Economic Well-Being of the Aged Population in the 1990s, 2025, and 2060: an Analysis of Social Security Benefits and Retirement Income

Howard Iams, U.S. Social Security Administration (SSA)
Barbara A. Butrica, Urban Institute
Cori Uccello, Urban Institute

Most projections considering the impact of the aging population on the Social Security Trust Funds and Social Security benefits consider the population as a whole projected over the next 75 years. This study provides a detailed analysis of the economic well-being of the aged population in the years 2065, 2025, and the early 1990s by level of income, gender, marital status, level of education, and race/ethnicity. This analysis will estimate the impact of the expected Social Security Trust Fund changes on subgroups of the aged population. The data source for the estimates is the Census Bureau’s Survey of Income and Program Participation (SIPP) exactly matched to the Social Security Administration’s records of annual earnings, benefits and mortality through 1999, and the Modeling in the Near Term (MINT). MINT is a micro-simulation model developed to estimate the distributional effects of proposed social security policy alternatives on current and future beneficiaries’ retirement income.