Ensuring a minimum: social security reform and women.
OBJECTIVE
The potential effects of implementing three different minimum benefits in Social Security, which have accompanied proposals to privatize the program and reform family benefits, are examined in relation to the adequacy of benefits for women reaching age 62 between 2020 and 2030.


METHODS
The 1992 Health and Retirement Study is used to conduct a simplified microsimulation.


RESULTS
The minimum benefit proposal accompanying privatization proposals, which requires 40 earnings years for a poverty level benefit, fails to cover significant numbers of vulnerable women. The elimination of spousal benefits, criticized for being outdated and regressive, helps offset the costs of more generous minimum benefits, such as those that require residency or 10 earnings years for eligibility.


CONCLUSIONS
Noncontributory benefits distributed based on marital status are not as effective at protecting poorer women, as well as a new generation of women that is less likely to be married, than are minimum benefits where eligibility is tied to U.S. residency or simply Social Security eligibility.
Herd
Pamela
P
LBJ School of Public Affairs, University of Texas, Austin, PO Box 4, Austin, TX 78713, USA. pherd@mail.utexas.edu
D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008875:Middle Aged; D011332:Privatization; D012943:Social Security / Q000458:organization & administration*; D014481:United States