3.25.2005
About That Number (NYTimes.com)
EDITORIAL
Published: March 24, 2005
The Social Security trustees issued their annual report yesterday and said that by one measure, the shortfall in Social Security's finances jumped from $10.4 trillion last year to about $11 trillion this year. Eleven trillion dollars! The trustees, in service to President Bush's alarmist warnings about the need to do something drastic about Social Security, are dishing up some misleading numbers.
It's bad enough that the trustees began some of their calculations with that $10.4 trillion figure. It's arrived at by projecting the system's shortfall over infinity, rather than the usual 75-year time frame - as if the system's finances 10,000 years from now are a legitimate policy concern. Moreover, no less an authority than the American Academy of Actuaries is already on record debunking infinite projections as conveying "little if any useful information about the program's long-range finances" and "likely to mislead anyone lacking technical expertise ... into believing that the program is in far worse financial condition than is actually indicated."
(More ... The New York Times > Opinion > Editorial: About That Number) ¶ 11:24
Published: March 24, 2005
The Social Security trustees issued their annual report yesterday and said that by one measure, the shortfall in Social Security's finances jumped from $10.4 trillion last year to about $11 trillion this year. Eleven trillion dollars! The trustees, in service to President Bush's alarmist warnings about the need to do something drastic about Social Security, are dishing up some misleading numbers.
It's bad enough that the trustees began some of their calculations with that $10.4 trillion figure. It's arrived at by projecting the system's shortfall over infinity, rather than the usual 75-year time frame - as if the system's finances 10,000 years from now are a legitimate policy concern. Moreover, no less an authority than the American Academy of Actuaries is already on record debunking infinite projections as conveying "little if any useful information about the program's long-range finances" and "likely to mislead anyone lacking technical expertise ... into believing that the program is in far worse financial condition than is actually indicated."
(More ... The New York Times > Opinion > Editorial: About That Number) ¶ 11:24
