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Economic Commentary

Does Social Security Worsen Inequality?

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Gaps between the rich and poor grow once people hit retirement. Some say privatizing Social Security will increase wealth inequality among retirees. This Commentary argues it won’t and suggests that the current system may be reducing wealth mobility from one generation to the next. This Commentary is based on a presentation given at the CATO Institutes conference on Social Security Privatization, February 5—7, 2001.

08.15.2001ISSN 2163-3738 EC 8/15/2001

The views authors express in Economic Commentary are theirs and not necessarily those of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland or the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. The series editor is Tasia Hane. This paper and its data are subject to revision; please visit clevelandfed.org for updates.

Suggested Citation

Gokhale, Jagadeesh. 2001. “Does Social Security Worsen Inequality?” Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, Economic Commentary 8/15/2001.

This work by Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International