Implicit taxes in Social Security, which measure Social Security contributions net of benefits accrued as a percentage of earnings, tend to increase over the life cycle. In this paper, we examine the effects of three potential policy changes on implicit Social Security tax rates: extending the...

The introduction of individual accounts as part of Social Security reform has received a great deal of attention in the United States and the rest of the world. There have been arguments for or against converting the existing unfunded defined-benefit Social Security system into a two-tier...