I saw DougJ’s post on the effort currently underway at the Washington Post to browbeat us all into handing over our anticipated Social Security benefits and then I recalled this from last week, where we found out that Alan Simpson doesn’t know anything about Social Security, and that reminded me of this, from the last round of Social Security mania, where we found out former President Bush didn’t know anything about Social Security, either.
The message to blacks is that Social Security screws them because they die younger. By all accounts, that’s what Bush told black business and community leaders at a two-hour private meeting on Jan. 25. It’s also the centerpiece of black community town halls and speeches to black audiences by GOP chairman Ken Mehlman, according to the Los Angeles Times.
As Paul Krugman has explained, remaining life expectancy for a 65-year-old black man is 14.6 years, not two. It’s true that black male life expectancy at birth is only 69, but black-white mortality differences trail off throughout life. (By the late stages, black men outlive white men of the same age.) So, while blacks are likely to spend fewer years taking money out, they’re also likely to spend fewer years paying in.
Here’s Paul Krugman on the last round of lies about Social Security:
Let’s start with the facts. Mr. Bush’s argument goes back at least seven years, to a report issued by the Heritage Foundation – a report so badly misleading that the deputy chief actuary (now the chief actuary) of the Social Security Administration wrote a memo pointing out “major errors in the methodology.” That’s actuary-speak for “damned lies.”
Here’s why. First, Mr. Bush’s remarks on African-Americans perpetuate a crude misunderstanding about what life expectancy means. It’s true that the current life expectancy for black males at birth is only 68.8 years – but that doesn’t mean that a black man who has worked all his life can expect to die after collecting only a few years’ worth of Social Security benefits. Blacks’ low life expectancy is largely due to high death rates in childhood and young adulthood. African-American men who make it to age 65 can expect to live, and collect benefits, for an additional 14.6 years – not that far short of the 16.6-year figure for white men.
So, both former President Bush and Alan Simpson don’t understand life expectancy, and they simply apply that misunderstanding to advance whatever policy goal they hope to achieve. People die younger, people die older, whatever, don’t bother them with details. They’ll use younger (like Bush did) when it fits the push to privatize, but they may also use older (like Simpson did) because that slots in nicely this round.
This cavalier attitude towards a program that tens of millions of working people will rely on doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence. There’s a history here. We have been misled on Social Security in the past. That happened. Those of out here in the cheap seats watched it happen, and there wasn’t any crisis that last time other than the crisis created by the people who hoped to push privatization hurry-up-quick, before we noticed.
The crowd that don’t and won’t have to rely on Social Security and their opinion-page mouthpieces have a credibility deficit on social programs, it’s been accruing over years, and they never seriously address it. I’ll get serious when they do.
dollared
Wow. Kay, I had really not known that Ken Mehlman had gone on a “whitey’s trying to steal from you” tour to promote their social security scheme.
Breathtaking. Really. It is hard to even fathom the multiple levels of shamelessness this requires. My liberal empathy skills fail me. I need to call the Dalai Lama.
Linda Featheringill
Ah, geez. How hard is it to understand that if you survive to age A, your statistical life expectancy is X. And if you survive to age B, your statistical life expectancy is Y. Etc.
BUT: People who are not actuaries probably need to have these figures made available to them. And they need ignorant jerks to keep their mouths closed.
Culture of Truth
All I know is that teenagers today love them some Newt Gingrich
Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen
The GOP gets so excited about the idea of black people dying early they can’t be bothered to get their facts straight.
There’s a surprise.
kay
@dollared:
Right. Has he apologized for that, or did he miss this embarrassing segment in his list of “things I lied about”?
handy
Precisely. Bill Bennett even understood this.
kdaug
I suspect you’ll be in the un-serious column for a while, then.
The goal is the rollback of the New Deal. FDR may have welcomed their hatred, but he didn’t exactly prep generations out on what to expect.
