An examination of the rationale for public pension programs, a look at how the current U.S. Social Security system evolved, and an analysis of the issues surrounding privatization.

Gaps between the rich and poor grow once people hit retirement. Some say privatizing Social Security will increase wealth inequality among retirees. This Commentary argues it won't and suggests that the current system may be reducing wealth mobility from one generation to the next. This...

Social Security's tax treatment of distinct groups varies widely among postwar generations: Women, whites, and the college educated have lower lifetime net tax rates than do men, non-whites, and those without a college education. Among income groups, the middle class faces the highest lifetime...

A proposal for a U.S. Social Security reform that gradually, but ultimately fully, privatizes the system. This proposal follows the no-harm, no-foul principle in that it preserves the benefits of older generations and yet promises the same or higher retirement benefits for the young.

The authors consider Social Security’s treatment of postwar Americans under alternative tax increases and benefit cuts that would help bring the system’s finances into present-value balance. The alternatives include immediate tax increases, eliminating the ceiling on taxable payroll,...

An application of the generational accounting method of fiscal policy analysis to projected spending paths for Social Security and Medicare suggesting that, under realistic assumptions for these programs, future generations as well as current young Americans could bear a significantly larger...

Does it pay to work? This is a tough question because of the complexity of the tax code and the plethora of dynamic linkages involved: 1) Earning more today typically alters current saving and, therefore, future capital income taxes. 2) Earning more today generally alters future consumption and,...

Proposals to shore up Social Security using future budget surpluses neglect to mention that Social Security itself produces these surpluses. Moreover, the projected budget surplus is dwarfed by Social Security's present shortfall of $7 trillion-$10 trillion, which consists of the benefits that...

An argument that any successful reform of the Social Security system must 1) result in more real investment, 2) restore individuals' incentives to work, and 3) reduce or eliminate the intergenerational redistribution that leads to low national saving.

The better stockholders' information about a firm's prospective finances, the better their decisions on investing their money productively. The same is true of lawmakers' decisions on how to allocate public funds. As the Enron-Andersen debacle has made abundantly clear, murky financial reporting...