ABSTRACT
We estimate the impact of the Social Security early entitlement age (EEA) on later-life income, poverty, and mortality by tracing birth cohorts of men who had access to different potential claiming ages from the Social Security Amendments of 1961, which introduced age 62 as the EEA. Based on 1968–2001 Current Population Survey data, the average claiming age fell by 1.4 years, and Social Security income fell for male-headed families by 2.4 percent at the mean and 6 percent at the 25th percentile. Total family income fell, and the poverty rate rose by about one percentage point. Finally, mortality rates fell modestly in retirement.
- Received January 2019.
- Accepted May 2020.
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