Quick link to my SSA articles

Why spend hours – or days! – hunting down research papers written by yours truly during my illustrious career at SSA when you can conveniently locate them at this author's page. To make things even easier, here's what it has available:

Alternate Measures of Replacement Rates for Social Security Benefits and Retirement Income from Social Security Bulletin, Vol. 68 No. 2 (released October 2008) by Andrew G. Biggs and Glenn R. Springstead

Replacement rates are common and useful tools used by individuals and policy analysts to plan for retirement and assess the sufficiency of Social Security benefits and overall retirement income. Because the calculation and meaning of replacement rates differs depending on the definition of preretirement earnings, this article examines four alternative measures: final preretirement earnings, constant income payable from the present value of lifetime earnings (PV payment), wage-indexed average of lifetime earnings, and inflation-adjusted average of lifetime earnings (CPI average). The article also calculates replacement rates for Social Security beneficiaries aged 64–66 in 2005.

This document is available in the following formats: PDF

The Distributional Consequences of a "No-Action" Scenario Policy Brief No. 2004-01 (released February 2004) by Andrew G. Biggs

The 2001 report of the Social Security trustees projected that the combined trust funds for the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and Disability Insurance programs will be exhausted in 2038. This analysis explains the effects of insolvency on future retirement benefits and poverty rates of beneficiaries if no action is taken to strengthen Social Security.

This document is available in the following formats: HTML  PDF

Poverty-level Annuitization Requirements in Social Security Proposals Incorporating Personal Retirement Accounts Issue Paper No. 2005-01 (released April 2005) by Dave Shoffner, Andrew G. Biggs, and Preston Jacobs

In the current discussions of Social Security reform, voluntary personal retirement accounts have been proposed. Recent research and debate have focused on several aspects of these accounts, including how such accounts would affect aggregate saving, system finances, and benefit levels. Little attention, however, has been paid to policies that would govern the distribution of account balances. This analysis considers such policies with respect to the annuitization of account balances at retirement using the Social Security Administration's Modeling Income in the New Term (MINT) model and a modified version of a recent legislative proposal to evaluate the effects of partial annuitization requirements.

This document is available in the following formats: HTML  PDF

A Progressivity Index for Social Security Issue Paper No. 2009-01 (released January 2009) by Andrew G. Biggs, Mark A. Sarney, and Christopher R. Tamborini

Using the Social Security Administration's MINT (Modeling Income in the Near Term) model, this paper analyzes the progressivity of the Old-Age, Survivors and Disability Insurance (OASDI) program for current and future retirees. It uses a progressivity index that provides a summary measure of the distribution of taxes and benefits on a lifetime basis. Results indicate that OASDI lies roughly halfway between a flat replacement rate and a flat dollar benefit for current retirees. Projections suggest that progressivity will remain relatively similar for future retirees. In addition, the paper estimates the effects of several policy changes on progressivity for future retirees.

This document is available in the following formats: HTML  PDF

Social Security and Marginal Returns to Work Near Retirement Issue Paper No. 2009-02 (released April 2009) by Gayle L. Reznik, David A. Weaver, and Andrew G. Biggs

Using the Social Security Administration's MINT (Modeling Income in the Near Term) model, this paper calculates the marginal returns to work near retirement, as measured by the increase in benefits associated with an additional year of employment at the end of an individual's work life. With exceptions for certain population subgroups, the analysis finds that marginal returns on Social Security taxes paid near retirement are generally low. The paper also tests the effects on marginal returns of a variety of potential Social Security policy changes designed to improve incentives to work.

This document is available in the following formats: HTML  PDF

But I recommend heading over to SSA's research pages, since there's a lot of great material by their whole team of researchers available there.