Law Commons^™

An Overview Of The U.S. Retirement Income Security System And The Principles And Values It Reflects, Kathryn L. Moore

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

This article is designed to provide an overview of the U.S. retirement income security system from a comparative law perspective. Like many countries, the U.S. has a three tier pension or retirement income system, with the three tiers consisting of (1) Social Security, (2) employment-based pensions, and (3) individual savings. Thus, superficially, the U.S. retirement income security system resembles that of many around the world. Yet, in other ways, such as its focus on individual rights and responsibility, the U.S. system is unique.

The article begins by discussing the nine guiding principles of the U.S. Social Security system as identified …

Erisa & Uncertainty, Brendan S. Maher, Peter K. Stris

Faculty Scholarship

In the United States, retirement income and health insurance are largely provided through private promises made incident to employment. These “benefit promises” are governed by a statute called ERISA, which many healthcare and pension scholars argue is the cause of fundamental problems with our nation’s health and retirement policy. Inevitably, however, they advance narrowly tailored proposals to amend the statute. This occurs because of the widely-held view that reform should leave undisturbed the underlying core of the statute. This Article develops a theory of ERISA designed to illustrate the unavoidable need for structural reform.

The Effects Of Partial Privatization Of Social Security Upon Private Pensions, Kathryn L. Moore

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Social Security does not provide retirement income in a vacuum. Rather, commentators often refer to our national retirement income system as a three legged stool, with Social Security representing one of the legs and employer sponsored pension plans and individual savings representing the other two legs. Because changes in one leg of the stool are likely to have a direct impact on the other two legs, policymakers must not consider Social Security changes in isolation, but should take account of their effect on employer-sponsored pensions and individual savings. This Article analyzes how one of the most popular proposals, partial privatization, …

Redistribution Under The Current Social Security System, Kathryn L. Moore

Law Faculty Scholarly Articles

Arguably the most successful program of the modern welfare state, Social Security has been enormously successful in lifting the elderly out of poverty. Thirty years ago, almost 30% of the elderly were in poverty, a poverty rate that was more than twice as high as the rate for the population as a whole. Today, in contrast, only about 12% of the elderly are subject to poverty, a rate that is about the same as the rest of the adult population.

This Article describes how the current system redistributes income. The Article does not attempt to develop a mathematical model to …