Social Security Bulletin, Vol. 62 No. 3

This article examines poverty among persons aged 65 or older under experimental measures, which are based on a 1995 report released by the National Academy of Sciences. When compared with the official measure, the experimental measure produces higher poverty rates for all groups and narrower differences in poverty rates across groups.

This article addresses the importance of using data for couples rather than individuals to estimate Social Security benefits. We show how individual data can underestimate actual Social Security benefits, particularly for women, and discuss how its use has implications for policy evaluation.

This article uses data from the Health and Retirement Survey to examine the characteristics of individuals who are covered under integrated pension plans by comparing them with people covered by nonintegrated plans and those with no pension plan.

This article examines suggestions by the General Accounting Office (GAO) to improve the rate of rehabilitation of workers on the disability rolls. It examines GAO's suggestions within the context of research by experts on return-to-work practices in Germany, Sweden, and the United States. It also discusses lessons learned from the European experiences and current and past return-to-work initiatives used in the Social Security Disability Insurance and Supplemental Security Income programs.

Workers are not instantly eligible for Social Security retirement benefits on their 62nd birthdays, nor can they receive benefits in the month they turn 62. This note discusses how well researchers can do using data from the Health and Retirement Study (HRS) to identify respondents old enough to receive and report early Social Security retirement benefits. It shows that only some workers aged 62 at the time of an HRS interview will be "62 enough" to have received a Social Security benefit and reported it in the survey.