Shortfalls in the Long Run: Predictions about the Social Security Trust Fund

摘要

Discussions of U.S. Social Security reform invariably begin by noting the gloomy long-run projections presented in the Annual Report of the Board of Trustees of the Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and Disability Insurance Trust Funds. For example, the 2004 report predicts (in its "intermediate" scenario) that the Social Security trust fund, formally known as the Old Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) trust fund, will be empty and the program therefore unable to pay its full scheduled level of benefits for future years starting in 2044. If the Disability Insurance (DI) trust fund is included in the calculations with the Old Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) trust fund, as is often done, the actuaries predicted in 2004 that the combined trust fund would be empty in 2042.