Headlines about "Social Security - reform"
Gathered from the web by the editors at BenefitsLink.com.
Are Millennials Ready for Social Security Reform?
"[M]illennials are getting an early start on retirement saving ... First, they have watched their baby boomer parents struggle to prepare for retirement.... Second, this age group is not relying heavily on the solvency of Social Security. In fact, less than half of those surveyed plan on relying on public programs for retirement income." (National Center for Policy Analysis)
Exchanging Delayed Social Security Benefits for Lump Sums: Could This Incentivize Longer Work Careers?
"This paper explores whether allowing people to receive a lump sum as a payment for delayed retirement rather than as an addition to their lifetime Social Security benefits might induce them to work longer.... Our base case indicates that workers given the chance to receive their delayed retirement credit as a lump sum payment would boost their average retirement age by 1-1/2 to 2 years." (University of Michigan Retirement Research Center)
GAO Report: Preliminary Observations on Key Management Challenges of the Social Security Administration
"In this statement, GAO discusses initial observations from its ongoing review and describes (1) key management challenges SSA faces in meeting its mission-related objectives and (2) the extent to which SSA's planning efforts address these challenges.... This work is ongoing and GAO has no recommendations at this time. GAO plans to issue its final report in June 2013." (U.S. Government Accountability Office)
Entitlement Reform and Retirement Benefits
"A change in the [Social Security Retirement Age] presents an explicit challenge for DB plans, because those plans generally premise their benefit on a normal retirement age. It also presents an implicit challenge for account-based designs like cash balance or DC plans, at least to the extent the plan design focuses on enabling a participant to accumulate an adequate benefit at some assumed 'retirement age.'" (October Three)
Chained CPI: Social Security Friend or Foe?
"President Obama's budget proposes to use the chained CPI as a more accurate way of setting the annual inflation increases for Social Security benefits. It is not a cure-all for the program's long-term funding challenge but would, by itself, eliminate about a fifth of that gap. It does so, however, by cutting benefits to most recipients." (U.S.News and World Report)
[Opinion] Unexpected Praise for Australia's Private Social Security System
"Probably the most sobering comparison is to look at a chart of how much private wealth has been created in Superannuation accounts and then look at a chart of the debt that we face for Social Security. To be blunt, the Aussies are kicking our butts." (Cato Institute)
Differences Between the Traditional CPI and the Chained CPI
"The traditional versions of the CPI are based on spending patterns from a point in the past, and so do not fully incorporate the effects of consumers' substitution between various goods and services when their relative prices change.... The chained CPI-U provides a more accurate estimate of changes in the cost of living from one month to the next by using market baskets from both months, thus 'chaining' the two months together." (Congressional Budget Office Blog)
[Opinion] CBO Testimony: Using the Chained CPI to Index Social Security, Other Federal Programs, and the Tax Code for Inflation
"The chained CPI grows more slowly than the traditional CPI does: an average of about 0.25 percentage points more slowly per year over the past decade. As a result, using that measure to index benefit programs would reduce federal spending for Social Security, federal employees' pensions, Medicare, Medicaid, and various other programs.... If all uses of the traditional CPI in mandatory programs and the tax code were switched to the chained CPI starting in calendar year 2014, mandatory spending would be reduced by a total of $216 billion between fiscal years 2014 and 2023, and federal revenues would be increased by $124 billion." (Congressional Budget Office)
What Would Be the Effect on the Deficit of Using the Chained CPI to Index Benefit Programs and the Tax Code?
