Public Spending on Income-Tested Social Welfare Programs for Investment and Consumption Purposes

The Clinton administration contends that public spending for investment should be increased, but public spending for consumption should be decreased. This article reports findings from a study that investigated the trend in public spending from 1975 to 1992 for social welfare programs that are targeted to low-income families and individuals. The study found that public spending for social welfare programs for investment purposes declined generally during that period and public spending for consumption purposes increased primarily because of the increase in medical benefits

Lessons from Private Health Insurance

All across the country there is a sense of urgency, and even of crisis over what is happening in the health industry. Of special concern are the rapid rate of increase in the cost of health care services and the increasing national expenditures for health care. For fiscal year 1976, the total U.S. spending for health care reached $149.8 billion, or a per capita expenditure of$638. Expressed as a percentage of the gross national product (GNP), the national spending for health care reached a record-breaking 8.6 percent.1 From the early 1960s--except during the period from August 1971 through April 1974, when the prices of medical care services were controlled--these prices have risen about two times faster than those of non-health-care services. Thus the differential between the prices of these two types of services has increased markedly during the period. Especially disturbing is that the cost of hospital care services, expenditures for which comprise the largest proportion (40 percent) of total national health care expenditures, are increasing faster than any other type of medical care services

Determinants of Knowledge about Social Security: A Study of Nonremarried Widows Caring for Children

Social security beneficiaries and the general public alike are concerned about the financial solvency of the social security program. But how much do they know about how the system works? This study analyzes the determinants of knowledge about social security among nonremarried widows having children under their care. It builds a research model based on the economic theory of rational decision making. Using ordinary least squares regression estimation techniques, the level of knowledge about specific social security provisions is regressed on family income, implicit tax rate, number of children, human capital variables, and other demographic and locational variables. The findings support the economic theory applied to this study. Widows who gain more by knowing social security provisions indeed know more about them than those who gain less

Net Worth Accumulation by Different Quintiles of Older Adults Approaching Retirement Age and 10 Years Later

The shift in responsibility for income security from the government to individuals makes the accumulation of net worth a vital issue. We investigated the rate of net worth accumulation for people aged 51 to 61 in 1991 (N=7,544) and 61 to 71 in 2001 (N=5,711) using the RAND Health and Retirement Study. We found that the rate of net worth accumulation by the fifth (top) quintile was extremely high in 1991, and the distribution of net worth became more skewed in favor of the wealthy in 2001. Older adults in the first and second quintiles are unable to face the challenge of the shift in responsibility for income security from the government to individuals

Economic and Human Capital Factors in the Future Work Plans of Young Widows

This study examines the future work plans of nonremarried widows under age 55 who have dependent children at home (N=2,599). All families in this study were receiving survivor benefits from social security in 1978. Human capital resources of the widow, economic need, her age, and family situational variables were included in multiple regression analyses as possible predictors of future work plans. The results support the importance of human capital resources and age of the widow, support the importance of economic need only for widows already working, and suggest that family situational variables are less significant in predicting widows\u27 future work plans. The source of data for this study is the 1978 Survey of Survivor Families with Children conducted by the Social Security Administration

Income and Personal Resources: Correlates of Psychological Adjustment to Widowhood

This study investigates factors that may determine the level of psychological adjustment to widowhood. Independent variables considered in this study are income and human capital. The population from which the study\u27s sample was drawn consists of all nonremarried widows with at least one child receiving survivor benefits from social security in 1978 (N=3,041). The results support the importance of human capital variables for their predictive power. On the other hand, family income has not been found statistically significant. The source of data for this study is the 1978 Survey of Survivor Families with Children conducted by the Social Security Administration

Planned age of retirement and actual age of retirement

This study investigated why the age that the respondents planned to retire and the age that they actually retired differ. Using the data from the RAND Health and Retirement Study (HRS) Waves 1 (1992) through 8 (2006), we analyzed 5,727 respondents who were working and aged 51 to 61 at Wave 1. By the end of wave 8, 80.61% were retired. We found that 59.28% of respondents retired before reaching their planned retirement age for one reason or another. On the basis of our findings, we argue against the traditional assumption that many workers are choosing to claim early retirement. Instead, we argue that many workers are compelled to retire early despite actuarial reductions. With regard to wider policy issues, we also argue that social security preserves the vital part of the safety net and should not be privatized

Finishing the euchromatic sequence of the human genome

The sequence of the human genome encodes the genetic instructions for human physiology, as well as rich information about human evolution. In 2001, the International Human Genome Sequencing Consortium reported a draft sequence of the euchromatic portion of the human genome. Since then, the international collaboration has worked to convert this draft into a genome sequence with high accuracy and nearly complete coverage. Here, we report the result of this finishing process. The current genome sequence (Build 35) contains 2.85 billion nucleotides interrupted by only 341 gaps. It covers ∼99% of the euchromatic genome and is accurate to an error rate of ∼1 event per 100,000 bases. Many of the remaining euchromatic gaps are associated with segmental duplications and will require focused work with new methods. The near-complete sequence, the first for a vertebrate, greatly improves the precision of biological analyses of the human genome including studies of gene number, birth and death. Notably, the human enome seems to encode only 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes. The genome sequence reported here should serve as a firm foundation for biomedical research in the decades ahead

Women's Life Cycle & Economic Insecurity

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