Social Security Reforms

Abstract

The Social Security system has two distinct goals: first, to provide insurance provisions such as disability benefits and survivor benef its for children and widow(er)s and, second, to provide retirement income to workers. There are good reasons to separate the insurance portion of the system from the retirementincome portion. In this article, I make suggestions pertaining to the insurance portion of the system, and then make recommendations pertaining to the retirement-income portion of the system. The key principle behind reforms of the retirement-income portion of the system is that it should be primarily a required-savings program, and not primarily an income-redistribution program. I then evaluate reform proposals with this guiding principle in mind.

TOPICS: Retirement, legal/regulatory/public policy