How Will Declining Rates of Marriage Reshape Eligibility for Social Security?

For most older people in the United States, Social Security is the major source of income: nine out of ten people age 65 or older receive benefits, which represent an average of 41 percent of their income. Largely as a result of Social Security, poverty rates for the elderly are at an all-time low, just 10 percent. But pockets of poverty persist: older unmarried persons, blacks, and Hispanics experience poverty rates in excess of 20 percent, and over 40 percent of all older single black women live in poverty. People quality for Social Security based either on their work record or their marital status. Most older women receive noncontributory Social Security spouse of widow benefits on the basis of their marital history. For these women, marital status is more important than employment status in shaping old-age financial security. However, the trend to marry and stay married has declined over time in the United States, particularly among black women. This, we hypothesize, means that fewer women will qualify for spouse and widow benefits in coming decades. As a result, Social Security benefits will shrink among the very population that currently reports higher poverty rates, older single women, particularly black women. In this policy brief, we ask: Compared to earlier cohorts, what proportion of white, black, and Hispanic women born in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s will enter old age without a marriage that qualifies them for Social Security spouse and widow benefits? We find that the proportion who will reach age 62 without a qualifying marriage, and thus be ineligible for Social Security spouse and widow benefits, is increasing modestly for whites and Hispanics but dramatically for African Americans. Most of these women will be eligible for retired worker benefits under Social Security, but those benefits are not likely to be as large as the benefits they would have received as spouses and widows, had they been eligible. We then discuss a range of policy alternatives, including the possibility of a minimum benefit.Social Security, spousal benefits, widow benefits, poverty, elderly, social welfare, income security.

Association between Body Size and Mortality in Later Life

The rising prevalence of obesity in the United States has focused attention on the health consequences of excess weight. Obesity is linked to many of the major causes of death in the United States, including heart disease, some types of cancer, strokes, diabetes, and atherosclerosis. However, the effects of body size on mortality and health among the elderly are much less clear. This paper extends our current understanding of the relationship between body size and mortality by using two nationally representative, longitudinal datasets of individuals at older ages. These analyses indicate that obesity may not contribute greatly to increased mortality risks after age 70. In fact, obesity may be somewhat protective and lower the risk of death. At younger ages, however, the effects of obesity tend to operate in the opposite direction. Women especially appear to be at greater risk of death in their 50s and 60s if they are overweight

How Will Declining Rates of Marriage Reshape Eligibility for Social Security?

For most older people in the United States, Social Security is the major source of income: nine out of ten people age 65 or older receive benefits, which represent an average of 41 percent of their income. Largely as a result of Social Security, poverty rates for the elderly are at an all-time low, just 10 percent. But pockets of poverty persist: older unmarried persons, blacks, and Hispanics experience poverty rates in excess of 20 percent, and over 40 percent of all older single black women live in poverty. People quality for Social Security based either on their work record or their marital status. Most older women receive noncontributory Social Security spouse of widow benefits on the basis of their marital history. For these women, marital status is more important than employment status in shaping old-age financial security. However, the trend to marry and stay married has declined over time in the United States, particularly among black women. This, we hypothesize, means that fewer women will qualify for spouse and widow benefits in coming decades. As a result, Social Security benefits will shrink among the very population that currently reports higher poverty rates, older single women, particularly black women. In this policy brief, we ask: Compared to earlier cohorts, what proportion of white, black, and Hispanic women born in the 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s will enter old age without a marriage that qualifies them for Social Security spouse and widow benefits? We find that the proportion who will reach age 62 without a qualifying marriage, and thus be ineligible for Social Security spouse and widow benefits, is increasing modestly for whites and Hispanics but dramatically for African Americans. Most of these women will be eligible for retired worker benefits under Social Security, but those benefits are not likely to be as large as the benefits they would have received as spouses and widows, had they been eligible. We then discuss a range of policy alternatives, including the possibility of a minimum benefit

Determinants of Catch-Up Growth in International Adoptees from Eastern Europe

Children raised in orphanages frequently experience growth suppression due to multiple risk factors. Placing such children in more nurturing environments through adoption leads to significant catch-up growth (CUG), the determinants of which are not entirely understood. The goal of this study was to perform an auxological evaluation and examine the degree and correlates of CUG in international adoptees. Children adopted from Eastern Europe, (n = 148, 71 males), 7 to 59 months of age, were recruited within 3 weeks of their arrival to the US. At baseline, mean height SDS was −1.2 ± 1.1 and 22% were <−2 SDS for height. IGF-1 and/or IGFBP-3 levels <−2 SDS were present in 32%. CUG, defined as a gain of >+0.5 in height SDS, was seen in 62% of adoptees at 6 months after adoption; 7% of children remained <−2 SDS for height (two had growth hormone deficiency). Growth factors improved in the majority of children. Younger age, greater degree of initial growth failure, and higher caloric intake were significantly associated with improved linear growth in multiple regression models. In summary, most adoptees demonstrate excellent CUG within six months after adoption. If growth failure persists after 6 months of appropriate caloric intake, nutrition-independent causes should be considered

