Examining Social Security benefits as a retirement resource for near-retirees, by race and ethnicity, nativity, and disability status.

This article analyzes Social Security benefits as a retirement resource for selected subgroups of recent cohorts of near-retirees. The analysis therein examines the distribution of benefits among subgroups by (1) race and ethnicity, (2) nativity, and (3) disability status. We use improved data (actual earnings histories) to produce more accurate measures of benefits. We look at how the average values of several benefit measures, such as Social Security wealth and earnings replacement rates, differ among the selected subgroups and discuss reasons for these differences. This study finds that substantial differences in earnings levels and/or mortality levels among these subgroups interact with Social Security program provisions to produce sizable differences in the values of our benefit measures.