TY  - JOUR
AU  - Shoven,John B.
AU  - Goda,Gopi Shah
TI  - Adjusting Government Policies for Age Inflation
JF  - National Bureau of Economic Research Working Paper Series
VL  - No. 14231
PY  - 2008
Y2  - August 2008
UR  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w14231
L1  - http://www.nber.org/papers/w14231.pdf
N1  - Author contact info:
John B. Shoven
Department of Economics
Room 132
579 Serra Mall at Galvez Street
Stanford, CA 94305-6015
Tel: 650/326-5377
Fax: 650/328-4163
E-Mail: shoven@leland.stanford.edu

Gopi Shah Goda
1730 Cambridge St, S410
Cambridge, MA 02138
Tel: 650-906-4102
E-Mail: gopi.shah.goda@gmail.com
AB  - 
Government policies that are based on age do not adjust to the fact that a given age is associated with a higher remaining life expectancy and lower mortality risk relative to earlier time periods due to improvements in mortality.  We examine four possible methods for adjusting the eligibility ages for Social Security, Medicare, and Individual Retirement Accounts to determine what eligibility ages would be today and in 2050 if adjustments for mortality improvement were taken into account.  We find that historical adjustment of eligibility ages for age inflation would have increased ages of eligibility by approximately 0.15 years annually.  Failure to adjust for mortality improvement implies the percent of the population eligible to receive full Social Security benefits and Medicare will increase substantially relative to the share eligible under a policy of age adjustment.
ER  -