Remember: money doesn’t sleep. Without a redistributive mechanism to prevent dynastic oligarchies, this can go on for thousands of years. We (humans) have, um, been there and done that.
cleek
it helps to remember that neither intelligence nor solid grasp of policy are prerequisites for elected office.
slag
Nicely done, Kay! I had forgotten about that old line of attack on SS. And you’re right, the contradiction is pretty obvious. And tragically typical.
MagicPanda
Alan Simpson definitely doesn’t understand life expectancy, which is utterly mindboggling.
Meanwhile, my read of the Slate article is simply that Bush was being misleading (aka lying), which is different from not understanding the facts.
Maybe Bush DID make the life expectancy mistake during a speech or somewhere, but that isn’t what is indicated in the Slate article.
jwest
Regardless of the actual numbers, what is the narrative that African Americans would like to believe?
The story line that democrats have been screwing blacks for decades by sending their hard-earned dollars to rich white women in Miami instead of letting their families inherit the money like republicans want to do makes a good reason why there is so little accumulated wealth in the black community. Couple this with conservatives pointing out that the only things that are preventing the vast majority of inner-city black kids from receiving a great education by way of vouchers are the democrats and the teachers union.
It might be time for realignment.
Democrats had to know that someday African Americans would grow tired of being told by their liberal betters to sit down and shut up until it’s time to vote.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
@Thoughtful Black Co-Citizen:
Fixited. Well, the crack about black people is also true. The Modern Day GOP probably looks as this as a twofer.
MagicPanda
Meanwhile, the linked Krugman article (which I just read) is more damning of Bush. It clearly points out why Social Security is not unfair, and that Bush is basically, well, lying.
kay
@MagicPanda:
In Bush’s defense (hah! I’ll defend anyone) read the Krugman piece. He was relying on Heritage facts, which probably puts this in the “stupid” column.
Lurking Canadian
@MagicPanda: I would tend towards charity in this case. I think it is entirely possible that George W. Bush never understood a single word they told him to say during his entire presidency, including “and” and “the”.
comrade scott's agenda of rage
Bush lying? I’m shocked.
That one wins this week’s Claude Rains Memorial Gambling Awareness Award.
SFAW
Actually, for Rethugs, it’s a disqualifier.
kay
@MagicPanda:
I got the opposite out of Krugman, but it doesn’t matter. The fake-fact that black people get ripped off by SS and the newer fake-fact that people live decades longer entered the stream of common conversation, and they shouldn’t have.
Because they aren’t true.
Yutsano
@kay: I happen to be in a position where I speak to lots of AA’s whose only retirement income is Social Security. Someone should get around to asking them if they feel ripped off.
@jwest: Word salad. It’s not just for breakfast anymore.
MagicPanda
@kay: Gosh, I don’t know if stupid is better than lying. I’ll have to think about that one.
One of the biggest issues I see facing the country today is how our policy discussions (and politics) have become unmoored from facts.
Something I read in the comments here on BJ (I think…. it was a long time ago) helped me think about it a different way.
According to the commenter, the Democrats see policy debate as a collaborative effort, much like scientists do. People provide evidence, they present the good and the bad evidence, and it is the responsibility of policy makers to try to figure out the best policy given all the evidence.
Meanwhile, Republicans see policy debate as a combative effort, much like lawyers do. People from both sides provide their best case, and whoever wins, wins.
I find myself incredibly frustrated at the Republicans for picking and choosing facts that they find convenient.
But if I think of them like they’re lawyers, I find their tactics to be more understandable. If my lawyer is advocating for me, I don’t want him/her to say, “well, on the one hand, my client might be innocent because X, but on the other hand, my client might be guilty because Y”. I want him/her to only present the side of the case that serves my side of the argument.
So… I think Bush was distorting the truth in order to serve his agenda. From his worldview, that’s probably what he thinks he should be doing. From my worldview, I call that lying.
MagicPanda
@Lurking Canadian: Ha!
Brachiator
@jwest:
The truth usually beats “narrative” any day of the week. So what’s your point?
@kay: Thanks for this post, which delves into all kinds of stoopid about Social Security. For example,
And then this drivels into all kind so nonsense about black male life expectancy because, I suppose, black women either don’t exist or are just supposed to get married, become nonworking spouses, and have children.
