PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Engelhardt, Gary V.
AU  - Gruber, Jonathan
AU  - Kumar, Anil
TI  - Early Social Security Claiming and Old-Age Poverty: Evidence from the Introduction of the Social Security Early Eligibility Age
AID  - 10.3368/jhr.57.4.0119-9973R1
DP  - 2020 Jul 08
TA  - Journal of Human Resources
PG  - 0119-9973R1
4099  - http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/early/2020/06/29/jhr.57.4.0119-9973R1.short
4100  - http://jhr.uwpress.org/content/early/2020/06/29/jhr.57.4.0119-9973R1.full
AB  - 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, Social Security income fell for male-headed families by 2.4% at the mean and 6% 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.