Social Security

Sex: Female or Male.

Race/Ethnicity: We list Hispanics first; the rest of the groups are non-Hispanic.

Immigration: We differentiate between native born and foreign-born individuals.

Age: We begin at age 60 because it is the earliest eligibility age for any aged benefits under current law.

Marital Status: Refers only to the status in the year of analysis. An individual's marital status can change in the future and may have been different in the past.

Education: Is the reported number of years of education.

• Graduate means >16 years of education,
• Bachelor means 16 years of education,
• Associate means 14–15 years of education,
• High school means 12–13 years of education, and
• Less Than 12 Years means <12 years of education.

Individual Income Quintile: Represents an individual's income, including:

• his or her own earnings;
• defined benefit pension income;
• means-tested income;
• non-means-tested income;
• Social Security (scheduled benefits);
• Supplemental Security Income (SSI) (split if married); and
• asset income, which includes income from defined contribution plans (split if married).

We calculate the quintiles for each year for all elderly beneficiaries aged 60 or older. For example, in 2030, the individual incomes of all 60+ elderly beneficiaries are tabulated, the dollar thresholds for each quintile are determined, and each beneficiary is assigned to the appropriate quintile. The dollar ranges shown are in annual real 2012 dollars.

Household Income Quintile: Represents an individual's annual household income, including:

• household earnings;
• asset income, which includes income from defined contribution plans;
• defined benefit pensions;
• means-tested income;
• non-means-tested income;
• Social Security (scheduled benefits);
• SSI; and
• non-spousal co-residents' income.

This same money income amount is used to determine poverty status. We calculate the quintiles for each year for all elderly beneficiaries aged 60 or older as described above for individual income quintiles. The dollar ranges shown are in annual real 2012 dollars.

Shared Earnings Quintile: Represents the sum of wage-indexed shared lifetime total earnings. While other quintiles account only for the current spouse's benefits or earnings, this quintile accounts for all previous marriages as well. We divide the sum by 40 for presentation purposes, but earnings across a whole lifetime are included in the sum. If a person is single in a given year, all of his or her earnings that year are counted as shared earnings. If a person is married in a given year, half of the married couple's combined earnings that year are counted as shared earnings. We calculate the quintiles for each year for all elderly beneficiaries aged 60 or older. Wage indexing controls for differences across generations. The dollar ranges shown are in annual real 2012 dollars.

Beneficiary types include:

• Retired worker: receives only a retired worker (OASI) benefit on his or her earnings record.
• Spousal & Worker: receives a retired worker benefit and a partial aged spousal benefit.
• Spousal only: receives an aged spousal benefit.
• Survivor & Worker: receives a retired worker benefit and a partial aged survivor benefit.
• Survivor only: receives an aged survivor benefit.
• Retired Disabled: formerly disabled, but is at Normal Retirement Age or older and thus receives an OASI worker benefit and possibly an aged spousal or survivor benefit.
• Disabled Worker: receives a disabled worker benefit and possibly an aged spousal or survivor benefit.
• None: Entitled later: no benefit as of the analysis year, but will take up benefits in a later year.
• None: Never receives: never receives a Social Security benefit. See the Never Beneficiaries fact sheet for more information.

Claiming Age: The age a respondent starts receiving Social Security benefits. The breakouts may not be ideal for analysis purposes, but were chosen to provide enough of a sample size that the category would not disappear when we subset the overall population (see Sample Size Restrictions).

Quarters of Coverage: The total Social Security credits a person earns in his or her lifetime. Credits can be used as a proxy for number of years of work and have been used to create work-effort tests in policy options.

Own AIME Quintile: The individual's own average indexed monthly earnings (AIME) for that year, wage-indexed up from the year of initial eligibility minus two to allow comparisons of AIMEs across multiple birth cohorts. The dollar ranges shown are in monthly real 2012 dollars.

Paying AIME Quintile: The AIME that determines the total benefit paid to an individual, even if the individual has a worker benefit of his or her own. This quintile categorizes auxiliary beneficiaries according to their higher-earning spouse's AIME, so that policies that affect higher earners do not appear to be targeted at beneficiaries with a low worker benefit but a higher overall benefit. The paying AIME is wage-indexed up from the year of initial eligibility minus two to allow comparisons of AIMEs across multiple birth cohorts. The dollar ranges shown are in monthly real 2012 dollars.

Household Benefit Quintile: Represents the sum of individual, spouse, and any child benefits paid to the household in the year. This captures benefits beyond the individual's own. Results that appear to affect lower AIME beneficiaries may be due to low- and high-earning workers who are married to one another and this quintile controls for those higher-earning spouses. The dollar ranges shown are in monthly real 2012 dollars.

Adjusted Gross Income: The adjusted gross income from the individual's projected federal income tax, a measure used as part of means-tested policy options. The adjusted gross income value reported will be for the entire tax unit, which is generally either single, if the respondent is single; head of household, if respondent is single with kids; or married filing jointly, if the respondent is married. The dollar ranges shown are in annual real 2012 dollars.