Omnes Omnibus
@MagicPanda: The thing is, lawyers still have to be aware of contrary facts and must take them into account. Republicans just ignore them.
kay
@jwest:
jwest, the problem with this abstract conservative theory is the fact that African-Americans run (and win) as Democrats. Many, many times. Have for years.
So what are conservatives really saying? That black people are too stupid to figure out that the Democratic Party (remember: run and win, fundraising, voters, all that) is somehow tricking them into being successful as Democrats? Because their individual experience might refute that. Or, like, the ability to view the actual make-up of Congress and the White House.
Moonbatman
Promoted by Anti-Science Deniers who believe any cures are possible with Adult stem cells.
The Anti-Science Deniers also blame the US higher minority population instead of the US Healthcare system for.
U.S. has second worst newborn death rate in modern world
handy
@jwest:
At least their liberal betters “allow” them to vote. C’mon man, gotta give credit where it’s due.
MattR
Crazy stat from that Ezra Klein post
If you were a 60 year old male in 1972 who was in the lower half of the earnings distribution curve you were expected to live to 77.7 as opposed to 78.9 if you were in the top half of the earnings curve. By 2001, that had shifted so the poorer half had a life expectancy of 79.6 while the richer half had one of 85.4
Culture of Truth
What was supposed to be the take away where? “Well on average you’ll die young so you might well put money you would have wasted on Social Security and put it in the stock market.”
In all this discussion did any politician talk about finding ways to increase life expectancy among African-Americans?
Southern Beale
Speaking of getting serious, did you know the Pentagon has had 27 years to get audit-ready and it STILL can’t meet that deadline? But Defense Department comptroller Robert Hale says not to worry!
Oh well Okay then! If you say so! Let’s go back to killing Social Security and Medicare to pay for the budget deficit which is strangling our grandchildren as we speak!
kay
@Brachiator:
Is actually a really good point, because women who stay home and raise children (and are married more than ten years) benefit from the (higher) Social Security status of their (deceased) husbands, when they can’t work anymore. One would think the family values crowd would give this a little thought.
Women are huge in Social Security reality, but Social Security reality doesn’t gibe with pundit reality :)
MagicPanda
@kay: Yeah, the big picture is that the “blacks are ripped off by SS” meme is utter BS and shouldn’t have gotten into the discussion.
It’s pure up-is-downism.
@Omnes Omnibus: I’m not a lawyer so I don’t know how that world works. Do lawyers have an inherent obligation to take contrary facts into account? Or is it the job of the opposing lawyer to keep those facts in check?
rickstersherpa
It is also evidence that among our educated elite, they have never heard of “Google” or “Wikipedia” or else they could have read this in 2 minutes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy
The other hypothesis is that elite just wants to keep their taxes low and throw the rest of us under the bus. For example see Robert Samuelson in today’s WaPo (who knows full well what means testing means politically for these programs).
dollared
@Culture of Truth: Yes. I think the Republicans had requested that the National Rifle Association commission a study on that.
MagicPanda
@MagicPanda: Now that I think about it, it’s probably illegal to bring false “facts” into court.
So to the extent that some of what the GOP does is out and out lying (e.g., Planned Parenthood spends 90% of its time doing abortions), that is obviously beyond the pale, and they should stop.
But so much of GOP lying is basically selective reading of facts and distortions, as opposed to out and out lying.
The reason I bring the two frames (scientists vs. lawyers) is not to excuse GOP behavior. I wish they would stop. But you know what? The GOP is not going to stop.
So instead, I think we should be fighting back harder. I’m not saying that we should be lying. But I AM saying that we should view this process as being one where they bring their best argument to the table and we bring our best argument to the table, with the hope of winning.
And when they selectively pick facts, we shouldn’t be surprised and outraged. We should expect that kind of behavior, and then do our best to make them eat their words.
dollared
@kay: I am sooooo not interested in playing against you in Trivial Pursuit! Why yes, he did apologize about generalized Republican race-baiting. To an NAACP Convention. In 2005. As part of a campaign to persuade blacks to vote Republican. Because that approach is bound to succeed… http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-07-14-GOP-racial-politics_x.htm.
