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Social Security Claiming: Trends and Business Cycle Effects

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  • Owen Haaga

    (Urban Institute)

  • Richard W. Johnson

    (Urban Institute)

Abstract

Social Security claiming behavior matters because early claimants receive lower monthly benefits for the rest of their lives. Early claiming fell over the past decade, after increasing over the previous 10 years. However, high unemployment encourages early claiming by less-educated men. A 1 percentage point increase in the state unemployment rate is associated with a 0.4 percentage point increase in the monthly claiming probability by men who never attended college, implying that the Great Recession boosted their claiming rates by about 40 percent. In contrast, claiming behavior by women and well-educated men is not significantly correlated with the unemployment rate. JEL Classification: Key words:

Suggested Citation

  • Owen Haaga & Richard W. Johnson, 2012. "Social Security Claiming: Trends and Business Cycle Effects," Discussion papers 12-01, Urban Institute, Program on Retirement Policy.
    • Handle: RePEc:rbn:wpaper:12-01
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Gorodnichenko, Yuriy & Song, Jae & Stolyarov, Dmitriy, 2013. "Macroeconomic Determinants of Retirement Timing," IZA Discussion Papers 7744, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    2. Hugo Benítez-Silva & J. Ignacio García-Pérez & Sergi Jiménez-Martín, 2011. "The effects of employment uncertainty and wealth shocks on the labor supply and claiming behavior of older American workers," Economics Working Papers 1275, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    3. Hugo Benítez-Silva & J. Ignacio García-Pérez & Sergi Jiménez-Martín, 2015. "The Effects of Employment Uncertainty, Unemployment Insurance, and Wealth Shocks on the Retirement Behavior of Older Americans," Working Papers 2015-06, FEDEA.
    4. Joseph F. Quinn & Kevin E. Cahill, 2015. "The New World of Retirement Income Security in America," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 887, Boston College Department of Economics.
    5. Hampton, Matt & Totty, Evan, 2023. "Minimum wages, retirement timing, and labor supply," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 224(C).

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