Excerpt: While Social Security's Normal Retirement Age (NRA) is increasing to 67, the Earliest Eligibility Age (EEA) remains at 62. Similar plans to increase the EEA raise concerns that they would create excessive hardship on workers that are worn-out or in bad health. One simple rule to increase the EEA is to tie an increase to the number of quarters of covered earnings. Such a provision would allow those with long worklives -- presumably the less educated and lower paid -- to quit earlier. We provide evidence that this simple rule would not satisfy the goal of preventing undue hardship on certain workers.  MORE >>