Social Security and Minorities

Gretta Goodwin, U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO)
Brendan Cushing-Daniels, U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO)
Grant Mallie, U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO)
Alicia P. Cackley, U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO)

In this study, we demonstrate how factors such as differential earnings, mortality and disability rates affect various moneysworth measures across racial and ethnic groups. Furthermore, as the current Social Security system has large unfunded future liabilities, we compare the moneysworth measures across different policy scenarios that restore 75-year balance to the system. Our analysis uses the Social Security Administration’s Modeling Income in the Near Term (MINT) microsimulation model, version 3, to examine distributional aspects of the current Social Security program. MINT3 allows us to expand our measure of Social Security benefits to include some spousal benefits and disability benefits as well as retirement benefits.