2011 Technical Panel on Assumptions and Methods Meeting Agenda December 13-14, 2010 The meetings will be held in the offices of the Social Security Advisory Board: 400 Virginia Avenue SW, Suite 625, Washington, DC 20024 Monday, December 13, 2010 10:45-12:15 Short range assumptions and methods Presenters: Office of the Chief Actuary Disability and retirement over the short-range Reconciling short and long-range methods and assumptions: beneficiary and benefit projections 12:15-1:00 Lunch 1:00-2:00 "Mortality at Older Ages: Why Has the US Fallen Behind Our Peers?" Presenter: Dr. Samuel Preston, University of Pennsylvania 2:00-2:45 Mortality assumptions and methods Presenter: by John Bongaarts, Panel member 2:45-3:00 Break 3:00-4:00 Discussion of mortality projections 4:00-5:00 Panel wrap-up Tuesday, December 14, 2010 10:00-11:30 Long-range Economic assumptions and methods Presentation by Andrew Samwick, Panel member 11:30-12:30 Short range economic assumptions and methods Presenters: Office of the Chief Actuary
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Agenda for December 13-14, 2010 Technical Panel Meeting
Social Security shuts down “restart” option
USA Today reports that the Social Security Administration has issued a regulation that effectively limits the option to "restart" Social Security benefits, which has increasingly been taken advantage of by financially-savvy retirees. The restart option allowed retirees to withdraw their application for benefits, repay the benefits they had received, the restart at a higher benefit level. This strategy had two main advantages: The regulation limits restarts to once in a lifetime and the restart must take place within 12 months of initial benefit claiming. Given these restrictions the strategy probably doesn't make much financial sense anymore, given the general hassle of visiting an SS office and running through the paperwork. But it could allow someone who claimed at an early age then immediately decided to defer retirement another shot at doing so. There wouldn't be a direct financial benefit, but by delaying retirement the individual would assure themselves an higher benefit later in life and increased survivors' benefits for their spouse.
Video of Chuck Blahous Social Security book event
On Monday the Heritage Foundation held an event based on the release of Chuck Blahous's excellence new book, Social Security: The Unfinished Work, available from fine booksellers everywhere (here's a link to Amazon).
You can watch the video of the event online here or over at Heritage's website.
Read more!
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Raising the retirement age: pro and con
The Heritage Foundation's David John and the Center on Economic and Policy Research's Mark Weisbrot give the pros and cons of raising Social Security's retirement age at the Atlanta Journal Constitution. Click here to read.
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Jason Fichtner on Artificially Sweetened COLAs
The Mercatus Institute's Jason Fichtner – the former number 2 at Social Security – has a new policy brief on the social security COLA. Here's the background: For the second year in a row, Social Security recipients will not receive a cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) increase to their monthly benefits. Social Security benefits only rise when prices go up; in years with low price inflation, they remain steady. And although low price inflation benefits all consumers, Congress has proposed to give every Social Security beneficiary a $250 check, which could cost taxpayers $15 billion. While it might sound reasonable or fair to give seniors a boost during tough economic times, giving in to such demands would be misguided and undermine the very reason for tying cost-of-living adjustments to the Consumer Price Index (CPI) in the first place—to prevent yearly interest-group lobbying for higher benefit increases and, as the name implies, only provide an adjustment when there's an actual CPI-measured increase in the cost of living. Providing a COLA or one-time payment beyond what is warranted by an increase in the CPI would actually increase "real" benefits, artificially sweetening the COLA. Check it out here.
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
C-SPAN Video of AEI Event on the 112th Congress and the Economy
Here's a link to the panel I was on; sadly it's not embeddable. Also check out the first panel on how the health bill is being implemented; very interesting stuff that I hadn't know much about before.
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