This article uses Health and Retirement Study data to investigate the effects of Social Security's Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and Government Pension Offset (GPO) on Social Security benefits received by households. The provisions reduce benefits for individuals or the dependents of...

This paper uses data from the Health and Retirement Study to investigate the effects of Social Security's Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and Government Pension Offset (GPO) provision on Social Security benefits received by individuals and households. WEP reduces the benefits of individuals...

Among our findings: About 3.5 percent of households are subject to either WEP or to GPO. The present value of their Social Security benefits is reduced by roughly one fifth. This amounts to five to six percent of the total wealth they accumulate before retirement. Households affected by both WEP...

This paper uses data from the Health and Retirement Study to investigate the effects of Social Security’s Windfall Elimination Provision (WEP) and Government Pension Offset (GPO) provision on Social Security benefits received by individuals and households. WEP reduces the benefits of...

This paper studies cost of living adjustments in pensions from the perspective of labor economics. Evidence from longitudinal data on pension and annuity incomes of retirees suggests that pension COLAs are less important in the 1980s than in the 1970s, but that through 1987 they continued to...

This paper studies cost of living adjustments in pensions from the perspective of labor economics. Evidence from longitudinal data on pension and annuity incomes of retirees suggests that pension COLAs are less important in the 1980s than in the 1970s, but that through 1987 they continued to...

The President's Commission to Strengthen Social Security has proposed a number of changes in Social Security, each of them introducing personal accounts funded from a portion of payroll tax receipts, and in one case, out of additional contributions. These changes are presented in the form of...