Fixing Social Security: Major Reform or Minor Repairs?

Author(s):  
Gary Burtless

Without congressional action, the Social Security reserve fund will be exhausted by 2035. When that occurs, benefit payments must be cut by one-fifth. To avoid that outcome, Congress must agree on a reform plan that boosts revenues, cuts pensions, or does both. The choice of a reform strategy should depend on voters’ support for the goals of the Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (OASDI) program and evidence about the program’s effectiveness in achieving those goals. This article explains the aims of the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) program, briefly describes how the program attempts to achieve those aims, and considers evidence on whether the goals have been achieved and at what cost. It then considers alternative reforms that address OASI’s main problem, namely, the long-term shortfall in program revenues compared with pension commitments. It concludes by identifying the reforms that seem best suited to achieving OASI’s core aims while conforming to voter preferences.

Author(s):  
Yue Chim Richard Wong

The aging of Hong Kong’s population is a rapidly approaching, multifaceted challenge that will be around for many decades to come. Unfortunately, the public sees this problem solely as one of poverty and social security. The social welfare lobby has successfully branded aging as a poverty issue that requires welfare support. Politicians and their allied social advocates and lobbyists often use old age poverty as the raison d’être to support the introduction of a universal old age social pension, which confuses aging with poverty.


2018 ◽  
Vol 50 (3) ◽  
pp. 149-159
Author(s):  
John G. Kilgour

2018 was a pivotal year for the Social Security program. It was the first year since the 1983 amendments that the Old Age, Survivors and Disability Insurance (OASDI) trust funds spent more than they took in. This will continue until they are depleted in 2034. This article examines the operation of the OASDI program with particular attention to its funding. It concludes by questioning the myth that, until 2018, the OASDI trust funds held large amounts of surpluses. There has never been any real money there. It was spent by the Treasury Department as fast as it came in. The OASDI program has always been a pay-as-you-go system. That should be recognized by anyone involved in crafting a solution to the problem.


2017 ◽  
Vol 107 (5) ◽  
pp. 369-373 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fatih Guvenen ◽  
Fatih Karahan ◽  
Serdar Ozkan ◽  
Jae Song

Drawing on administrative data from the Social Security Administration, we find that individuals that go through a long period of non-employment suffer large and long-term earnings losses (around 35-40 percent) compared to individuals with similar age and previous earnings histories. Importantly, these differences depend on past earnings, and are largest at the bottom and top of the earnings distribution. Focusing on workers that are employed 10 years after a period of long-term non-employment, we find much smaller earnings losses (8-10 percent). Furthermore, the large earnings losses of low-income individuals are almost entirely due to employment effects.


ARGOMENTI ◽  
2009 ◽  
pp. 31-58
Author(s):  
Marco Accorinti ◽  
Paolo Calza Bini

- Within the research project Overcoming the barriers and seizing the opportunities for Active Ageing Policies in Europe, the Italian part being carried out by the IRPPS-CNR, there has been an in-depth study of the dynamics regarding population ageing and the social security system in Italy, in the light of the notion of activation - one of the main inspiring criteria of the European Employment Strategy. The paper presents comparative European research work that has highlighted the need to deal with the old age - social security link through an integrated group of diversified policies that consider above all employment policies, life schedules and social protection. The text furthermore presents nine European experiments of gradual retirement.Keywords: Senior citizen workers, Social security, Welfare, Leave. Parole Chiave: Lavoratori Anziani, Previdenza, Welfare, Aspettative.


2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 125-129
Author(s):  
Gede Oscar Geovani ◽  
I Nyoman Putu Budiartha ◽  
Putu Ayu Sriasih Wesna

Social security provides protection for workers in the socio-economic risks that befall workers in carrying out their work in the form of work accidents, illness, old age, or death. This thesis discusses the implementation of Law Number 24 of 2011 concerning the Social Security Administration at PT. Horiko Abadi, Buleleng Regency. Based on the description above, this study aims to determine the application of Law Number 24 of 2011 concerning the Social Security Administration at PT. Horiko Abadi, Buleleng Regency 2 legal sanctions against the company in the event of a violation of the provisions of the social security program. The research method used is the empirical juridical method. The location of this research was conducted at PT. Horiko Abadi, Buleleng Regency, a company engaged in the breeding of shellfish and pearl cultivation. Based on the research results, PT. Horiko Abadi has implemented social security protection for all permanent employees in the company in accordance with the provisions of Law Number 24 of 2011 concerning Social Security Administering Bodies, and sanctions for companies that have not implemented the provisions of Law Number 24 of 2011 Regarding the Social Security Administering Body, it is still in the guidance or warning stage until the company concerned can carry out the provisions of the legislation.


1936 ◽  
Vol 30 (3) ◽  
pp. 455-493 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joseph P. Harris

The Federal Social Security Act, which may be regarded as the central core of the social security program, is an omnibus act, containing the following features: (1) a national, compulsory oldage insurance plan, covering all employees except certain exempted groups; (2) two measures designed to stimulate the states to enact state unemployment compensation laws, namely, (a) a uniform nation-wide tax upon employers, against which a credit is allowable for contributions made to approved state unemployment compensation plans, and (b) subsidies to the states to cover the administrative costs of unemployment compensation; and (3) grants-in-aid to the states for old-age assistance, pensions for the blind, aid to dependent children, child welfare, maternal and child health, vocational rehabilitation, and public health activities. It is estimated that each of the two forms of social insurance will apply to about 25,000,000 wage-earners, and, when the maximum rates become effective in 1949, will involve annual contributions of nearly $3,000,000,000. This amount is approximately equal to the normal annual expenditure of the federal government prior to 1930. In addition, the grants-in-aid to the states were estimated by the actuaries of the President's Committee on Economic Security to reach a total of a half-billion dollars annually within a few years.History of the Federal ActWhen, in a message to Congress on June 8, 1934, the President indicated that he would submit a program of social insurance for consideration at the following session, the Wagner-Lewis unemployment insurance bill and the Dill-Connery old-age assistance bill were pending. Shortly afterwards, the President, by executive order, created the Committee on Economic Security, consisting of the Secretaries of Labor (chairman), Treasury, and Agriculture, the Attorney-General, and the Federal Emergency Relief Administrator. This committee appointed Professor Edwin E. Witte, of the University of Wisconsin, as executive director, and proceeded to build up a staff of actuaries and experts to study the whole problem of economic insecurity, and to prepare recommendations.


Author(s):  
Cybelle Fox

This chapter focuses on the Social Security Act and the disparate treatment of blacks, Mexicans, and European immigrants in the administration of Social Security, Unemployment Insurance, Aid to Dependent Children, and Old Age Assistance. Though framed as legislation that would help the “average citizen,” scholars have shown that the Social Security Act in fact excluded the vast majority of blacks from the most generous social insurance programs, relegating them to meager, decentralized, and demeaning means-tested programs. European immigrants, by contrast, benefited from many of the provisions of the Social Security Act, and in at least some respects, they benefited more than even native-born whites. The net result of these policies was that blacks were disproportionately shunted into categorical assistance programs with low benefit levels, European immigrants were disproportionately covered under social insurance regardless of citizenship, and Mexicans were often shut out altogether.


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