"CBO and the staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation estimate that switching to the chained CPI-U on a governmentwide basis starting in calendar year 2014 would reduce the deficit by a total of $340 billion over the next 10 years. Such a change would decrease federal spending on mandatory programs (direct spending) by $216 billion and increase federal revenues by $124 billion over the fiscal year 2014-2023 period." (Congressional Budget Office)
[Opinion] How to Rescue Retirement: It's Simple, and It's Not Chained CPI
"Unfortunately, the two sides in this so-called debate are 'cut' and 'cut more' ... Yet none of these positions are rooted in the reality of the collapsing U.S. retirement system. Obama's approach toward Social Security not only is wrong in its diagnosis and prescriptions, but it will be disastrous in its consequences.... A more realistic assessment reveals that the solution to America's retirement crisis lies in the opposite direction -- expanding Social Security, not cutting it." (In These Times / Institute for Public Affairs)
[Opinion] Obama's Budget Tees Up Retirement Program
"One of the best ways to shore up Social Security, and to address larger debt issues, is by gradually reducing rates of growth. Chained CPI does just that. Other, more noticeable options for bolstering the retirement program include raising the eligibility age and increasing Social Security taxes." (USA TODAY)
How Obama's Budget Impacts Retirement Savers
"Chained CPI.... New retirement account limits.... Automatic IRAs.... Close the Medicare Part D donut hole sooner.... Higher premiums for high income Medicare beneficiaries.... New Medicare co-pays." (U.S.News and World Report)
Public Still Unwilling to Cut Entitlement Benefits to Reduce Deficit
"[T]he public continues to say it is more important to keep Social Security and Medicare benefits as they are than to take steps to reduce the budget deficit. There has been little change in these opinions over the past two years. A [recent] survey found that 55% of Americans put the priority on keeping Social Security and Medicare benefits as they are over reducing the deficit. These majorities run across all age groups. In comparison, about a third (34%) say taking steps to reduce the deficit is more important." (Pew Research Center)
Will You Be 'Chained' to a Smaller Check in Retirement?
"If Congress were to approve it, the change would directly affect the wallets of current -- as well as future -- recipients of Social Security. So what is this different formula? Here are some answers about the politically charged proposal that would affect nearly all Americans who are -- or plan to be -- retired." (National Public Radio)
[Opinion] Increasing Social Security Benefits is Not the Answer
"What do you do with a program that's unsustainable and about to start hemorrhaging cash? ... Ezra Klein ... argues that because one of Social Security's crises is 'It's not generous enough to counteract the sorry state of retirement savings nationwide' the solution should be 'We need to make Social Security much more generous.' ... Klein's policy flight of fancy avoids the biggest crisis facing Social Security: It's not sustainable unless reformed." (U.S. Chamber of Commerce)
[Opinion] Expansion of Social Security: A Plan to Increase Retirement Security
"Retirement security is often thought of as three-legged 'stool' consisting of Social Security, employer retirement plans, and private savings. Social Security has been far more stable and successful than the other two legs of the stool. The reliance on these other legs of the system has resulted in a retirement security crisis for most Americans, shifting costs and risks onto individuals, even as the benefits of these programs go overwhelmingly to upper-income earners.... Instead of compounding failure by expanding private benefits, a category that includes rapidly-disappearing defined benefit pensions, employer-provided 401(k)s and individual retirement accounts (IRAs), we should substantially expand the successful, purely public Social Security program." (New America Foundation)
[Opinion] Lifting the Social Security Wage Base Cap: The People's Choice for the People's Pension
"Social Security, the most transparently self-financed program of the federal government, is not increasing our budget deficit. The most recent trustees' report shows sufficient funds to pay full benefits until 2033.... If we wanted to adopt a cautious policy measure that would eliminate the shortfalls predicted 20 years down the road, we could eliminate the cap on earned income subject to Social Security taxes[.]" (Nancy Folbre in The New York Times)
Obama Budget Would Cut Entitlements in Exchange for Tax Increases
"White House officials said ... that Obama's budget would cut Medicare and Social Security and ask for less tax revenue than he has previously sought.... Obama proposed changing the cost-of-living calculation for Social Security in a way that will reduce benefits for most recipients, a key Republican request that he had earlier embraced only as part of a compromise." (The Washington Post)
[Opinion] Social Security Reform: Does Privatization Still Make Sense?
