“Social Security is among the most successful federal programs in modern U.S. history,” Deborah Carr of Boston University, Leping Wang of Vanderbilt, and Pamela J. Smock of the University of Michigan noted in a paper they just published in The Gerontologist . However, Social Security also perpetuates inequality, as the title of their paper, “ Do Social Security benefits rules perpetuate marital status and gender inequities? ”, suggests. People who have never been married receive substantially less Social Security income than people who are married, and women typically receive lower benefits than men.

Social Security is designed so that married people have a big advantage that never-married people do not have: They can collect benefits based on their own earnings or up to half of the e

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