Economics Seminar - "Social Security Coverage and the Retirement Timing of Public Workers"

U.S. workers time their retirements in response to key Social Security age benchmarks, most notably age 62. However, public workers may be less responsive than other workers to Social Security benchmarks because they are also typically enrolled in defined benefit pension plans, which have their own (strong) retirement timing incentives. We use a panel dataset of Texas teachers to test how public workers respond to dual Social Security coverage. We find no evidence that dual covered teachers alter their retirement behavior to target retirement at age 62. Our findings are consistent with the claim that teachers’ state-plan retirement incentives are dominant.