"Personal accounts will not improve the program's solvency directly, but would help generate new resources by strengthening the link between 'contributions' and benefits, thereby reducing dislocations of individual labor-supply choices. At a minimum, personal accounts could be an effective mechanism for sequestering from government spending additional resources intended to reduce Social Security's unfunded obligations." (Cato Institute, via SSRN)
[Opinion] Individuals on Disability Are Enmeshed in the Safety Net
"Disability is like Hotel California: You can sign up anytime you like (if you have a qualifying condition), but you can (almost) never leave. One economist, cited in the story, points out that fewer than 1 percent of the disabled have returned to the workforce in the past two years." (The Heritage Foundation)
[Opinion] Disability Benefits: America's $124 Billion Secret Welfare Program
"Imagine for a moment that Congress woke up one morning, realized that the United States was suffering from a paralyzing long-term unemployment crisis, and, in a moment of progressive pique, decided to create a welfare program aimed at middle-aged, blue-collar workers.... [It] turns out there already is a 'de facto welfare program' for those struggling Americans. The problem is, instead of getting the unemployed back on their feet, it pays them to give up work for good." (The Atlantic)
[Opinion] Is the Social Security Disability Insurance Program Essentially a Welfare Program?
"The surge in the numbers of Americans who are now living off of Social Security's disability insurance program is troublesome. But it reflects the harsh reality of an ongoing jobs crisis that is leaving millions of people unemployed or under-employed, barely scraping by, desperate to find work or better jobs.... But what really worries [the author] is that even those Americans who are working and managing to save something on the side, their retirement dreams are evaporating, and many of them will likely have to enroll in this 'de facto welfare program' before they reach retirement age." (Pension Pulse)
[Opinion] Five Ways to Reform Social Security Disability Insurance
"Put a mandate on it.... Higher taxes for employers who produce disabled workers.... Try a few approaches, expand what works.... Ease the phase-out.... Longer waiting period." (The Washington Post)
[Opinion] Americans Bracing for a Retirement Crisis?
"[G]iven the looming retirement crisis, [the author thinks] it's high time the United States does the unthinkable -- expand Social Security to bolster retirement benefits for all Americans and adopt the same management and governance standards as the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and other large Canadian public pension plans. But don't think that Canada's retirement system is vastly superior to the U.S. system." (Pension Pulse)
[Opinion] Delaying Retirement Helps the Economy and Older Americans
"The normal retirement age should gradually rise to 68 for workers born in or after 1959 and the early retirement age should rise to 65 for workers born in or after 1964. Then, both should be indexed to increases in longevity. Those whose health won't allow them to continue working up until those ages would have access to a reformed disability system until qualifying for Social Security's regular benefit." (The Heritage Foundation)
[Opinion] Yes, Raising the Retirement Age Would Be Bad for the Poor -- No, That Doesn't Mean It's Unfair
"The moral argument against a higher retirement age rests on the assumption that poor people die young because they are poor. While it is true that life expectancy correlates with income, it is important to remember that correlation is not the same as causation." (The Washington Post)
Modeling Behavioral Responses to Eliminating the Retirement Earnings Test
"[Proposed reforms to the retirement earnings test ('RET')] meant to encourage working at older ages could also cause earlier benefit claiming. [This study analyzes] the complete repeal of the earnings test for beneficiaries aged 60 or older ... [and finds] that beneficiaries affected by RET repeal would generally receive significantly higher benefits when they are younger than the full retirement age ('FRA'), and somewhat lower benefits after reaching FRA. RET repeal would not significantly change individuals' lifetime benefits and [the authors] find no significant changes in the overall poverty rate under either scenario.... [A]ssumed behavioral responses -- particularly the benefit claiming change -- have a bigger effect on lifetime benefits than the RET policy change itself." (Social Security Bulletin, via SSRN)
[Opinion] Five Ways to Fix Social Security
"Here are five potential Social Security changes, and how much of the budget shortfall they would address: Increase Social Security taxes.... Lift the payroll tax cap.... Raise the retirement age.... Means-test.... Change the cost-of-living adjustment." (U.S.News and World Report)
