Linking benefits to marital statusRace and diminishing access to Social Security spouse and widow benefits in the U.S.

Linking benefits to marital status

Race and diminishing access to Social Security spouse and widow benefits in the U.S.

Meyer

Madonna Harrington

Meyer, Madonna Harrington

Author

Wolf

Douglas A.

Wolf, Douglas A.

Author

Himes

Christine L.

Himes, Christine L.

Author

text

working paper

Chestnut Hill, Mass. Center for Retirement Research at Boston College20042004monographic

Chestnut Hill, Mass.

Center for Retirement Research at Boston College

2004

monographic

Englisheng

English

eng

electronicapplication/pdfborn digital

electronic

application/pdf

born digital

Social Security retirement benefits have been noted for their capacity to redistribute benefits from higher to lower lifetime earners. However, two-thirds of older women receive spouse and widow benefits and the distributional impact of those benefits has not been well studied. Spouse and widow benefits are distributed on the basis of marital rather than employment status and generally require recipients to be either currently married or to have had a ten-year marriage. The unprecedented retreat from marriage, particularly among black women, means the distributional impact of these benefits changes dramatically for each cohort that enters old age. This paper uses June 1985, 1990 and 1995 CPS supplement data to trace the decline in marital rates for women for five cohorts. The main question is what proportion of women in each cohort will reach age 62 without a ten-year marriage and thus be ineligible for spouse and widow benefits. We find that the proportion who will not be eligible as spouses or widows is increasing modestly for whites and Hispanics but dramatically for African Americans. The growing race gap in marital rates means that older black women will be particularly unlikely to qualify for these benefits.

Madonna Harrington Meyer, Douglas A. Wolf, and Christine L. Himes.

CRR WP2004-5

CRR WP

2004-5

http://crr.bc.edu/images/stories/Working_Papers/wp_2004-05.pdf

MChBEnglisheng

MChB

Englisheng

English

eng