we argue instead that it is crucial to recognise how supply‐side and demand side explanations interact. For us, politicians need to be more responsive to citizens, but, at the same time, citizens need to recognise problems of contemporary governing. Overall, much is changing in the way in which citizens engage and it is crucial that these changes are understood.     

Housing Voucher Take‐Up and Labor Market Impacts

Low participation rates in government assistance programs are a major policy concern in the United States. This paper studies take‐up of Section 8 housing vouchers, a program in which take‐up rates are quite low among interested and eligible households. We link 18,109 households in Chicago that were offered vouchers through a lottery to administrative data and study how baseline employment, earnings, public assistance, arrests, residential location, and children's academic performance predict take‐up. Our analysis finds mixed evidence of whether the most disadvantaged or distressed households face the largest barriers to program participation. We also study the causal impact of peer behavior on take‐up by exploiting idiosyncratic variation in the timing of voucher offers. We find that the probability of lease‐up increases with the number of neighbors who recently received voucher offers. Finally, we explore the policy implications of increasing housing voucher take‐up by applying reweighting methods to existing causal impact estimates of voucher receipt. This analysis suggests that greater utilization of vouchers may lead to larger reductions in labor market activity. Differences in take‐up rates across settings may be important to consider when assessing the external validity of studies identifying the effects of public assistance programs.     

Does group engagement with members constitute a “beneficial inefficiency”?

This article explores the role of variations in organizational form in explaining levels of group access. Specifically, we test whether group forms incorporating more extensive engagement with members receive policy advantages. We develop and test a account of beneficial inefficiencies. Our account reasons that the costs of inefficient intraorganizational processes and practices associated with enhanced engagement with members are beneficial as they generate crucial “access goods”—specifically encompassing positions—that in turn receive enhanced policy benefits. The costs of intraorganizational practices allowing members to engage more thoroughly in decision making are thus beneficial inefficiencies. We test this proposition using data on the Australian interest group system. Using the tools of cluster analysis, we identify three forms, each varying in respect of the inefficiencies they embody. Our multivariate analysis finds strong support for the account of beneficial inefficiencies: groups with the most inefficient organizational model receiving the greatest policy access.     

The Aarhus convention and process cosmopolitanism

The convention on access to information, public participation in decision making and access to justice in environmental matters (Aarhus) celebrates its twentieth birthday in 2018, yet its ethical potential remains unexamined. This paper assesses its ethical potential via the ethico-normative lens of the English School of international relations, eliciting the degree of pluralism and solidarism evident. It first presents pluralism and solidarism as ideal types against which research objects are assessed. Second, it analyses Aarhus’ trinity of procedural rights, identifying solidarist potential whilst noting pluralist realities. Third, it casts Aarhus as exemplifying a nascent process cosmopolitanism, rendering sovereignty more responsible by enriching it with humanity, which here denotes a rudimentary sense of affinity between humans, irrespective of territorial identities, based on the rights shared by, and duties towards, one another. The paper concludes that Aarhus demonstrates the presence of, and contributes to, a solidarist international society, delineated by convention membership. If weaker cosmopolitanism accords equal concern to humans and stronger cosmopolitanism requires equal treatment, Aarhus demonstrates the feasibility of a stronger cosmopolitanism emerging in international environmental politics. Chiefly, Aarhus seeks to reduce imposed harm, suffered by humans who lack the knowledge and autonomy to influence decisions that affect them. Such headway is tentative, but this is welcomed as evolutionary reform coheres with the persistence of sovereign statehood. Aarhus’ cosmopolitanism, yielding a moderating influence on sovereignty, will not emerge without a stable framework in which states institutionalise it. International politics remains, but can be enriched by procedural approaches to foregrounding human rights, which states must accommodate to be deemed legitimate.