Many of us suspect that Social Security faces eventual bankruptcy. But the government projects its future finances using long outdated methods. Employing a more up-to-date approach, Jagadeesh Gokhale here argues that the program faces insolvency far sooner than previously thought.
To assess Social Security’s fate more accurately under current and alternative policies, Gokhale constructs a detailed simulation of the forces shaping American demographics and the economy to project their future evolution. He then uses this simulation to analyze six prominent Social Security reform packages—two liberal, two centrist, and two conservative—to demonstrate how far they would restore the program’s financial health and which population groups would be helped or hurt in the process.
Arguments over Social Security have raged for decades, but they have taken place in a relative informational vacuum; Social Security provides the necessary bedrock of analysis that will prove vital for anyone with a stake in this important debate.

Social Security: A Fresh Look at Policy Alternatives

Business & Money

Gokhale, Jagadeesh

Economics

University of Chicago Press

Nobody who has even a passing acquaintance with economics could fail to realise that Western governments are highly indebted. Current generations have been consuming at the expense of future generations. However, just how indebted are we? The government measures how much it has borrowed to meet past spending commitments, but it does not measure how much money it needs to meet all the future pensions and healthcare promises it has made to tomorrow s older generations. Furthermore, no funds have been set aside to provide for these costs. Governments are allowed to produce accounting information in such a cavalier fashion, using methods that would be illegal for private sector companies. Fortunately, though, scholars have been able to examine the detail of government policy and the financial commitments of future governments in order to determine just how indebted we are. This IEA publication brings such calculations to life by showing by how much spending will need to be cut and taxes raised in order to make the government s fiscal position sustainable. This work should be of interest to politicians, to students and teachers of economics and, indeed, all who are interested in public policy and the sustainability of Western economies

The Government Debt Iceberg (IEA Research Monographs)

Institute Of Economic Affairs

"...if you demand the deepest and most powerful planning engine, look no further." -- The Washington Post ESPlanner, developed by Economic Security Planning, Inc., revolutionizes financial planning. Traditional financial planning makes you set your own saving and life insurance targets. This is hard and, if you set your targets too low, dangerous. ESPlanner finds your targets for you by doing life cycle consumption smoothing--finding the most you can spend today without suffering a drop in living standard tomorrow. ESPlanner not only calculates your family's highest sustainable living standard, it also determines the amounts of saving and life insurance you need to maintain and protect that living standard through time. ESPlanner delivers its findings in the form of annual spending, saving, and insurance recommendations. Whether you're working or retired, maximizing and smoothing your household's living standard isn't easy. Many factors are involved, including your household composition, assets, earnings, retirement ages, housing expenses and plans, special expenditures, estate plans, pensions, tax-favored assets, federal and state income taxes, payroll taxes, Social Security retirement and survivor benefits, desired changes in living standard, economies in shared living, and borrowing constraints. ESPlanner considers these and a host of other factors, including contingent plans and the fact that survivors may have different needs and incomes. ESPlanner also lets you vary key inputs, such as the ages at which you'll retire, collect Social Security retirement benefits, and start to withdraw tax-deferred assets, to determine how these choices affect your maximum sustainable living standard. Although its calculations are complex, ESPlanner's interface is user-friendly, and its recommendations are easy to follow. System requirements: Runs on Windows 95, Windows 98, or Windows NT v.4.0 with Service Pack 4. Minimum requirements: Intel® Pentium® II or faster processor (266 MHz) with 32 MB of RAM. Recommended: Intel® Pentium® II or faster processor (400MHz) with 64MB RAM. Here's what's new in ESPlanner2000: · Updated Federal Income Tax Provisions and More Accurate Calculation of Taxes on Long-term Capital Gains · Updated Social Security Benefit Provisions, including Pending Changes in the Earnings Test · Updated Social Security Tax Provisions · Updated of all State Income Tax Provisions and Much More Refined Treatment of Itemized Deductions · Simplified Controls for Inputting Dates · Ability to Save Results to Excel and Use Excel to Chart Results · Revised Manual and Tutorial

ESPlannerTM 2000: Revolutionary Financial Planning Software - CD-ROM edition

Kotlikoff, Laurence J.

Bernheim, Douglas B.

Williams, Lowell

Finance

Mit Pr

ESPlannerTM 2000: Revolutionary Financial Planning Software - CD-ROM edition for professional financial planners

Bernheim, Douglas

MIT Press (MA)

Few realize how bad the federal government's finances are, because most evaluations are based on what happened in the past―not what is likely to happen in the future.

Fiscal and Generational Imbalances:: New Budget Measures for New Budget Priorities

Smetters, Kent

AEI Press

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