Clinical Sequencing Exploratory Research Consortium: Accelerating Evidence-Based Practice of Genomic Medicine

Despite rapid technical progress and demonstrable effectiveness for some types of diagnosis and therapy, much remains to be learned about clinical genome and exome sequencing (CGES) and its role within the practice of medicine. The Clinical Sequencing Exploratory Research (CSER) consortium includes 18 extramural research projects, one National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI) intramural project, and a coordinating center funded by the NHGRI and National Cancer Institute. The consortium is exploring analytic and clinical validity and utility, as well as the ethical, legal, and social implications of sequencing via multidisciplinary approaches; it has thus far recruited 5,577 participants across a spectrum of symptomatic and healthy children and adults by utilizing both germline and cancer sequencing. The CSER consortium is analyzing data and creating publically available procedures and tools related to participant preferences and consent, variant classification, disclosure and management of primary and secondary findings, health outcomes, and integration with electronic health records. Future research directions will refine measures of clinical utility of CGES in both germline and somatic testing, evaluate the use of CGES for screening in healthy individuals, explore the penetrance of pathogenic variants through extensive phenotyping, reduce discordances in public databases of genes and variants, examine social and ethnic disparities in the provision of genomics services, explore regulatory issues, and estimate the value and downstream costs of sequencing. The CSER consortium has established a shared community of research sites by using diverse approaches to pursue the evidence-based development of best practices in genomic medicine

The Dynamics of Long-Term Care Service Use in Germany

Abstract Population aging and changing family patterns have made elder care an important issue. In 1994, German lawmakers enacted a major reform in the country's long-term care policy, the Dependency Insurance Act (DIA). How, and in what way, will the relative use of formal and informal long-term care services change in response? We address this question using longitudinal data from the German Socio-Economic Panel (GSOEP) to examine the mix of care providers used by older Germans prior to enactment. We find that formal care is more likely to be used by those in the poorest health, the single, or the childless. The presence of daughters increases both the use of family and formal care sources. Future work with more recent waves of the GSOEP is needed to see if family care provision is sustained in an environment of universal public long-term care insurance

Linking benefits to marital status: Race and diminishing access to Social Security spouse and widow benefits

Abstract Social Security retirement benefits have been noted for their capacity to redistribute benefits from higher to lower lifetime earners. However, two-thirds of older women receive spouse and widow benefits and the distributional impact of those benefits has not been well studied. Spouse and widow benefits are distributed on the basis of marital rather than employment status and generally require recipients to be either currently married or to have had a ten-year marriage. The unprecedented retreat from marriage, particularly among black women, means the distributional impact of these benefits change s dramatically for each cohort that enters old age. This paper uses June 1985June , 1990 and 1995 CPS supplement data to trace the decline in marital rates for women for five cohorts. The main question is what proportion of women in each cohort will reach age 62 without a ten-year marriage and thus be ineligible for spouse and widow benefits. We find that the proportion who will not be eligible as spouses or widows is increasing modestly for whites and Hispanics but dramatically for African Americans. The growing race gap in marital rates means that older black women will be particularly unlikely to qualify for these benefits.

The mononuclear phagocyte system revisited

The mononuclear phagocyte system (MPS) was defined as a family of cells comprising bone marrow progenitors, blood monocytes, and tissue macrophages. In this review, we briefly consider markers for cells of this lineage in the mouse, especially the F4/80 surface antigen and the receptor for macrophage colony-stimulating factor. The concept of the MPS is challenged by evidence that there is a separate embryonic phagocyte lineage, the blurring of the boundaries between macrophages and other cells types arising from phenotypic plasticity and transdifferentiation, and evidence of local renewal of tissue macrophage populations as opposed to monocyte recruitment. Nevertheless, there is a unity to cells of the MPS suggested by their location, morphology, and shared markers. We discuss the origins of macrophage heterogeneity and argue that macrophages and antigen-representing dendritic cells are closely related and part of the MPS

LINKING BENEFITS TO MARITAL STATUS: RACE AND SOCIAL SECURITY IN THE US

In the US, marital status is more important than work history in determining economic security for many older women. Two-thirds of older women in the US receive spouse or widow Social Security benefits. These benefits generally require recipients to be currently married or to have had a ten-year marriage. Declining marriage rates, coupled with shorter marriages, dramatically change the distributional impact of these benefits on each cohort as they become eligible for Social Security. This paper uses June 1985, 1990, and 1995 CPS supplemental data to trace the decline in marital rates for women from five birth cohorts. We find that the proportion of persons who will be eligible as spouses or widows is decreasing modestly for whites and Hispanics, but dramatically for African Americans. This growing race gap in marital rates suggests that older black women will be particularly unlikely to qualify for these benefits.Social Security, gender, race, marital status, economic security,