Business CEOs Call for Raising Social Security Retirement Age
"The Business Roundtable's plan would protect those 55 and older from cuts, but younger workers would face significant changes. The plan unveiled earlier this month would result in smaller annual benefit increases for all Social Security recipients. Initial benefits for wealthy retirees would also be smaller. Medicare recipients would be able to enroll in the traditional program or in private plans that could adjust premiums based on age and health status." (Times-Standard)
Strengthening Social Security: What Do Americans Want? (PDF)
"Americans don't mind paying for Social Security because they value it for themselves (80%), for their families (78%), and for the security and stability it provides to millions of retired Americans, disabled individuals, and children and widowed spouses of deceased workers (84%). -- 84% believe current Social Security benefits do not provide enough income for retirees, and 75% believe we should consider raising future Social Security benefits in order to provide a more secure retirement for working Americans.... 87% want to preserve Social Security for future generations even if it means increasing taxes paid by wealthier Americans." (National Academy of Social Insurance)
Business Groups Propose Raising Minimum Age for Social Security and Medicare Benefits
"The Business Roundtable, which represents chief executives of major U.S. companies, proposed shoring up Social Security and Medicare by raising the eligibility age without increasing taxes on income subject to the Social Security payroll tax.... The group also offered a plan for the Medicare health program for the elderly that would raise the eligibility age to 70 and create a system of private plans to compete with the government-sponsored program ... [and] proposed expanding means testing in Medicare, or reducing benefits for upper-income recipients." (Bloomberg)
Text of Business Roundtable Report: Social Security Reform and Medicare Modernization Proposals (PDF)
"Social Security ... reforms should include the following elements: Protect Retirees and Those Approaching Retirement ... Increase Retirement Age ... Change Benefit Formulas to Increase Progressivity ... Update Method for Calculating Cost of Living Adjustments (COLAs) ... Include Newly Hired State and Local Workers in Social Security ... Encourage More Private Savings ... Essential elements of a Medicare modernization proposal [include] ... Protect Medicare for Those Approaching Retirement ... Expand Competitive Models of Care ... Reduce Taxpayer Costs for Upper-Income Beneficiaries ... Protect the Safety Net for Low-Income Americans[.]" (Business Roundtable)
Social Security Shortfall: It's Worse Than You Think
"For the first time in more than a quarter-century, Social Security ran a deficit in 2010: It spent $49 billion dollars more in benefits than it received in revenues, and drew from its trust funds to cover the shortfall. Those funds -- a $2.7 trillion buffer built in anticipation of retiring baby boomers -- will be exhausted by 2033, the government currently projects. Those facts are widely known. What's not is that the Social Security Administration underestimates how long Americans will live and how much the trust funds will need to pay out -- to the tune of $800 billion by 2031, more than the current annual defense budget -- and that the trust funds will run out, if nothing is done, two years earlier than the government has predicted." (The New York Times; free registration required)
[Opinion] Prevent Debt in Future by Making Changes to Social Security Now
"As more boomers retire, Social Security will add increasingly to debt. By about 2033, the credits will be exhausted and benefits will have to be cut sharply. Because workers retiring in 2033 are already working and should plan for their retirement, we owe it to them to phase the necessary changes in gradually and avoid the sharp drop." (Brookings)
[Opinion] Beware of Calls by CEOs for Social Security Cutbacks
"While America's CEOs have been fretting about the fiscal cliff, millions of American workers face a financial disaster that gets much less media attention. There's a half-trillion-dollar deficit in the nation's worker retirement benefits. The Great Recession, which decimated retirement assets, played a big role in building this lesser-known cliff. They siphoned pension assets for profit-boosting purposes. When the pension deficits started to balloon, many corporations responded by slashing benefit programs.... And the same CEOs who have contributed to rampant retirement insecurity are now calling for cuts to these benefits." (TimesUnion.com)
A Fiscal Cliff Compromise Through Alternative CPI?
