Women and Social Security:

This article explores some major assumptions underlying the Social Security system and alternative approaches to rendering the system more economically viable, meeting the income needs of the elderly and/or providing greater equity under its benefit and taxation provisions. It attempts to show that the current structure of Social Security not only reinforces but also exacerbates the underlying economic inequalities in our nation's political economy under the guise of a social insurance program. In addressing selected benefit and taxation issues, the article focuses on how working and older women are faring in the 1990s under the Social Security system. It argues that although the program theoretically is gender neutral, its impact is not. Women, particularly those who are single, are poorly served. The article concludes that a progressive restructuring of the Social Security system itself is imperative if we are to meet the needs of a large percentage of workers, older people, and the economic and social demands of the 1990s and beyond. It also offers some suggestions for such change.     

Social insurance and children: The relationship between Social Security,economic well-being,and family context among child recipients

The relationship between social insurance, which provides families protection against certain risks, and child economic security is understudied. Using the 2004 Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) matched to Social Security Administration benefit records, this article investigates the economic welfare effects of the child component of the US Social Security program. We examine how the poverty rate of child beneficiaries would change, absent Social Security income, and how heavily the family incomes of these children rely on it, by family characteristics. Our findings reveal that Social Security plays an important role in mitigating economic insecurity among children deprived of a wage-earning parent through disability, death, or retirement. Family structure, earnings, and employment status are identified as key factors moderating the effect of Social Security on child recipients’ financial circumstance.     

Options to liberalize Social Security disabled widow(er)s benefits

Each month, 200,000 widows and 6,000 widowers receive Social Security disabled widow(er)s benefits, each benefit averaging about $550. Among the most economically at-risk Social Security beneficiaries, their benefits are permanently reduced. This paper reviews the legislative history of the disabled widow(er)s benefit, identifying key decisions that gave shape to this benefit. Social Security program data and six years of Current Population Survey data (March Annual Demographic Files, 1995-2000) are used to profile the economic status of current and potential disabled widows. The analysis, including comparison with other widows, provides strong evidence of economic need among disabled widows with, for example, 44% of disabled widow beneficiaries, ages 50-59, having below-poverty incomes compared with 15% of like-aged non-disabled widows. We conclude that serious consideration should be given to extending eligibility to all widow(er)s disabled before the normal retirement age; to providing a benefit equal to 100% of the deceased spouse's private insurance amount (PIA); to eliminating the unnecessarily restrictive seven-year rule; and to protecting beneficiaries from losing their eligibility to Medicaid. Even in the context of today's heated Social Security debate, we suggest that a rare opportunity may exist to garner bipartisan support for meaningful, low-cost improvements, in a benefit that primarily targets women.     

Comparing Social Security reform options

Social Security is widely recognized as the nation's most effective anti-poverty program for the elderly and widow(er)s. It is so popular that it has often been dubbed the "third rail" of American politics ("touch it and you die"). As a result, changes have come slowly. For instance, in spite of years of warning in advance of the cash flow crisis of 1983, Congress waited until the last minute to act--and when it did, the action it took included a combination of tax increases and benefit reductions. By the mid-1990s, then-President Clinton was talking about the long-term financing issues faced by Social Security, but Congress did not act. President Bush has raised the same issues since 2000, and has now taken to the road to convince the nation that action should be taken now to assure the program's long-term solvency. Because Social Security is a sensitive, complicated, and emotional political topic, many concepts have been discussed but few elected officials have been willing to put forth detailed plans for fear of political backlash. The public, quite naturally, wants to know how they will be affected by "reform." In this introductory section, Figure S-1 seeks to provide a simple response to that question by following the method used in the Trustees' report, where earners maintain a constant percentage of the average wage. Take the year closest to when you were born, the earnings closest to your expected earnings this year (2005), and follow across the columns to see how much your annual benefit would be in today's dollars if you start taking benefits at age 65. For an example of a specific individual: Your 30-year-old child (born in 1975) makes a 2005 salary around $16,500. Under current law, your child's initial annual Social Security retirement benefit would be dollar 11,200 in today's dollars. However, given the projected funding shortfall currently facing the program, this promised benefit is not likely to materialize unless some sort of change is made to the program. This analysis compares "Model 2" from the President's 2001 Commission to Strengthen Social Security (which appears to have the principles for an individual account plan favored by the Bush administration) with three basic options: Current-law benefits with taxes raised to cover the shortfall over the 75-year actuarial period, by removing the existing dollar 90,000 annual wage cap and including all workers. Maintain current benefits until the revenue shortfall occurs, when a "cliff" benefit cut is imposed. A gradual reduction in current-law benefits.     

