Olsen Anya, Romig Kathleen
Office of Retirement Policy, Office of Retirement and Disability Policy, Social Security Administration, USA.
Soc Secur Bull. 2013;73(1):39-58.
The retirement earnings test (RET) is an often-misunderstood aspect of the Social Security program. Proposed RET reforms meant to encourage working at older ages could also cause earlier benefit claiming. We use Modeling Income in the Near Term data to analyze the complete repeal of the earnings test for beneficiaries aged 60 or older, first assuming no behavioral responses to repeal and secondly assuming changes to benefit claiming and workforce participation behaviors. We find that beneficiaries affected by RET repeal would generally receive significantly higher benefits when they are younger than the full retirement age (FRA), and somewhat lower benefits after reaching FRA. RET repeal would not significantly change individuals' lifetime benefits and we find no significant changes in the overall poverty rate under either scenario. We find that assumed behavioral responses-particularly the benefit claiming change--have a bigger effect on lifetime benefits than the RET policy change itself.
退休收入测试（RET）是社会保障计划中一个经常被误解的方面。旨在鼓励老年人继续工作的退休收入测试改革提议，也可能导致人们更早地申领福利。我们使用“近期收入建模”数据，分析完全废除针对60岁及以上受益人的收入测试的情况，首先假设废除该测试不会引起行为反应，其次假设福利申领和劳动力参与行为会发生变化。我们发现，受退休收入测试废除影响的受益人在未达到全额退休年龄（FRA）时，通常会获得显著更高的福利，而在达到全额退休年龄后福利会略低。废除退休收入测试不会显著改变个人的终身福利，并且我们发现在两种情况下总体贫困率都没有显著变化。我们发现，假设的行为反应——特别是福利申领的变化——对终身福利的影响比退休收入测试政策本身的变化更大。