"From a purely technical standpoint, most analysts agree the alternative CPI measures inflation better than the current index does for most Americans. Whether it is a better measure of inflation for the elderly is less clear." (Brookings)
'Chained-CPI' Inflation Gauge Would Hurt Social Security Recipients
"[C]hained-CPI assumes that as prices increase, consumers make substitutions in what they purchase.... Social Security provides at least half of total household income for 65 percent of all aged beneficiaries. And for non-married beneficiaries, that figure rises to 74 percent, or nearly three-quarters of their income. For more than a third of all older beneficiaries, Social Security provides 90 percent or more of total income, while for non-married beneficiaries that figure rises to 46 percent. These are the people who would suffer most under a chained-CPI[.]" (CBS MoneyWatch)
[Opinion] The Technical Trick Washington Wants to Use to Cut Social Security and Medicare Benefits
"'Chained-CPI' cuts Social Security benefits and increases taxes. That's why it's part of the negotiations.... Chained-CPI, in this telling, is simply an effort to correct a measurement error in the way we calculate inflation. It's a tweak, a fix, a policy designed to achieve a higher level of technical precision. And who could be against that? ... The effort to mask cuts in technical adjustments just leads to worse cuts, as the top priority isn�t protecting the poorest or improving the program, but finding a policy sufficiently confusing that you can pass it before most people realize what it is." (The Washington Post; free registration required)
A Guide to Analyzing Social Security Reform Proposals (PDF)
"It is important to keep in mind that addressing Social Security's long-term financial challenges may involve a combination of changes from some or all of the types of reform presented in this guide. When evaluating proposals, be sure to consider the effect of any proposed changes to the Social Security program with respect to the program's projected deficit, the trust fund income and outgo, and the program's overall financial solvency." (American Academy of Actuaries)
AARP Returns to Hard Line Against Benefit Cutbacks
"AARP now appears to have veered back to a hard-line position of opposing any cutbacks in Medicare or Social Security and is seeking to keep those programs off the bargaining table altogether.... If the Chamber of Commerce is the lead voice of business leaders on the right in opposing increased taxes in the deficit talks, AARP plays a similar role on the left in opposing benefit cuts. It hopes to meet or make contact with the office of every member of Congress before a deal is done." (The New York Times; free registration required)
Everything You Need to Know About Chained CPI in One Post
"When propane costs go up, CPI-U and CPI-W include that as an increase in the cost of living. But some people would just stop using propane if its price went up. They'd switch to electric heating, or a geothermal system, or a wood stove. So their actual heating costs wouldn't go up as much as CPI-U and CPI-W would suggest. Chained CPI attempts to take 'substitution effects' like this into account. Thus, its number generally rises more slowly than other metrics. That adds up to a big cut in Social Security benefits." (The Washington Post; free registration required)
Would Use of Means Testing Help Social Security? (PDF)
"Advocates argue that means testing would reduce costs to the Social Security program. But such a move could have serious unintended consequences, including erosion of public support for Social Security, savings disincentives during working years, and administrative complexity. Social Security already includes an 'earnings test' based on the principle that Social Security payments should replace lost earnings, and it is therefore appropriate to reduce benefits for those whose earnings indicate that they have not yet retired. Policymakers seeking to avoid means testing could achieve much of the same results by adjusting the benefit formula for highly compensated individuals or by increasing the taxation of Social Security benefits at a higher rate than the one currently used." (American Academy of Actuaries)
CBO's Long-Term Projections for Medicare and Medicaid Spending in the United States