Public support for social security

This article reports the results of a nationally representative survey of 1,209 Americans that examines their support for Social Security and six other major social welfare programs. It probes the extent to which members of the public are willing to demonstrate their support, the differences in support among population subgroups, and the extent to which perceptions of Social Security and Social Security recipients predict overall support for Social Security. The authors find high levels of support among members of the public, including a willingness both to write letters to congress members and to pay higher taxes. Some groups of citizens—especially blacks and those who classify themselves as liberals—are more supportive than others, but the differences are not great and contribute little toward explaining the variance in support. The perceptions that the program makes a worthwhile contribution to society and that recipients have no alternative sources of income other than Social Security contribute the most toward predicting overall support for Social Security.     

Labor Supply of Older Men: Does Social Security Matter?

This article presents evidence of a negative and significant relationship between the level of Social Security wealth and the labor force participation of older men. The empirical analysis utilizes a panel data set containing participation, wage, and Social Security information for cohorts defined by birth year and educational attainment from 1967 to 1996. Increases in Social Security wealth levels are found capable of explaining most of the observed decline in labor force participation rates of older men since 1967.     

Low Confidence in Social Security Is Not Warranted

The public's low confidence in Social Security is unwarranted. Social Security as discussed here means the old-age, survivors, and disability insurance program (OASDI) but does not include Medicare. Its financial condition is excellent in the short range and sound in the long range, based on intermediate-cost estimates. Those who believe otherwise are too pessimistic about our demographic and economic future. The OASDI cost rates are expected to remain at today's level for the next three decades, and will rise starting about 2020. The cost rates are expressed as a percentage of taxable payroll. Because the taxable payroll as a proportion to total compensation is projected to decline, the cost rates in the future will rise even when benefit payments do not. This problem could be solved by a method that effectively taxes total compensation at a constant percentage rate. Another reason for cost rates to rise is population aging. It is possible to reduce the cost rates if educational and work environments are made more hospitable to long worklives. Although population aging is a basic reason for OASDI costs to increase, only about two thirds of such costs are for retirement benefits. The rest is for disabled workers and families of workers.     

Racial differences in retirement income: the roles of public and private income sources

Despite great overall improvement in the elderly's economic status over the past two decades, minority elders still comprise the poorest population group of all. Nonetheless, the income security of minority elders has not been given special attention in the scrutiny in recent years of the size and the future of various federal programs affecting older persons. Based on data from the 1971, 1981, and 1991 public-use data tapes of the Current Population Survey, the racial difference in income status of the elderly and the role of Social Security and Supplemental Security income versus that of income from private sources are analyzed in terms of how income inequality among races is ameliorated or escalated. The findings show that racial/ethnic differences in income status increased between 1970 and 1990. The findings also confirm that, for both elderly singles and couples, Social Security is the most important income source. Without it, poverty rates among elderly black couples, for example, would have increased by as much as 48.5 percentage points in 1990. Policies that would help improve the income status of the low-income elderly are discussed.     

Social Security and SSI as safety nets for the elderly poor

Partial privatization of Social Security is being considered as an integral part of the future Social Security program for American retirees. Because privatization creates uncertainty about the amount of retirement income that future retirees may expect to receive, the issue of a safety net is critical. This article presents the findings from an empirical study that investigated the degree to which the current Social Security and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) programs provide a safety net, separately and in combination, to the elderly poor. The major findings were that the Social Security program not only increases the income statuses of both posttransfer and pretransfer poor elderly people considerably, but that the program also significantly equalizes the distribution of income among them. In addition, the SSI program supplements the Social Security program in establishing an even greater safety net, especially for posttransfer poor elderly people. On the other hand, Social Security benefits make the income disparity among races greater between both posttransfer and pretransfer poor elderly people. Implications for policy are discussed.     

