Does Work Pay at Older Ages?

Barbara A. Butrica (), Richard W. Johnson (), Karen E. Smith () and Eugene Steuerle ()
Additional contact information
Barbara A. Butrica: Urban Institute
Richard W. Johnson: Urban Institute
Karen E. Smith: Urban Institute
Eugene Steuerle: Urban Institute

Working Papers, Center for Retirement Research at Boston College from Center for Retirement Research

Abstract: Encouraging work at older ages is a critical policy goal for an aging society, but many features of the current system of benefits and taxes provide strong work disincentives. The implicit tax rate on work increases rapidly at older ages, approaching 50 percent for some workers by age 70. In addition, by age 65 people can typically receive nearly as much in retirement as they can by working. If older Americans could overcome these barriers and delay retirement, they could substantially improve their economic well-being at older ages. For example, many people could increase their annual consumption at older ages by more than 25 percent by simply retiring at age 67 instead of age 62.

Keywords: aging; older workers; retirement; taxes (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J14 H24 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-fmk, nep-lab and nep-pbe
Date: Written
View list of references View citations in EconPapers

Downloads: (external link)
http://crr.bc.edu/images/stories/Working_Papers/wp_2004-30.pdf

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:crr:crrwps:2004-30

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Papers, Center for Retirement Research at Boston College from Center for Retirement Research
Contact information at EDIRC.
Series data maintained by Christopher F Baum ().