"If current laws remained in place, spending on the major federal health care programs would grow from more than 5 percent of GDP today to almost 10 percent in 2037 and would continue to increase thereafter. The aging of the population and the rising cost of health care would cause spending on the major health care programs and Social Security to grow from more than 10 percent of GDP today to almost 16 percent of GDP 25 years from now. By comparison, spending on all of the federal government's programs and activities ... has averaged 18.5 percent of GDP over the past 40 years." [Editor's note: The linked item is a set of 15 slides at a presentation to the "OECD Expert Workshop on Improving Health Expenditure Forecasting Methods."] (Congressional Budget Office)
How People Save: A State-by-State Comparison
Interactive and downloadable charts and documents show key savings and spending statistics, sorted by state and region. (ING)
[Opinion] Economists Agree: No Empirical Basis for Reducing the Social Security COLA (PDF)
"[T]he annual Social Security cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) should be based on the most accurate measure possible of the impact of inflation on beneficiaries. For this reason, [the authors] oppose proposals to reduce the Social Security COLA by tying it to a chained consumer price index that does not directly measure the actual expenditures of beneficiaries. Such a move would lower the COLA by an estimated 0.3 percentage points per year, translating into a 3 percent benefit cut after 10 years and a 6 percent cut after 20 years." (Economic Policy Institute)
Mind the Gap: The Distributional Effects of Raising the Early Eligibility Age and Full Retirement Age
"Policymakers have proposed increases to the early eligibility age (EEA) and/or full retirement age (FRA) to address increasing life expectancy and Social Security solvency issues. This analysis ... compare[s] three retirement-age increases suggested by the Social Security Advisory Board: increase the gap between the EEA and FRA by raising only the FRA, increase both the EEA and FRA to maintain a 4-year gap between them, and increase both the EEA and FRA to maintain a 5-year gap between them. Although all three options would improve system solvency by similar proportions ... [b]enefit reductions are greater under the proposals with more months between the EEA and FRA, while the option that maintains a 4-year gap results in benefit increases for some beneficiaries compared with current law." (U.S. Social Security Administration)
Proposed Changes to Calculation Method for Social Security COLAs: What Would They Mean for Beneficiaries? (PDF)
"A new cost of living measure (chained-CPI), which grows more slowly than the current calculation (CPI-W), would reduce spending on Social Security ... Changing the cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) using a chained CPI would have a detrimental impact on the economic wellbeing of older and disabled Americans and their family members who receive benefits from Social Security. Small reductions to the annual COLA will accumulate over time so that the largest reductions in benefits will be on the oldest beneficiaries and the long-term disabled." (AARP)
Proposed Changes to Social Security's Cost-of-Living Adjustment: What Would They Mean for Beneficiaries? (PDF)
"A new cost of living measure (chained-CPI), which grows more slowly than the current calculation (CPI-W), would reduce spending on Social Security as well as other federally administered programs such as Supplemental Security Income and pensions for veterans....Small reductions to the annual COLA will accumulate over time so that the largest reductions in benefits will be on the oldest beneficiaries and the long-term disabled." (AARP)
[Opinion] Candidates Should Fully Address Plans to Solve Medicare, Social Security Funding Issues (PDF)
"The non-partisan American Academy of Actuaries encourages candidates to specify how they will address the financial risks to Social Security and Medicare and is working to ensure that policymakers and the American electorate have the objective, actuarial information needed to best guide their decision-making processes. The American Academy of Actuaries has created voter guides on health care reform, Medicare and Social Security for the media and general public to provide objective information on major issues that will confront the next president." (American Academy of Actuaries)
Do Stronger Age Discrimination Laws Make Social Security Reforms More Effective?