Social security reform in the twenty-first century: the United States

The paper reviews the history of the Social Security system in the United States in the twentieth century and discusses options for the twenty-first. Because of the steady aging of the U.S. population and the impending retirement of the large baby boom cohort, the Social Security program now is in long-term actuarial deficit. The standard twentieth century approach to this actuarial deficit would be to raise payroll taxes enough to pay for anticipated future benefit increases, but for several reasons that approach may not be so popular this time around. The author's preferred approach is a gradual trimming of long-term benefit growth, plus "add on" individual accounts to provide new saving, for the economy and for the retirement system. The paper also criticizes proposals for Social Security reform made by President Clinton and a committee appointed by President Bush, generally because these proposals do not provide enough new saving.     

Net Worth and the Economic Diversity of the Elderly

Using data from the 1984 panel of the Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP), this article examines characteristics of the older population disaggregated by net-worth quantities. The authors argue that income is not a sufficient measure of economic status for current policy discussions on issues such as changing Medicare co-payments, increasing the taxation of social security benefits, or means-testing under Medicaid. Net worth is a better measure of economic status, particularly for the elderly, because it represents the net value of assets accumulated over the life course. Their results indicate that there is considerable diversity in the economic status of the older population, which is masked by aggregate statistics (such as means and medians) typically used to summarize the economic status of population groups. Stereotypical views of the elderly based on such aggregates result in misdirected policy formulation. In the future, policymakers will need to formulate policies and program using information on the distributions of income and assets among the older populations rather than relying on statistical aggregates.     

How strong is the Social Security safety net? Using the Elder Index to assess gaps in economic security

Older Americans rely heavily on Social Security benefits (SSBs) to support independent lifestyles, and many have few or no additional sources of income. We establish the extent to which SSBs adequately support economic security, benchmarked by the Elder Economic Security Standard Index. We document variability across U.S. counties in the adequacy levels of SSBs among older adults. We find that the average SSBs fall short of what is required for economic security in every county in the United States, but the level of shortfall varies considerably by location. Policy implications relating to strengthening Social Security and other forms of retirement income are discussed.     

Interpreting the needs of lone mothers

This article focuses on the relationship between welfare services in some districts of the municipality of Venice and their lone-mother clients. First, it outlines briefly the panorama of Italian support policies. As there is no national law on social assistance, but a variety of fragmentary and complex local systems of rights, the social rights of lone mothers have to be examined at the local level. The article then attempts to reconstruct the de factopolicies for lone mothers in a welfare system that has no provisions specifically for lone mothers. It interprets discursive and ideological dimensions of social policies from the social workers' viewpoint, highlighting the mechanisms by which the welfare programmes and practices define the needs of lone mothers. It outlines the dynamics of negotiation in the welfare services, which try to reconcile the legislative and administrative norms with the social workers' professional practices and the perceived claims of lone mothers. Despite the Veneto region's universal law on social assistance, access to economic support tends to be determined selectively on the basis of a 'qualifying need'. Interpreting lone mothers' claims to qualifying needs along psycho-social and educational dimensions serves to transform their expressed claims into needs that can be dealt with institutionally. Social workers' image of the two subculturesof lone mothers influences their attitudes and the strategies they set in motion for lone mothers. Lone mothers are provided with a broader range of discretionary support than other users of welfare services, as social workers perceive their problems as more complex and pressing. Social workers' discretion in supporting lone mothers in maternity and in accommodating paid employment and family responsibilities compensates for the gaps left by national and local welfare policies.     

Potential Consequences of Raising the Social Security Eligibility Age on Low-Income Older Workers

Abstract

To examine the potential consequences of raising the Social Security retirement age on future cohorts of low-income elders, this study, based on data from the Health and Retirement Study, 1992–1994, identifies factors that may hinder or facilitate continuous employment among older workers born between 1931 and 1941. Specifically, following the analysis of labor-force participation rates and self-reported reasons for non-work, multivariate logistic regression models tested the relationship between individual strengths and constraints, social-structural opportunities and constraints, and economic need variables and the likelihood of work. The findings show that for both men and women, having disabilities was the most significant predictor of non-work. Racial differences, especially in men's labor-force participation rates, appeared to be due in large part to significant racial differences in disability rates. A higher proportion of blacks and Hispanics than whites also reported that they were unemployed. Based on the findings, raising the Social Security eligibility age is likely to result in increased numbers of Disability Insurance (DI) claimants, and the fiscal impact of such an increase needs to be examined. The need to assist unemployed older persons is also discussed.     

