MAKING CLAIMS AS WORKERS OR WIVES - THE DISTRIBUTION OF SOCIAL-SECURITY BENEFITS

U.S. Social Security benefits are widely recognized as redistributive across class, race, and gender lines. However, this assessment is base d on the impact of retired worker (contributory) benefits. The distrib utional effects of noncontributory spouse and widow benefits, through which two-thirds of older women make their claims, are markedly differ ent. Class-based theorists examining the stratifying effects of welfar e state programs focus on sources of bias that are disadvantageous to lower-class workers while feminist accounts highlight sources of bias that are disadvantageous to women. Using published and unpublished sum mary data made available by the Social Security Administration, I demo nstrate that while historical sources of gender bias linked to contrib utory benefits have dissipated somewhat, race, class and marital statu s biases linked to noncontributory benefits persist. Ultimately, benef its linked to marital status are potentially as exclusionary for some groups of women as are benefits linked to contributions for other grou ps. I reject arguments that spouse and widow benefits may be justified as rewards for unpaid domestic work or as mechanisms to target the po ol: Noncontributory benefits are unrelated to domestic labor and syste matically are most advantageous to middle-class and upper-class marrie d White women who have never contributed to the system.