Econ Papers Daily / 期刊论文
重新审视退休与社会保障申领决策
Revisiting Retirement and Social Security Claiming Decisions
摘要
The structure of the Social Security program presents a trade-off between benefit duration and size; individuals who claim early receive lower monthly payments. Surprisingly, even wealthy Americans with high life expectancies frequently claim benefits at the earliest eligibility age, a behavior inconsistent with conventional life-cycle theory predictions. In fact, there is a striking similarity in claiming ages across groups with vastly different life expectancies, wealth levels, and incentives to delay. This paper resolves this puzzle by introducing policy details and subjective beliefs about longevity and program rules into a rich, forward-looking life-cycle model. When included in the model, subjective beliefs substantially narrow the claiming-age gaps across education (college vs. non-college) and marital-status (married vs. single) groups. Specifically, differences in program beliefs alone account for 48.6% of the education claiming age gap and 75.1% of the marital status gap. Counterfactual policy simulations demonstrate that failing to account for these claiming mechanisms dramatically overstates individual responses to an increase in the normal retirement age and understates the resulting fiscal savings.
中文摘要
社会保障项目的结构在福利持续时间与规模之间形成了一种权衡；提前领取者每月获得的给付较低。令人意外的是，即便是预期寿命较长、富裕的美国人，也常常在最早具备资格的年龄就申领福利，这一行为与传统的生命周期理论预测并不一致。