Linking Benefits to Marital Status: Race and Diminishing Access to Social Security Spouse and Widow Benefits in the U.S.

Boston College Center for Retirement Research Paper No. 2004-05

39 Pages Posted: 18 May 2004

See all articles by Madonna Harrington Meyer

Madonna Harrington Meyer

Syracuse University

Douglas Wolf

Syracuse University - Center for Policy Research

Christine L. Himes

Syracuse University

Date Written: March 2004

Abstract

Social Security retirement benefits have been noted for their capacity to redistribute benefits from higher to lower lifetime earners. However, two-thirds of older women receive spouse and widow benefits and the distributional impact of those benefits has not been well studied. Spouse and widow benefits are distributed on the basis of marital rather than employment status and generally require recipients to be either currently married or to have had a ten-year marriage. The unprecedented retreat from marriage, particularly among black women, means the distributional impact of these benefits changes dramatically for each cohort that enters old age. This paper uses June 1985, 1990 and 1995 CPS supplement data to trace the decline in marital rates for women for five cohorts. The main question is what proportion of women in each cohort will reach age 62 without a ten-year marriage and thus be ineligible for spouse and widow benefits. We find that the proportion who will not be eligible as spouses or widows is increasing modestly for whites and Hispanics but dramatically for African Americans. The growing race gap in marital rates means that older black women will be particularly unlikely to qualify for these benefits.

Suggested Citation

Harrington Meyer, Madonna and Wolf, Douglas and Himes, Christine L., Linking Benefits to Marital Status: Race and Diminishing Access to Social Security Spouse and Widow Benefits in the U.S. (March 2004). Boston College Center for Retirement Research Paper No. 2004-05, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=546628 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.546628

Madonna Harrington Meyer (Contact Author)

Syracuse University ( email )

900 S. Crouse Avenue
Syracuse, NY 13244-2130
United States

Douglas Wolf

Syracuse University - Center for Policy Research ( email )

Syracuse, NY 13244
United States

Christine L. Himes

Syracuse University ( email )

900 S. Crouse Avenue
Syracuse, NY 13244-2130
United States

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