Are There Opportunities to Increase Social Security Progressivity despite Underfunding?

Publication Date: November 2008

Publisher: Tax Policy Center

Author(s): Melissa Favreault; Gordon Mermin

Research Area: Economics

Keywords: Economic Well-being; Poverty; Taxes and Social Programs; Social Security

Type: Paper

Abstract:

This paper reviews why Social Security fails to lift more aged low-wage workers and people of color out of poverty. It examines the payroll tax and benefit formula and reviews literature about OASDI outcomes by race, gender, and earnings level. It describes how mortality, earnings, disability, childbearing, immigration and emigration, and marriage patterns all differ across U.S. racial/ethnic groups, and highlights the importance of these differences for program outcomes. The paper then uses the DYNASIM model to examine lifetime OASDI redistribution under current law and a trust fund-neutral reform package that would enhance system progressivity and improve outcomes for some vulnerable to retirement poverty.