TY  - JOUR
AU  - Engelhardt,Gary V.
AU  - Gruber,Jonathan
TI  - Social Security and the Evolution of Elderly Poverty
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 10466
PY  - 2004
Y2  - May 2004
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w10466
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w10466.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
Gary V. Engelhardt
Center for Policy Research
423 Eggers Hall
Syracuse University
Syracuse, NY  13244-1020
Tel: (315) 443-3114
Fax: (315) 443-1081
E-Mail: gvengelh@maxwell.syr.edu

Jonathan Gruber
MIT Department of Economics
E52-355
50 Memorial Drive
Cambridge, MA 02142-1347
Tel: 617/253-8892
Fax: 617/253-1330
E-Mail: gruberj@mit.edu
AB  - We use data from the March 1968-2001 Current Population Surveys to document the evolution of elderly poverty over this time period, and to assess the causal role of the Social Security program in reducing poverty rates. We develop an instrumental variable approach that relies on the large increase in benefits for birth cohorts from 1885 through 1916, and the subsequent decline and flattening of real benefits growth due to the Social Securing 'notch', to estimate of Social Security on elderly poverty. Our findings suggest that over all elderly families the elasticity of poverty to benefits is roughly unitary. This suggests that reductions in Social Security benefits would significantly alter the poverty of the elderly.
ER  -