Longer life expectancy and transferable skillsets help explain why so many baby boomers are retiring later than their parents, and that’s good news for Social Security according to economics professor Shantanu Bagchi, Ph.D.
“Once you account for the fact that individuals are going to respond to these longer lifespans by living longer, they’re ultimately contributing to Social Security,” says Bagchi in an article by Washington Jewish Week earlier this year.
Bagchi’s interest in public economics spurred him to pursue research that attempts to understand whether the fiscal and welfare implications of Social Security are actually what the public commonly believes them to be.
In particular, he has shown that the public pension system’s funding woes may not be as dire as often claimed, that the insurance effects of Social Security may be sensitive to how if affects household behavior, and also that differences in life expectancy between the wealthy and the poor may nullify much of Social Security’s beneficial effects.