IV Estimation Results for Absolute Poverty, Relative Poverty, and Mortality
| Dependent Variable: | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Absolute Poverty: Fraction of Families below Federal Poverty Line (1) | Relative Poverty: Fraction of Families with Total Income below 40% of Nonelderly Median Income (2) | Mortality Rate (3) | |
| Parameter estimates | |||
| Mean Social Security income | −0.075 (0.023) | −0.074 (0.030) | 0.009 (0.004) |
| Estimated elasticities | |||
| Outcome elasticity with respect to mean Social Security income | −1.7 | −1.4 | 0.4 |
Notes: N = 658 in Columns 1 and 2(ages 65–90); N = 724 in Column3 (ages 65–98).The first row of table shows the IV parameter estimate of ρ in Equation 5, which is the impact of a $1,000 increase in Social Security income on the poverty or mortality measure, where the cohort’s early entitlement age is used as the instrument. Each column represents a different regression based on a different measure of poverty or mortality. All regressions include the full set of age and year dummies, a quartic in simulated Social Security income for age-65 claiming to control for trends in benefit generosity across cohorts that were not due to early claiming, and additional controls for the percentage in age/year cell that are: veteran status; white; high school graduate; some college; college graduate; advanced degree; plus eligibility for Medicare and DI, and quarters of coverage for age-72 benefits, respectively. Standard errors clustered by year of birth are shown in parentheses. The second row shows the implied elasticity of the poverty or inequality measure with respect to Social Security income.