Two changes have been made recently to rules governing the Social Security program: the retirement earnings test was eliminated in 2000 for people aged 65–69, and the full retirement age (FRA) for people born in 1938 or later was scheduled to gradually increase in two-month increments until...

We present new estimates of the long-run earnings consequences of job separations that occurred during the 1982 recession based on a representative sample of workers drawn from Social Security administrative earnings data ranging from 1974 to 2005. Workers permanently leaving their long-term...

We use administrative longitudinal data on earnings, impairment, and mortality to replicate and extend Bound¡¯s seminal study of rejected applicants to federal Disability Insurance (DI). We confirm Bound¡¯s main result that rejected older male applicants do not exhibit substantial labor...

We use data from Social Security administrative records to examine the lifetime patterns of initial entitlement to retired-worker and Disability Insurance (DI) benefits across cohorts born in different years. Breaking out age-at-entitlement patterns for different birth-year cohorts reveals close...

Using a 1 percent sample of Social Security Administration data, this article documents and analyzes responses in the entitlement age for old-age benefits following the recent changes in Social Security rules. Both rules, the removal of the retirement earnings test (RET) for persons who are at...

This paper examines the labor force activity and timing of benefit claims of workers aged 65-69 in response to the removal of the retirement earnings test in 2000. We use the 1 percent sample of longitudinal Social Security administrative data that covers the period from 4 years before to 4...

In 2000 Congress passed legislation to remove the retirement earnings test for persons at the full retirement age and older. This article explores how individuals affected by the removal of the earnings test have changed their participation in the workforce and the amount they earn. It also...