Health Of Americans Who Must Work Longer To Reach Social Security Retirement Age

Social Security's normal retirement age is the age at which US workers can begin collecting the full value of Social Security benefits for which they are eligible. Because of legislation enacted in 1983, Americans born after 1937 must claim Social Security benefits at an older age than those in earlier birth cohorts to receive full benefits. A primary reason for increasing the normal retirement age was that life expectancy improved substantially since Social Security was created. However, it is unclear whether and for how long these favorable trends continued.

Our objective in this analysis was to determine the level of morbidity in the years leading up to retirement for birth cohorts required to work to an older age to collect full benefits, relative to earlier birth cohorts.