EconPapers    
Economics at your fingertips  
 

THE SIGNIFICANCE AND USE OF LONG‐RANGE ACTUARIAL COST ESTIMATES FOR THE SOCIAL SECURITY SYSTEM

Robert J. Myers

Contemporary Economic Policy, 1983, vol. 1, issue 3, 9-15

Abstract: This paper describes the methodology underlying the actuarial cost estimates for the Social Security program and the assumptions needed therefor. With this as a background, the use to which these estimates is made in developing legislation is described, with emphasis on the current financing problems. Finally, various possible solutions to these problems are discussed. These solutions involve either increasing the income of the program or decreasing the rate of growth of its outgo. Increased income could be derived by increasing the payroll tax rates, by injecting general revenues (either directly or indirectly, such as taxing Social Security benefits and putting the proceeds in the trust funds or financing part of all of the Hospital Insurance program from general revenues and moving some of its payroll tax rate to the cash‐benefits program), or by covering government employees who are not now covered. The growth of outgo could be reduced by changes in the cost‐of‐living adjustments of benefits, by gradually increasing the normal retirement age, or by gradually decreasing the relative benefit level

Date: 1983
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1465-7287.1983.tb00756.x

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:bla:coecpo:v:1:y:1983:i:3:p:9-15

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://ordering.onl ... 5-7287&ref=1465-7287

Access Statistics for this article

Contemporary Economic Policy is currently edited by Brad R. Humphreys

More articles in Contemporary Economic Policy from Western Economic Association International Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Wiley Content Delivery ().

 
Page updated 2025-03-19
Handle: RePEc:bla:coecpo:v:1:y:1983:i:3:p:9-15