Mr. Johnson’s Modest* Conjecture for Saving Social Security – Beragampengetahuan

By happenstance, I was covering the challenges facing the Social Security and Medicare trust funds in my course on Wednesday. On that same day, Mr. Michael Johnson became the new Speaker of the House. In the past, he has provided an implied solution. From Newsweek:

“You think about the implications on the economy [of Roe v. Wade],” he said. “We’re all struggling here to cover the bases of social security and Medicare and Medicaid and all the rest.”

“If we had all those able-bodied workers in the economy, we wouldn’t be going upside down and toppling over like this … I will not yield, I will not. Roe was a terrible corruption of America’s constitutional jurisprudence.”

Aside from the morally questionable aspects of a breeding for fiscal solvency program, one has to ask — from a policy perspective — whether Mr. Johnson’s approach makes any sort of sense. The answer in short is no.

Arguments for this approach is based on (at least) two assumptions of questionable merit: (1) all abortions would result in viable workers with 100% labor force participation during their time in working age, and (2) criminalizing abortion would reduce meaningfully the number of abortions.

Cumulative abortions since 1973 through 2020 were 60.8 million; those born in 2004 were of working age (16) by 2020, using figures provided by the Guttmacher Institute (with linear interpolation of missing years of data). Cumulative through 2004 were  44.4 million. Of course, not everybody born in 1973 survives to age 47 (age in 2020). The survival rate is about 94%; for a 16 year old in 2020, it’s about 99%. Split the difference, apply an average of 97% to 44.4 million, yields 43.1 million. For 21-54 age group, the participation rate in 2022 was 81.4%. This means the increment to the labor force of 35.1 million. According to the 2023 SSA Trustees’ Report (Table IV.B.3), covered workers in 2020 totaled 174.9 million.

On the other hand, with greater fertility rate, the participation rate would’ve been lower as child rearing activities would have been higher (unless fully funded child care was available). In principle, the participation rate would decline equally for males and females, but I suspect Mr. Johnson would prefer female participation rates to be lower (Kinder,Küche, Kirche!). Determining how much lower would require some additional assumptions. Hence, 35.1 million increment to covered workers is very much the upper bound. In addition, had Roe v. Wade not been effect, 1973 onward, female participation rate would have presumably been lower, thereby further reducing covered employment (for age group 25-34, there is a 15 ppt gap in participation rate between males and females, in 2022).

Taking 35.1 million figure literally, the maximal impact on the covered ratio to OASDI beneficiary in 2020 would be to raise it from 2.7 to 3.2. For context, consider the following graph of the trend in the covered ratio, where the counterfactual is shown as a red +.

Source: graph from Peter G. Peterson Foundation, edited by author.

Note that under the most optimistic conditions, there is a small improvement in the covered worker ratio to beneficiaries ratio, but not one that will change the trajectory substantially.

The other assumption (2) is more problematic. The assumption is that once abortion is illegal, abortions would drop to zero. However, estimates of pre-Roe abortions range from 200K to 1.2 million during the 1950’s-’60’s. From Scientific American: “According to one estimate, extrapolating data from North Carolina to the nation as a whole, 699,000 illegal abortions occurred in the U.S. during 1955, and 829,000 illegal procedures were performed in 1967.” In the first year of Roe, 745 thousand abortions were performed. This means that the overall number abortions might not be reduced substantially by criminalization, unless incredibly invasive and draconian monitoring and policing measures are implemented.

While overall abortions might not decline, an increase in deaths and disabilities due to now-criminalized procedures might occur, as unregulated procedures are implemented. The rich, on the other hand, will be able to access abortion procedures by travel. Hence, there are severe distributional consequences of criminalizing abortion.

In sum, Mr. Johnson’s program of using women as breeding machines would not likely save Social Security.

*apologies to Jonathan Swift.