OK, we’ll add this to the action item list for my session with the Dalai Lama….
kay
@dollared:
I want specific apologies. I knew he admitted they race-bait.
He was also behind the Ohio constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.
He’ll need to make a list.
EconWatcher
Assuming the Democratic Party has any competence at all, passing the Paul Ryan budget should be among the very biggest political mistakes of our lifetime. I smell fear on the other side.
Lori
Thanks for the heads-up on the interesting article. One point Krugman doesn’t analyze, but I wish he would: what percentage of African-American males (and females) pay into the Social Security system, but never get anything from it? On its own, the statistic that an African-American male who reaches age 65 will live on average 14 more years, doesn’t mean much without that information. That percentage, in comparison with percentages for other races, would shed a lot of light on this issue.
dollared
@kay: OK, I’ll let the Dalai Lama edit the list down (or add to it) and send it over when we’re done. It might take a few weeks….
Changing the subject, and sadly, I think there is another actuarial angle on blacks and SS. Given the higher death rate of black males in all age groups, there may be a proportionately higher payout under SS survivor death benefits.
People really tend to forget the value of those benefits – collectively and individually. For example, the financial planning and life insurance industries prefer to ignore them when calculating how much insurance you “need.”
Funny how smart social insurance is when you really think about it….
jl
The bottom line is that rich people borrowed the Social Security trust fund over the last ten years, in order to fund some of their bright ideas (and high life).
Things didn’t pan out they way they expected, and in a few years they will have to start paying the loan back .
They don’t want to, and will say anything to wriggle out of the paying back the debt.
The trust fund may last another 30 years, but it needs to start getting the borrowed principal and interest back in a few years.
IMHO, that is the real reason behind the bogus cries of Social Security crisis, and explains the mystery of why about the only federal program that is solvent for the next thirty to forty years is a crisis a right now. The real crisis is that rich people don’t want to pay the money back starting in five or six years (or fewer if the job recovery does not get better).
Brachiator
@dollared:
Good point about SS survivor benefits, which tends to be ignored for all groups in conversations about Social Security, which tend do focus solely on the pension component.
By the way, I don’t know that black males have a higher death rate in all age groups, and it certainly wouldn’t be the case across all income groups. It may not even be the same across regions of the country. Different data sets might be required to look more deeply into these issues.
Chris
@MagicPanda:
And they further muddy the waters by often not phrasing things like an out-and-out lie. Like the party line on Obama’s birth certificate, which was more often “well, it’s a good question, isn’t it?” than outright “he was born elsewhere.” Or on global warming, where it’s often “we’re not sure it’s happening” or “we don’t know what causes it” rather than outright “it’s not happening.”
Lori
I emailed his account as listed under the article, but it bounced back. Anyways, here’s what I would have liked to ask him:
Dear Dr. Krugman,
Your article “Little Black Lies” is very interesting.
Could you please point me to a link for a chart (or research paper)detailing money paid in, money received from Social Security (combined disability and retirement), race, and gender?
From the article, it appears this exists and you have read or created it.You write “Put it all together, and the deal African-Americans get from Social Security turns out, according to various calculations, to be either about the same as that for whites or somewhat better. Hispanics, by the way, clearly do better than either.”
James E. Powell
Actually, what’s been accruing over the years is the widespread acceptance of the lies put out by the crowd that don’t and won’t have to rely on Social Security.
Two things the ruling class has in abundance: wealth & time. They don’t need to kill social security this year. They know that if they keep working to destroy it, it will be destroyed.
Compare this with the anti-abortion movement. They have not convinced the supreme court to overrule Roe v. Wade, but they have, little by little, convinced courts and legislatures to whittle away at abortion rights. And, as appears to be the case with social security, there is no sustained force in opposition.
