Social Security

Answering the Myths about Social Security

Social Security reform is at the top of President Bush's second term agenda - and for good reason. In the next decade, two monumental shifts will occur: 1) the first of the 77 million baby boomers wil…
Social Security Reform: Keeping Administrative Costs Low

Public pension programs - including the U.S. Social Security system - tax workers to pay current retirees' benefits. But in the United States, as in other developed nations, falling birthrates and ris…
Social Security Reform: Reducing the Risk of Poverty

President Bush wants to add a personal investment component to the U.S. Social Security system. Under a Bush-style reform plan, workers would be able to contribute a portion of their payroll taxes int…
Social Security Reform: Looking at the Options

The present value of Social Security's long-term funding gap is $11 trillion in 2004 dollars. That means we would need $11 trillion in the bank today, earning the government's borrowing rate, to elimi…
The Coming Fiscal Deluge

In 2011, the first group of baby boomers will reach the age of 65. When the last of that generation retires in 2032, 77 million of them will have ceased working and paying taxes and will have begun re…
Social Security Reform without Illusion: The Five Percent Solution

America’s entitlement programs for senior citizens are on an unsustainable course. Unless changes are made soon, we face the prospect of exorbitant tax rates or severe benefit cuts.
Private Pension Annuities in Chile

Chile adopted a new pension system featuring privately managed individual accounts in 1981. The system gives us an opportunity, based on more than 20 years of experience, to examine how pensioners and…
Retirement Savings Reforms on which the Left and the Right Can Agree

As the baby boomers near retirement, defects in the nation's private pension system are becoming obvious. Only about half of workers contribute to an employer-sponsored pension plan in any given year,…