A New Approach to Raising Social Security's Earliest Eligibility Age

Posted: 8 Mar 2010

See all articles by Kelly Haverstick

Kelly Haverstick

Boston College - Center for Retirement Research

Margarita Sapozhnikov

Charles River Associates (CRA)

Robert K. Triest

Federal Reserve Bank of Boston - Research Department; Boston College

Natalia Zhivan

Boston College - Center for Retirement Research

Multiple version iconThere are 2 versions of this paper

Date Written: October 1, 2007

Abstract

While Social Security’s Normal Retirement Age (NRA) is increasing to 67, the Earliest Eligibility Age (EEA) remains at 62. Similar plans to increase the EEA raise concerns that they would create excessive hardship on workers that are worn-out or in bad health. One simple rule to increase the EEA is to tie an increase to the number of quarters of covered earnings. Such a provision would allow those with long worklives — presumably the less educated and lower paid — to quit earlier. We provide evidence that this simple rule would not satisfy the goal of preventing undue hardship on certain workers. Thus, this paper considers an alternative policy that ties an increase in the EEA to individuals’ Average Indexed Monthly Earnings (AIME). We show that allowing workers with low AIME to continue to be eligible to receive benefits at age 62 has promise as a policy to protect workers who have low earnings and are in poor health from hardship associated with an increase in the EEA.

Suggested Citation

Haverstick, Kelly and Sapozhnikov, Margarita and Triest, Robert and Zhivan, Natalia, A New Approach to Raising Social Security's Earliest Eligibility Age (October 1, 2007). Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=1545895

Kelly Haverstick (Contact Author)

Boston College - Center for Retirement Research ( email )

Fulton Hall 550
Chestnut Hill, MA 02467
United States

Margarita Sapozhnikov

Charles River Associates (CRA) ( email )

1201 F. St. NW
Ste. 700
Washington, DC 20004
United States

Robert Triest

Federal Reserve Bank of Boston - Research Department ( email )

600 Atlantic Avenue
Boston, MA 02210
United States
617-973-3431 (Phone)
617-973-3957 (Fax)

Boston College ( email )

Chestnut Hill, MA 02167
United States

Natalia Zhivan

Boston College - Center for Retirement Research ( email )

Fulton Hall 550
Chestnut Hill, MA 02467
United States

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