Pension Backloading, Wage Taxes, and Work Disincentives

The Federal Government is actively involved in encouraging the formation and growth of private pensions and in regulating their behavior. The primary form of encouragement is the government's tax subsidization of pensions. A primary attribute of pension plan provisions is an implicit tax on employment after certain ages. The primary form of pension regulation is through ERISA, the Employee Retirement Income Security Act. The government's involvement in encouraging and regulating private pensions appears to reflect its desire that workers have a secure source of old age income which will lessen their reliance on Social Security. In recent years the government has reacted to demographic changes, and their effects on Social Security funding, and the increase in early retirement by also using its pension and Social Security tax and regulatory policies to encourage workers to delay their retirement decision. This paper examines the structure of pension plans with two questions in mind. First have government pension backloading regulations aimed at assuring future pension benefits been effective? and, second, has the structure of old age pension accrual at the end of the workspan, an imp