Omnes Omnibus
@MagicPanda: Lawyers have a duty to acknowledge case law that goes contrary to their argument. WRT facts, it is primarily an issue of credibility; if you don’t deal with it, opposing counsel will. If you deal with it, you can minimize it or try to get bonus points with a jury for being honest. Basically, the facts are there and you have to deal with them.
dollared
@Brachiator: Agreed. I saw it on that definitive and detailed reference source, Ask.com.
terraformer
Oh, come on. Do you really think that this is all just a “misunderstanding”? At some point people must recognize a concerted messaging campaign, deliberately intended to confuse and obfuscate, for what it is.
This dynamic applies to just about every conservative position. They want the money to give to their friends so that they can gamble with it and foster another round of “Capitalism Crasher-oo, Election Feudal-oo”.
El Cid
When FDR’s communist buddies across the country began mobilizing in demanding a federal pension program, the average age of death was 17 years old.
No one ever expected anyone to live to 65, and so they just stole all the money to give to Russia until the 1960s, when commie ally JFK made everybody start living until they got old.
So that’s why Social Security is broke, and also why Communism failed.
Kilgore Trout
@jl:
This. A thousand times. (Although the borrowing goes back 30 years to when Reagan cut income taxes but raised social security taxes so we boomers could “pre-fund” our retirements).
Rich people borrowed our retirement money and now they don’t want to pay it back. Progressives should be repeating this as a mantra because it is simple to understand, and it is the truth.
dollared
@Kilgore Trout: This. and especially the repetition part, because it needs to reach the low information voters.
Kewalo
Damn! It’s so rare that you have a subject where I actually have something to say that it just annoys me no end that this will probably be the last post. I just got up and have no idea when this all ended. But if I get through to at least one person, I will be a happy camper.
When Bush was trying to privatize SS I realized that I didn’t know anything about it. One of the places I went was the SS website. And it is chock-a-block full of info. There is no reason to ever have to depend on info from outside sources when it is at your fingertips.
You can read the speeches of FDR…follow the legislation…and yes, find out about age expectancy.
http://www.ssa.gov/history/lifeexpect.html
And of course you are all correct, most people have no idea what SS is all about. It is NOT a retirement program, it’s an insurance program. But unlike most insurance if you live long enough you get your money back. Come on folks…go read!
jl
@Lori:
@Brachiator:
The most data to do life expectancies by age, sex and African American versus White are here for download. Have fun. They are relatively small pdf files.
United States Life Tables, 2006. NVSR Volume 58, Number 21. 40 pp. (PHS) 2010-1120. [PDF – 966 KB]
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr58/nvsr58_21.pdf
From the page
Life Tables
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/life_tables.htm
You can download other life tables, and papers on methodology at the htm page.
Kewalo
@Lori:
Here is a link to Actuarial Publications
http://www.ssa.gov/oact/pubs.html
It’s possible that what you are looking for is here. I didn’t actually look into this, but maybe, since you know what you are looking for, you can find it.
jl
@Brachiator:
@Lori:
I posted a comment that had links to the CDC site with the data you need. But it is in moderation.
Brachiator:
“By the way, I don’t know that black males have a higher death rate in all age groups, and it certainly wouldn’t be the case across all income groups. It may not even be the same across regions of the country. Different data sets might be required to look more deeply into these issues.”
death rate for black males higher at all ages, converges to that of whites with age.
Lower rate of death with higher income for all races.
Death rate lower for blacks outside the South. Higher black death rates averaged over country consist of at least two components: one regional due to higher proportion of blacks living in Southern ‘stroke belt’ with higher death rates than average for adults, and a component due to race. Blacks outside the south have lower death rates and higher life expectancies much closer to that of whites, and equal to that of whites in some areas
El Cid
By the way, the most recent comprehensive life expectancy tables including by race, by age, and by sex is from the Vital Statistics Report (from the CDC) and the data is from 2006. Published last June. (PDF: NV58-21)
So if you want to see by age and race and/or sex how many years of life are expected to remain after a certain age has been reached, read that.
Of course, this is the USA.
