Taxes, Wages, and the Labor Supply of Older Americans

Lucie Schmidt and Purvi Sevak

No 2008-16, Department of Economics Working Papers from Department of Economics, Williams College

Abstract: Given the aging of the U.S. population, and the greater contributions of older workers to the labor force, understanding how policy levers can affect elderly labor supply has become increasingly important. In this paper we use data from the Health and Retirement Study linked to state identifiers to estimate the responsiveness of the labor supply of older workers to the wage and features of the tax code, both on the probability of participating in the labor market, as well as on hours of work for those who choose to work. We find that a 10 percent increase in the wage is associated with a five percent increase in participation, and we estimate slightly larger responses to marginal tax rates. These results suggest that government policies could increase the labor supply of older individuals by changing the returns to work through the tax code.

Keywords: Aging; Labor Supply; Elderly; Taxes (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 35 pages
Date: 2008-06
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Published in Research on Aging, 2009, 31(2): 207-232.

Downloads: (external link)
https://web.williams.edu/Economics/wp/Schmidt_Sevak_ROA_final_2.pdf Full text (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: Taxes, Wages, and the Labor Supply of Older Americans (2006)
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: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wil:wileco:2008-16

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from

The price is Free.

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Department of Economics Working Papers from Department of Economics, Williams College Williamstown, MA 01267. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Greg Phelan ().