This paper presents four policy options to make Social Security sustainable under the coming demographic shift: 1) increase payroll taxes by 6 percentage points, 2) reduce the replacement rates of the benefit formula by one-third, 3) raise the normal retirement age from sixty-six to...

The reform of pension systems is on the political agenda in most European countries and in the USA. The paper considers the main factors underlying the reform process and examines the reforms introduced in recent years and those currently under discussion in order to trace common features, but...

In this paper, we explore the underlying explanations for the under financing of the U.S. Social Security pension system that has persisted since the late 1980s despite repeated calls for reform by the program's trustees and various advisory groups. Both micro and macro estimates of the cost...