WORKERS SHOULD WANT TO PAY MORE FOR SOCIAL SECURITY

One controversial aspect of the current Social Security system has been the relative distribution of its net costs and benefits between employers and workers. Using simple supply and demand analysis, we demonstrate that proponents and opponents of the current system are making arguments that support the position of their adversaries. In particular, proponents of the existing Social Security system should be arguing that workers pay all of the Social Security tax and then some with lower wages, while opponents should be arguing that employers are paying most of the tax. (JEL H55 , D78 )     

Eldercare Policy Between the State and Family:

The old-age, survivors, and disability insurance program is projected to run unprecedented annual surpluses for the next 30 years, accumulating assets equal to nearly 30% of GNP by the year 2018. Hence, by funding its Social Security program, the United States is currently faced with a unique opportunity to augment its low level of national saving. Whether or not saving actually occurs, however, will depend on how the assets in the Social Security trust funds are used. If the reserves are used to finance current consumption-for example, to pay for current outlays in the rest of the budget-no real saving will occur. On the other hand, if the government alters its spending and taxing patterns to produce surpluses at the federal level, the nation will enjoy higher saving and investment. This article first investigates the likely impact of the projected trust fund activity on aggregate saving an capital formation, assuming that the surpluses in the trust fund represent a net increase in saving. It then explores some practical problems associated with achieving this goal-primarily, the temptation to use the funds for other government expenditures. The author concludes that if the nation is willing to increase its saving rate, then the trust fund is a convenient vehicle for doing so and will provide future generations with higher incomes from which to support retired workers. However, if the nation is unwilling to increase saving, then the pretense of a trust fund accumulation should be dropped and, after an adequate contingency reserve has accumulated, the system returned to an explicit pay-as-you-go basis.     

社会保险权的历史发展:从工业公民资格到社会公民资格

伴随着现代社会保障制度的改革与发展,社会保险权的发展轨迹也愈加清晰:从德国《1881年帝国诏书》中面向劳工阶级的"书面性"权利,到美国1935年《社会保障法案》中"较为丰满"的法定权利,再到1942年《贝弗里奇报告》描画的国民普享式社会权利,并经受住了20世纪70年代末以来"新保守主义及其政策导向的考验",经历了从工业公民资格到社会公民资格的螺旋式演进。在这个过程中,社会保险制度呈现出的全民化、福利化和私营化趋向,已经、正在、未来必将继续影响社会保险权的发展。     

When self-interest and age sterotypes collide: elders opposing increased funds for programs benefiting themselves

Elders tend to be portrayed by the media as selfishly promoting programs that benefit the old. We predicted, however, that older individuals who choose positive stereotypes about the young over positive stereotypes about the old would oppose an increase in spending on these programs. By analyzing the responses of 1656 individuals, we found: (1) older participants were more likely than younger participants to oppose increased funding of Social Security, Meals on Wheels, and Medicare; and (2) this opposition to increased funding for Social Security and Meals on Wheels was predicted by a stereotype of aging based on a more favorable perception of the capabilities of the young than of the old. Our findings suggest that elders' evaluation of programs that benefit their age group may be more influenced by stereotypes internalized decades earlier than by their current group interests.     

Evaluations of Social Work Education: A Critical Review

Since the introduction in England of the social work degree in 2002, there have been a number of significant changes to social work education culminating with the implementation of the Social Work Reform Board's innovations in 2013. This article critically explores the role of evaluations of changes in social work education and their implications for social work pedagogy. Evaluations can be linked to wider trends in society such as modernity, reflexive modernity, and the audit society. These wider influences affect the use of evaluations. A way forward for social work is proposed. Social work education needs to develop a critical pedagogy of hope to transform the profession's relationship not only to evaluations but to practise as well. The key message of this article is that evaluation studies of social work education mirror the underlying tensions of late modernity. Therefore, social work education needs to adopt a critical pedagogic approach to the use of evaluation research.     

Graduate Education for Social Change

ABSTRACT

Is it possible to conduct an effective, progressive, and politicized program for graduate students in our contemporary conservative context? This article evaluates the outcomes over seven years of a pioneering program in Political Social Work. Based on survey data of Political Social Work alumni, it addresses four outcome measures: enrollment, satisfaction with curriculum and field opportunities, job and career development, and persistence of political ideology and practice. While being “political” during the past decade is clearly different than it was in the 1960s, the evidence proposes that political content and practice can have a significant place in both social work education and the field. More specifically, the study demonstrates that politicized social workers in the 1990s were able after graduation to secure employment, sustain progressive values, and practice political social work.