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Income Maintenance in Old Age: What Can be Learned from Cross-National Comparisons?

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by Timothy M. Smeeding (with assistance from James Williamson) May 2001

WP#2001-11  

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to review the recent evidence on the antipoverty effectiveness and other characteristics of income maintenance systems for the elderly in the rich nations of the world. As we move toward Social Security reform in the United States, we do so knowing that a comparatively high fraction of our older population experience, income poverty compared to their counterparts in other nations. Strategies to reduce the future Social Security deficit need to take into account the way that program changes affect poverty and benefit adequacy as well as fiscal soundness. Other nations offer approaches which would help us to achieve lower poverty rates while also providing fiscally responsible solutions to the future public costs of an aging society through reforms to the Social Security system.

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Timothy M. Smeeding is the Director of the Center for Policy Research (CPR) at Syracuse University’s Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs. James Williamson is a graduate research associate at the CPR and a Ph.D. candidate in Economics at Syracuse University. The research reported herein was supported, in part, by the U.S. Social Security Administration under Grant No. 10-p-98359-1-01; and in part by the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College pursuant to a grant from the U.S. Social Security Administration funded as part of the Retirement Research Consortium. The opinions and conclusions are solely those of the author and should not be construed as representing the opinions or policy of SSA or any agency of the federal government or of the CRR. The author thanks Esther Gray, Inge O’Connor, and Kati Foley for assistance in preparing this paper, and John Williamson for excellent comments.