"Supply-side Social Security reforms to increase employment and delay benefit claiming among older individuals may be frustrated by age discrimination.... [This study tests] whether stronger state-level age discrimination protections enhanced the impact of the increases in the Social Security Full Retirement Age (FRA) that occurred in the past decade. The evidence indicates that, for older individuals who were 'caught' by the increase in the FRA, benefit claiming reductions and employment increases were sharper in states with stronger age discrimination protections." (University of Michigan Retirement Research Center)
Induced Entry into the Social Security Disability Program: Using Past SGA Changes as a Natural Experiment
"The number of American adults receiving benefits from the Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) program has increased dramatically over the past several decades. A proposed solution to rising program costs is to change program rules to encourage fully or partially recovered SSDI beneficiaries to return to work.... [The authors find] that a 7 percentage point (30%) increase in the real relative SGA (on par with the 1999 increase from $500 to $700 per month) was associated with a 4.7% increase in applications." (University of Michigan Retirement Research Center)
Behavioral Effects of Social Security Policies on Benefit Claiming, Retirement and Saving
"A retirement model that also includes claiming of Social Security benefits as an outcome is used to inquire about the effects of various proposals to change the Social Security system. Increasing the early entitlement age to 64 increases full-time employment at ages 62 and 63 by approximately 12 percentage points.... Increasing the normal retirement age to 67 for those who had an age 65 normal retirement age increases full time work by substantially less than the increases caused by raising the early entitlement age. Eliminating the payroll tax after the normal retirement age reduces full-time work by between 0.5 and 1 percent between age 60 and age 64 and increases full-time work by between 1 and 2 percent at age 65 and thereafter." (University of Michigan Retirement Research Center)
Narrow Majority Supports Raising Taxes, Retirement Age to Save Social Security
"Most Americans say go ahead and raise taxes if it will save Social Security benefits for future generations. And raise the retirement age, if you have to. Both options are preferable to cutting monthly benefits, even for people who are years away from applying for them." (The Washington Post; free registration required)
Social Security: Just the Facts
"You may have heard we can't afford Social Security. But the facts may surprise you.... [This video,] released in honor of the 77th Anniversary of the signing of the Social Security Act, explains the basics about Social Security, its purpose, who pays for it, who gets it, and what it means to seniors, working families, and children now and in the future." (National Academy of Social Insurance)
Canada Raises Retirement Age to 67
"Canada's Conservative government said Thursday that it is raising the retirement age to 67 from 65 for pension benefits as the finance minister introduced a federal budget features the biggest cutbacks since the mid-1990s.... 'Canadians are living longer and healthier. There are fewer workers to take their place when they retire. Canada has changed. Old Age Security must change with it,' said [Finance Minister Jim Flaherty]." (AARP)
The Future of Social Security: 12 Proposals You Should Know About
"With more people living longer, Social Security faces increasing financial challenges. Estimates indicate the program will be able to pay full benefits for the next 20 years, but only 75 percent after that. Here are summaries of 12 options being talked about in Washington. Each summary is accompanied by two opinions ... commissioned from experts whose views typically represent different sides of the issues." (AARP)
Consumption, Retirement and Social Security: Evaluating the Efficiency of Reform that Encourages Longer Careers (PDF)
"[The authors] find that individuals, on average, may be persuaded to lengthen their careers by about 1.5 years; that many households can benefit from the new program (in the sense of having positive equivalent variations); and, that overall federal government income tax revenues per household could rise on average by about $15,000.... [This] hypothetical reform lowers the payroll tax only relatively late in life, that is to say, close to retirement. The reform would actually raise the payroll tax earlier in life slightly - making it revenue neutral for the Social Security system.... [This hypothetical] policy ... narrowly focuses its tax reduction at the retirement-decision margin." (University of Michigan Retirement Research Center)
The Case for Starting Social Security Payments at Age 62
"Is it a mistake to allow people to claim Social Security at 62 -- even at a reduced rate -- when we are living longer than we did when the program first started? The Center for Retirement Research at Boston College examined this question and came to the surprising conclusion that the actuarial assumptions made in 1960, reducing the amount of people who claimed at 62, are still a fairly accurate reflection of the cost -- even though we're living 20 years longer." (Bankrate.com)
An Actuarial Perspective on the 2012 Social Security Trustees' Report (PDF)
"The newly released 2012 Annual Report of the Board of Trustees of the Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and Federal Disability Insurance Trust Funds indicates that the Social Security trust fund exhaustion date is three years earlier than projected in the 2011 Trustees Report. The trust fund is projected to run out of assets during 2033, and if reform has not been enacted by that date, benefits would have to be reduced by about one-fourth thereafter." (American Academy of Actuaries)
Significance of the Social Security Trust Funds (PDF)
By the academy's Social Security Committee. Excerpt: "Social Security revenue exceeded cost between 1984 and 2009, leading to a buildup of $2.7 trillion in trust fund assets. Under current law, these assets are projected to be redeemed over the next two decades. The anticipated redemption of those assets has led to an ongoing debate over whether the assets are 'real.' The perceived significance of the trust fund assets largely depends on the context in which they are viewed: the Social Security system, the unified federal budget, or the whole economy." (American Academy of Actuaries)
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