In fairness, we couldn’t possibly expect big time journalists and pundits in our major media and our leading politicians to have access to such a report given my vast wealth in possessing an internet connection and Adobe Acrobat Reader, and my ivory-tower ability to read in the obscure language Old American circa June 2010.
El Cid
@jl: Ha!
jl
An important point that Krugman did not mention, and I have not seen discussed in comments is that the black white mortality rates and life expectancies are not etched in stone.
Remember that statistically, life expectancies estimated in say, 2005, are complied from recently estimated mortality rates across ages. So the expectancy estimates are really summaries of current mortality rates across ages. Life expectancy for 40, 60, 65 and 80 year olds, which are regularly compiled, are snapshots of mortality rates from attained age onwards.
The mortality rate gap has varied considerably between blacks and whites. From the mid 1960s to early 1980s, mortality rates and life expectancies of blacks were converging. The convergence stopped, and substantially reversed for black males, from early 1980s to mid 1990s. Very slow convergence has resumed from mid 1990s to 2006 which is last data available.
So, if we can continue making progress, or resume in some cases, in equal access and opportunity across race ethnicity and economic class, this whole issue may be a very minor detail in thirty years, when the real long term and meaningful revenue shortfall in Social Security begins.
But, as I said above, the widely flacked current purported crisis is totally fake. The rich do not want to pay back the money they borrowed from the Social Security trust fund. That is it one hundred percent the issue right now, IMHO.
Triassic Sands
When trying to understand the basis for Republican policy preferences there are three main considerations:
1. Stupidity — lack of intelligence; ideological rigidity often makes Republicans appear stupid, because they cling to ridiculous positions with no supporting evidence.
2. Dishonesty — common among all politicians, this is mandatory for a Republican.
3. Ideology — ideological rigidity will cause Republicans to cling to hopeless positions and policies. It makes them look both stupid and dishonest; and often it forces them to be both stupid and dishonest.
Which comes first or which is dominant is difficult to tell because they are all present in virtually 100% of Republicans.
In this case, it is possible that both Simpson and Bush understand life expectancy — possible, but stupidity is a huge factor for both these idiots — and they’re just being dishonest. On the other hand, as you argue, they may not understand life expectancy and that misunderstanding is useful in pursuit of an ideological goal.
Mark S.
This has always been a pet peeve of mine, maybe because I’ve read a fair amount of ancient literature and history and never got the impression that people back then thought living to 70 was some amazing accomplishment. For instance, Psalm 90:
Our days may come to seventy years,
or eighty, if our strength endures;
This is during an era where the life expectancy was 26. As that article says, if you could make it to 21 (and not live during a plague), you could expect to live to your 60’s.
Suffern ACE
@terraformer:
I think I’ll just repeat that in case someone missed that:
El Cid
@Suffern ACE: Sometimes it’s both and it operates at different levels. A right wing politician might both avoid giving the slightest shit about looking at any real facts, and just always turn to whatever hacks they like, particularly if there’s some intellectual authority or group they think strong enough and worth listening to.
After that, they can just fly along with their existing prejudices and class hatred, and know that the people they think worth listening to have told them what’s what, and whether it’s true 100%, well, it just needs to seem true enough to work.
Because no matter what, the liberal-left-whatever way is the big evil, hurts the people they like, and gets them more of what they want.
jl
Also, a wonky nerd pest note.
Asking whether blacks or whites ‘get a better deal right now’ from the current Social Security program is not the relevant question for policy analysis.
The relevant question is would blacks be better off under the current Social Security program or under some proposed alternative program. But to do that comparison you have to do a good job of modelling the lifetime income stream of both blacks and whites (and any other group you want to include in the analysis) and you will see that these quick slogan scare stats are not appropriate for that comparison.
The other issue is what I mentioned above: that the relative mortality rates, and resulting estimated life expectancies, change over time. If we continue resumed progress since mid 1990s in removing racial gap, the race gap in life expectancies will be much smaller thirty years from now.
