The Growing Gap in Life Expectancy by Income Implications for Federal Programs and Policy Responses (2015) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
6 Conclusions
6 Conclusions
Pages 141-146
The Chapter Skim interface presents what we've algorithmically identified as the most significant single chunk of text within every page in the chapter.
Select key terms on the right to highlight them within pages of the chapter.
From page 141... ...
The report investigates how the progressivity of net benefits changes under the health and mortality conditions by socioeconomic class (as measured by lifetime earnings) of the 1930 birth cohort compared to those of the 1960 birth cohort, for which lifetime earnings gradients by earnings quintile are much steeper.
|
From page 142... ...
These analyses show only modest effects on the distribution of lifetime benefits from increasing the eligibility ages -- either the earliest eligibility age under Social Security of 62 or the eligibility age under Medicare of 65. They also show a small but nonetheless progressive effect from shifting the indexation of Social Security to the Chained Consumer Price Index (defined in Chapter 5)
|
From page 143... ...
of benefits received by different income groups, taking this structure of taxes and benefits as a given. Unless the simulation is badly off the mark from what in fact transpires in future decades, the exact details of these simulated trajectories should not have a large influence on either the qualitative or quantitative aspects of the differences among the NPVs across mortality regimes because the same simulated trajectories for each income quintile are used for both mortality regimes.
|
From page 144... ...
The committee's results suggest larger effects on progressivity from two possible policy changes: one that increases the Social Security normal retirement age (NRA) and another that substantially reduces benefits, relative to baseline, for higher earners but not for lower earners.
|
From page 145... ...
As a consequence, policy changes that disproportionately reduce Social Security benefits for lower earners may nonetheless have a larger effect at the top than the bottom for overall net benefits because Social Security's weight is smaller at the bottom. This is the case for the rise in the NRA, for example.
|
Key Terms
This material may be derived from roughly machine-read images, and so is provided only to facilitate research.
More
information on Chapter Skim is available.