Social Security and Trends in Wealth Inequality

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Catherine, Sylvain; Miller, Max; Sarin, Natasha
• 署名单位: University of Pennsylvania; Harvard University; Yale University
• 刊物名称: JOURNAL OF FINANCE
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0022-1082
• DOI: 10.1111/jofi.13440
• 发表日期: 2025
• 关键词: PENSION WEALTH; life-cycle; retirement; benefits

摘要

Recent influential work finds large increases in inequality in the United States based on measures of wealth concentration that notably exclude the value of social insurance programs. This paper shows that top wealth shares have not changed much over the last three decades when Social Security is properly accounted for. This is because Social Security wealth increased substantially from $7.2 trillion in 1989 to $40.6 trillion in 2019 and now represents nearly 50% of the wealth of the bottom 90% of the wealth distribution. This finding is robust to potential changes to taxes and benefits in response to system financing concerns.