Social Security Reform: Analysis of a Trust Fund Exhaustion Scenario

摘要

This report responds to your request that we apply our criteria for assessing Social Security reform proposals to a Trust Fund Exhaustion scenario. As requested, this analysis assumes that once the combined Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and Disability Insurance (OASDI) Trust Funds are exhausted, monthly benefit checks will be reduced in proportion to the annual shortfall, effectively reducing everyone's benefits across-the-board. The report is based on the analytic framework we have previously used to evaluate Social Security reform proposals. This framework consists of three basic criteria: the extent to which the proposal achieves sustainable solvency and how it would affect the U.S. economy and the federal budget; the balance struck between the twin goals of income adequacy (level and certainty of benefits) and individual equity (rates of return on individual contributions); and how readily changes could be implemented, administered, and explained to the public.