Retirement Security Law Commons^™

Hope We Die Before We Get Old: The Attack On Retirement, Patricia E. Dilley

UF Law Faculty Publications

The American institution of retirement has sustained numerous attacks over the last twenty years, to the extent that it may cease to exist by the time most of today's workers reach their midsixties. Professor Patricia Dilley describes how all of the components of the "three-legged stool" that represents private pensions, personal savings, and Social Security, have declined so significantly in recent years that the combination may not be able to provide support for the elderly in the future, particularly those retired seniors who are in the lower and middle classes. Changes in employment policies, the markets for retirement savings investment, …

Breaking The Glass Slipper: Reflections On The Self-Employment Tax, Patricia E. Dilley

UF Law Faculty Publications

Lawmakers and their staffs, in drafting tax legislation, often resemble Prince Charming looking for Cinderella with that glass slipper in hand -- rather than start from scratch and draft a completely new tax provision. It is frequently easier, faster, and more reassuring to taxpayers and tax practitioners to use an existing statute or approach and simply amend it slightly to make it fit the need of the new provision. However, problems can arise from this approach.

In the original Grimm Brothers' version of the Cinderella story, for example, the wicked stepsisters were each so anxious to be the chosen one …

Taking Public Rights Private: The Rhetoric And Reality Of Social Security Privatization, Patricia E. Dilley

UF Law Faculty Publications

This Article explores the foundations of the Social Security privatization debate. What is frequently portrayed as a numbers problem to which a "correct" answer can be found is in fact an ideological and political argument about wealth building versus direct income support and about the reality and security of public entitlement as opposed to private property rights. Efforts to use the idea of private property as the basis of rights in the context of the Social Security system and other non-retirement social welfare programs have proven problematic. This Article suggests that Social Security, far from being a quaint, retrograde souvenir …

The Evolution Of Entitlement: Retirement Income And The Problem Of Integrating Private Pensions And Social Security, Patricia E. Dilley

UF Law Faculty Publications

There are clear distinctions between the legal relationships creating private pension entitlement and Social Security benefit entitlement. Nonetheless, an analysis of the function and context of retirement income rights reveals that the presumed gulf between public and private rights in this area is not nearly so wide as it may at first seem. In this Article I examine the historical roots and evolution of the American system of entitlement to old-age income security in order to understand why in one technical area--the integration of private pension plans with Social Security--workers' presumed entitlement to private pensions is less secure than their …