Pension integration and Social Security reform

Many employer-provided pensions plans explicitly account for Social Security in their benefit formulas-a practice known as integration. Because integrated pensions are directly linked to Social Security, both the incidence and design of explicitly integrated plans are likely to be affected by changes in the current Social Security program. While integration has been mentioned as an important issue in discussions of Social Security reform, researchers have largely ignored the concept of pension integration. This article provides basic information about pension integration and addresses, in general terms, the relationship between Social Security reform and pension integration.