SOCIAL SECURITY

Social security in the US and elderly people

Social security in the US and elderly people

Introduction

Elderly poverty in the U.S. decreased dramatically during the twentieth century. Between 1960 and 1995, the official poverty rate of those aged 65 and above fell from 35 percent to 10 percent, and research has documented similarly steep declines dating back to at least 1939. While poverty was one time far more common amidst the elderly than amidst other age groups, today's elderly have poverty rate alike to that of working-age mature individuals and much smaller than that of children (Arthur, 1996).

 

Discussion and Analysis

Social Security is often cited as a probable supplier to the down turn in elderly poverty. Enacted in 1935, the Social Security scheme skilled fast advantage development in the post-WWII era. In detail, there is a hitting association between the increase in Social Security expenditures per capita and the down turn in elderly poverty.

This association is enquired farther by investigators Gary Engelhardt and Jonathan Gruber in Social Security and the Evolution of Elderly Poverty, (NBER Working Paper 10466). Using facts and numbers from the 1968 through 2001 March Current Population Surveys, the authors first analyze aggregate tendencies in elderly poverty then perform a statistical analysis to consider the function of Social Security in going by car the down turn in elderly poverty (Peter, 2002).

Experts draw some intriguing deductions from their investigation of aggregate trends. First, when poverty is assessed relation to median non-elderly earnings other than relation to the authorized poverty line, the down turn in elderly poverty completed in the early 1980s. Income inequality has expanded markedly since then amidst the elderly and non-elderly alike. Second, poverty rates are powerfully cyclical - increasing throughout recessions and dropping throughout financial expansions - for the non-elderly but not for the elderly, highlighting the shielding ...