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Early claiming of higher-earning husbands, the survivor benefit, and the incidence of poverty among recent widows*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 January 2016

JEFFREY DIEBOLD ,
JEREMY MOULTON  and
JOHN SCOTT
JEFFREY DIEBOLD
Affiliation:
North Carolina State University (e-mail [email protected])
JEREMY MOULTON
Affiliation:
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
JOHN SCOTT
Affiliation:
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
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Abstract

Social Security provides survivor benefits to lower-earning spouses of deceased workers entitled to a retirement benefit. The value of the survivor benefit depends on a number of factors including the deceased worker's claim age. We use the Health and Retirement Study and a discrete time hazard model to analyze how the claim age of married men influences the likelihood that their spouse will enter poverty in widowhood. We find that delayed claiming is associated with reduction in a widow's poverty risk. The magnitude of this relationship varies significantly with the claim age, Social Security dependence, and survivor benefit dependence.

Keywords

H55I32J14Social Securitysurvivor benefitclaiming behavior
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Pension Economics & Finance , Volume 16 , Issue 4 , October 2017 , pp. 485 - 508
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

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Footnotes

*

The authors would like to thank Robert Clark and the anonymous reviewers for their suggestions and comments. They also thank Susie Camilleri for editorial support. Opinions and errors are solely those of the authors and not of the institutions with which the authors are affiliated.

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