Do Stronger Age Discrimination Laws Make Social Security Reforms More Effective?

Supply-side Social Security reforms to increase employment and delay benefit claiming among older individuals may be frustrated by age discrimination. We test for policy complementarities between supply-side Social Security reforms and demand-side efforts to deter age discrimination, specifically studying whether stronger state-level age discrimination protections enhanced the impact of the increases in the Social Security Full Retirement Age (FRA) that occurred in the past decade. The evidence indicates that, for older individuals who were “caught” by the increase in the FRA, benefit claiming reductions and employment increases were sharper in states with stronger age discrimination protections. Author Acknowledgements We are grateful to the Social Security Administration, through a grant to the Michigan Retirement Research Center (MRRC), and to the Borchard Foundation Center on Law & Aging, for financial support, and to Larry Jacobson, Joanna Lahey, and participants at the 2011 MRRC research conference for helpful comments. All conclusions and opinions are solely ours.