Thirty years from now is when SS revenues will probably only cover 70 to 80 percent of scheduled benefits (which will be higher in real value than todays benefits), and we need to decide whether there is a fix for that long term problem. Of course, some actuarial and economic scenarios predict that this shortfall will never happen.
Brachiator
@jl: Thanks very much for this information. I had seen these tables for 2002 but not the more recent information.
One detail which was not surprising was this:
But again, this indicates that mortality issues are not static, and depend on a number of variables. Context is important.
There is also this:
jl
@Brachiator:
Glad it was useful. Only comments is on
“The increase in the gap from 1983 to 1993 was largely the result of increases in mortality among the black male population due to HIV infection and homicide.”
This is true, but there was a very substantial component due to changes in some other social or economic factors that operated concurrently. The race gap in life expectancies for blacks (edit: for males and females) at age 65 increased substantially at the same time. Homicide and HIV attributable deaths were much lower in this age group, especially at the beginning of the period in 1983/1984.
Lori
@Kewalo: @jl: Thank you both for the helpful links! I’m partway there, to the kind of chart that I’d like to see.
I think Krugman’s article referred to data in this chart http://www.socialsecurity.gov/policy/docs/statcomps/supplement/2009/5a.html (says how much Social Security paid out annually per race and age, for disability benefits, survivor benefits, and retirement benefits). With this data, someone could make a chart with payouts per race and age, and number of people alive at that age of that race using life expectancy charts. However, I’m missing data on how much the people of each age+race paid into the system. I’m no statistician, and from the article it appears Krugman read or calculated this data. The argument that Black people currently have shorter lives on average is another strong reason for the Social Security retirement age NOT to rise. Also an analysis showing racial disparity in benefits could mean that it would make sense for Black people to have the option to retire earlier. Or maybe things work out pretty fairly between the races. I don’t know, but considering the racial history in our country and the fact that the White race is almost always favored… it makes sense to analyze the distribution.
jl
@Lori:
good luck. You should go to google scholar search, perferably at a local library or college campus where you are more likely to be able to download a lot stuff for free, and do searches like
+”Social Security” +benefits +costs +race +”United States”
or
+”Social Security” +benefits +costs +black +white +”United States”
I tried those two but nothing especially relevant came up after 2000 to top couple of pages.
Lori
Figure 2 on page 5 shows a graph of life expectancy. 4 lines (black/white and male/female, all combinations). Black males start their old-age related deaths around 7 years earlier than Black women and White men. http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr58/nvsr58_21.pdf According to this chart, there are a disproportionate number of Black men who pay into Social Security their whole working lives, but never receive any Social Security retirement payout. Maybe like Krugman says the disproportionate disability payout balances that, but I definitely need Krugman to explain his math before I accept what he says about payouts between races balancing out.
Lori
@jl: Thanks for trying, and for the info you pointed me to! I really like how people in this discussion are basing it on facts and figures… hurray for science and verifiability :-) I just emailed the question to the actuary at the Social Security Administration. What the heck, on the SSA website they say to email if you have any questions, so we’ll see how this goes. I’ll update this with their reply, if I get one. Cheers!
Brachiator
@Lori:
Raising the retirement age in general may be a dubious proposition, as long as the economy sputters along with stagnant wages, companies contracting and laying off employees and relatively high unemployment and underemployment of people over age 40. There is no particular reason to make the possible impact on black people a special consideration.
Anyone’s decision to retire early obviously depends on their overall financial situation. But apart from this, I don’t really see that any racial disparity in benefits translates into a recommendation that people consider early retirement.
Kewalo
@Lori:
Good luck…I’d really be interested to see if they answer your email. I hope they do and somehow I get that info. I love that website and it would be so cool to find out they were responsive to scholars.
Just one thing though. As you young people think about raising the retirement age you should keep something else in mind. There are a ton of people that have worked their entire lives doing physical labor. It wears the body out and we get very tired. I am old…almost 70, and I do know what I am talking about.
When Sully wrote about raising the retirement age I sent him an email saying it was easy to see he had spent his working life sitting on his ass. For some reason he never got back to me.