Research

The Inequitable Effects of Raising the Retirement Age on Blacks and Low-Wage Workers

July 11, 2018

Raising Social Security’s Full Retirement Age leaves all workers with two bad choices: working longer or living on reduced monthly benefits.

Telling workers to work longer further penalizes Blacks and low-wage workers because they are unlikely to live long enough to recoup payments foregone as a result of delayed claiming. Instead of cutting Social Security benefits, we need to give all workers a real choice of when to retire by strengthening Social Security and creating Guaranteed Retirement Accounts.

Authors: Teresa Ghilarducci, Kyle Moore, and Anthony Webb
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