scholarly journals Privatization of Social Security Retirement Systems: Lessons and Comparisons from Chile, Argentina, and the United States

2019 ◽  
pp. 97-116
Author(s):  
Elisa Walker
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Security ◽  
Social Insurance ◽  
The United States ◽  
Individual Account ◽  
Retirement System ◽  
Institutional Structures ◽  
Investment Returns ◽  
Group Mobilization ◽  
Retirement Systems

Retirement pensions are traditionally provided through government social insurance systems, which pool risks broadly across the population and provide benefits that are set in law. In contrast, under privatized systems, workers’ benefits depend on their own individual account balances and investment returns, with little or no redistribution and pooling of risk across the population. In 1981, Chile became the first country to fully privatize its social security retirement system, setting an example that Argentina and numerous other countries later emulated. More than two decades later, both Chile and Argentina undertook “re-reforms” to their privatized systems, with Chile maintaining its privatized system while Argentina returned to a fully public system. The United States also confronted efforts to privatize its Social Security system around the same time periods—in the early 1980s and the early 2000s—but ultimately chose to strengthen the existing system rather than privatizing. This article examines and contrasts these three countries’ experiences in the 1980s-90s and 2005-08, probing the factors that led to or prevented privatization. While finances usually provided the stated pretext for reform, privatization is now widely acknowledged to worsen the financial challenges faced by pension systems. Ultimately, neoliberal ideologies were pivotal in putting privatization on the policy agenda, and institutional structures and interest group mobilization helped to shape the outcomes of the privatization effort.

A Slippery Slope: Economists and Social Insurance in the United States

1997 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 397-408 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard B. Du Boff
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Young People ◽  
Social Security ◽  
Social Insurance ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Climate ◽  
The Public ◽  
Economic Problems ◽  
Negative Images

Since the 1980s welfare state protections have been blamed for a host of economic problems. In the United States, conservatives have always disliked Social Security but could not effectively attack this popular program until the 1980s, when they devised a new tactic—warning young people that they would never get their “money's worth” from Social Security, which is on the brink of “bankruptcy.” The political climate, dominated by a drive to cut back “big government,” also became favorable for attempts to destabilize Social Security politically. Thus, negative images of Social Security have been forced onto the public agenda, and economists who consider themselves “liberal” have uncritically accepted this new set of political “givens.” It is an example of how they address “crises” as separable issues tied to no particular social context.

Federalism and the Politics of Old-Age Care in Germany and the United States

2005 ◽  
Vol 38 (8) ◽  
pp. 887-914 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Louise Campbell ◽  
Kimberly J. Morgan
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Insurance ◽  
Long Term Care ◽  
The United States ◽  
Party Politics ◽  
Term Care ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Group Mobilization ◽  
The Welfare State

Until the early 1990s, Germany and the United States had similar systems of long-term care. At that time, Germany created a new social insurance program, whereas American reform efforts stalled. As conventional explanations of social policies—rooted in objective conditions, policy legacies, interest group mobilization, and party politics—fail to explain the diverging trajectories, the authors show how differing federal structures shaped reform efforts. German federalism gives states a strong voice and encourages collective responses to fiscal problems, enabling comprehensive restructuring of long-term care financing. In the United States, states lack a political mechanism to compel federal policy makers to tackle this subject. This analysis suggests reform of social welfare issues with weakly mobilized publics is unlikely without proxy actors that have institutional or political means to forcibly gain the attention of policy makers. In addition, scholars should pay more attention to “varieties of federalism” in analyses of the welfare state.

The Welfare State, Pensions, Privatization: The Case of Social Security in the United States

1997 ◽  
Vol 27 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Richard B. Du Boff
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Security ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Social Insurance ◽  
Cost Benefit ◽  
Pension Plan ◽  
The United States ◽  
Private Pension Plan ◽  
Cost Benefit Ratio ◽  
The Welfare State

In all high-income nations, the welfare state is under challenge, with particular concern voiced about the burden of retirement pensions on the public fisc and on younger workers. The strongest drive against social insurance is taking place in the United States, which has less of it than other nations and appears to be in the best position to meet future entitlement claims. In this article, the author examines the liabilities that the U.S. Social Security system is likely to incur over the next 35 years and finds that there is little danger that the system will fall into insolvency. Privatizing Social Security is not necessary to assure the integrity of future pension benefits. Furthermore, the cost-benefit ratio of privatization appears to be unfavorable, as borne out by the mandatory private pension plan in effect in Chile. Some wealthy nations will face greater demographic strains than the United States, but all need to retain the welfare state as a foundation for future changes in the world of work.

Special Interests or Citizens' Rights? “Senior Power,” Social Security, and Medicare

1997 ◽  
Vol 27 (4) ◽  
pp. 727-751 ◽  
Author(s):  
Debra Street
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Security ◽  
Social Insurance ◽  
Oldest Old ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
The United States ◽  
Critical Examination ◽  
Private Pensions ◽  
Political Actors ◽  
Mainstream Media

Conventional political analysts and mainstream media accounts attribute substantial political power to the elderly in the United States. This attribution of “senior power” is usually made in the context of the politics of Social Security and Medicare. This article contrasts the conventional construction of elderly political actors as a special interest with a more critical perspective that views Social Security and Medicare as citizens' rights. Critical examination of the welfare state's role in creating age as a potential political cleavage and the politics of Social Security and Medicare reveals that there is no undifferentiated politics of aging in the United States. Rather, age interacts with a variety of other statuses such as race/ethnicity, gender, and class to condition citizens' political mobilization. Welfare state policies—social insurance programs like Social Security and Medicare, means-tested programs like Medicaid and Supplemental Security Income, and targeted tax expenditures for private pensions and health insurance—differentially empower particular subgroups of elderly citizens and routinely disadvantage the most vulnerable elderly, including minority elders, women, and the oldest old.

scholarly journals Debt Relief and Debtor Outcomes: Measuring the Effects of Consumer Bankruptcy Protection

2015 ◽  
Vol 105 (3) ◽  
pp. 1272-1311 ◽  
Author(s):  
Will Dobbie ◽  
Jae Song
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Insurance ◽  
The United States ◽  
Debt Relief ◽  
Random Assignment ◽  
Percentage Points ◽  
Consumer Bankruptcy ◽  
Annual Earnings ◽  
The Impact

Consumer bankruptcy is one of the largest social insurance programs in the United States, but little is known about its impact on debtors. We use 500,000 bankruptcy filings matched to administrative tax and foreclosure data to estimate the impact of Chapter 13 bankruptcy protection on subsequent outcomes. Exploiting the random assignment of bankruptcy filings to judges, we find that Chapter 13 protection increases annual earnings by $5,562, decreases five-year mortality by 1.2 percentage points, and decreases five-year foreclo-sure rates by 19.1 percentage points. These results come primarily from the deterioration of outcomes among dismissed filers, not gains by granted filers. (JEL D14, I12, J22, J31, K35)

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