Social Security’s in Worse Shape Than You Thought: Study
The Social Security Administration projects that its trust funds will be depleted by 2033—not an optimistic forecast. But it may be even bleaker than that. New studies from Harvard and Dartmouth researchers find that the SSA’s actuarial forecasts have been consistently overstating the financial health of the program’s trust funds since 2000. “These biases are getting bigger and they are substantial,” said Gary King, co-author of the studies and director of Harvard’s Institute for Quantitative Social Science. “[Social Security] is going to be insolvent before everyone thinks.”….
“Actuaries worked really hard at being unbaised,” he said. “We find no evidence that they bend to political pressure.” But the agency’s attempts to be unbiased have created a bunker mentality, he said, which lead them to ignore evidence that Americans life expectancy has risen more than they have projected and how that could hurt the future funding of Social Security system. Read more…