Almost everything you read or hear about the health of Social Security is unreliable. This is for one simple reason: politics. Commentators from the right and the left often are describing two different scenarios entirely. For those people who simply do not believe in the social safety net, the end is always near. Had these people been right, Social Security would have cratered in by now. It is generally safe to ignore caterwauling from the political right (in all things, for that matter.) But here comes a study from Harvard and Dartmouth that says maybe the problems with Social Security really are that bad. Or maybe not. No one can be exactly sure because Social Security has been systematically inaccurate in making their own internal predictions for about the past fifteen years. Two issues are that the Social Security models are not taking into account the full affect of the baby-boomer retirement wave and also not fully accounting for increased longevity. Why might that be? Once again the answer is politics. The Harvard-Dartmouth study suggest that Social Security’s auditors have gone so far to avoid politics that they have failed to look at all the available data. The answer, per this study, is to apply more vigorous analysis and to do it in a more transparent way. This, the researchers argue, will allow our Solons to craft meaningful reform. Or, go on indulging in, what else, politics.
Is The Sky Falling? Is There A Way To Tell?
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