by Bruce Webb Balt Sun: Obama picks Carolyn Colvin for SSA Deputy President Barack Obama has chosen Carolyn W. Colvin of Maryland to be deputy commissioner of Social Security, the White House announced Thursday. Currently special assistant to Maryland’s transportation secretary, Colvin was Montgomery County Health and Human Services director until her dismissal by newly […]

by Bruce Webb Summary from Director’s Blog CBO’s Long-Term Projections for Social Security: 2009 UpdateFull Report: Long-Term Projections for Social Security: 2009 Update This newest report on the long-range health of Social Security shows a shape not much changed from last year’s but with some changes in the detailed dates and numbers. Per this report […]

by Bruce Webb I haven’t posted on Social Security for a while for a pretty simple reason. Nothing has been going on. Until today when Social Security released the following Policy Brief: Distributional Effects of Raising the Social Security Taxable Maximum. This policy brief analyzes the effects on taxpayers and Social Security beneficiaries of either […]

by Bruce Webb Congressional Budget Office Long Term Budget OutlookDiscuss. (Social Security is chapter 3) (Update) Not a lot of meat here. CBO offers two outlooks for Social Security, one which projects a payroll gap of 1.33% (extended baseline) and another 1.54%. (alternative fiscal scenario). The former assumes that the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts […]

by Prof Neil Buchanan of GWU Just read the whole thing.The 2009 Social Security Trustees’ Report: Good News Behind the Headlines I could not agree more with Prof. Buchanan’s conclusion. While there is some talk of returning to address Social Security’s finances after we fix healthcare costs, it at least appears likely that we will […]

by Bruce Webb In comments Andrew Biggs claims that the NW Plan does not actually eliminate $15.4 trillion in unfunded Social Security liability but instead leaves a 1% payroll gap over the Infinite Future. I have no reason to suspect his math but do suspect he doesn’t fully understand the mechanism. The Northwest Plan ultimately […]

by Bruce Webb Yes. Both. But first a recap. The semi-final version of the basic NW Plan was introduced in this post: NW Plan for a Real Social Security Fix. The spreadsheets linked to that post show that under current projections you can fix Social Security by implementing a 0.20% FICA increase in 2010, another […]

by Bruce WebbThe above two figures are from CBO’s Aug 2008 study on long-term Social Security solvency. I am not going to discuss them in depth but just point out that we trap ourselves when we say Oh-mi-God Social Security depletion moved back from 2041 to 2037!!” when the reality is that it is just […]

an animation by Lee A. Arnold Higly Highly recommended (in Webb talk ‘higly’ is way above ‘highly’ but in deference to Lee we’ll go English this time) Direct link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tts2uTWt6e8

by Bruce Webb The following piece is so bad that I won’t even put any of it above the fold, nor will I waste my time critiquing it. But people should know that the battle over Social Security is not over, crap like this is routinely delivered via our major media voices. Robert Samuelson in […]