2014 Social Security Report Released

Bruce Webb for Social Security Defenders

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Monday July 28, 2014 · 10:01 AM PDT

2014/07/28 · 10:01

Entry Page for Trustees Reports: http://www.ssa.gov/...
2014 Report in HTML: http://www.ssa.gov/...
2014 Report in PDF:http://www.ssa.gov/...

Not a lot of change in the numbers, but I'll let interested Kossacks take a first look for themselves and give my input in Comments.

2014 Social Security Report: July 28

Bruce Webb for Social Security Defenders

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Saturday July 19, 2014 · 6:47 PM PDT

2014/07/19 · 18:47

Or at "End of month". Good sourcing for this either way. Typically the Report is released live to the web the instant it is released in DC. Be there or be square.

http://www.ssa.gov/...

U.S. Public Debt, Long Term Debt and 'Real Debt'

Bruce Webb for Social Security Defenders

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Monday May 12, 2014 · 2:21 PM PDT

2014/05/12 · 14:21

In the course of a longish blog post at Econoblog Angry Bear with a similar title http://angrybearblog.com/... I developed an interesting series of numbers that kind of turn the typical Austerian 'We are drowning our grandchildren in a sea of DEBT!!" narrative on its head. All links at the AB post:

Total Public Debt: $17.4 trillion
Intragovernmental Holdings: $4.9 trillion (including $2.8 trillion in Social Security Trust Funds
Debt Held by the Public: $12.5 trillion

Treasury holdings of the Feds SOMA (System Open Market Account): $2.2 trillion (along with another $1.6 trillion of Federally backed instruments)

Of Debt Held by the Public:
Treasury Bonds (20 or 30 year): $1.46 trillion
Treasury Notes (1-10 year): $8.03 trillion
Remainder in short term Bills and TIPS

Point of Interest no. 1: U.S. Long Term Debt, defined as instruments with more than 10 years is right at $1.5 trillion out of $17.4 trillion or 8.6% of the total. More points and the implications of this one under the Orange Crueller

Bruce Webb for Social Security Defenders

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Tuesday November 05, 2013 · 10:42 PM PST

2013/11/05 · 22:42

God save Social Security from its friends. Because they don't understand the harm that they are proposing in putting forth 'progressive' 'fixes' to Social Security 'crisis'.

In 1999 a couple of little known economists (and not well enough known even now) named Dean Baker and Mark Weisbrot published a book called Social Security: the Phony Crisis. The introduction is on-line and linked. While a lot has happened since 1999 the fundamental thesis of 'Phony Crisis' has held up very well - Social Security is not broke, faces no crisis, and needs no particular change in its current financing structure. And what it certainly DOESN'T need is any proposal to extend FICA rates to capital gains or indeed even lifting the current payroll gap more than marginally.

Now this will seem like heresy and indeed like treason for a guy that is Founder of the dKos Social Security Defenders Group and indeed has the effrontery to use socsec dot defender at gmail as one of his mail accounts. I mean doesn't this guy know ----- (fill in the blank) about Social Security? Well oddly I do. In particular I have studied the numbers. More heresy below the Orange Squiggle of Obvious Sellout by Traitor Bruce.

Bruce Webb for Social Security Defenders

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Friday May 31, 2013 · 8:00 AM PDT

2013/05/31 · 08:00

(Today is the day-May 31. Click on first link below, Report should be up by noon Eastern)

The Annual Report to Congress of the Trustees of Social Security for years appeared reliably (and I believe per statute) on March 31st. In recent years publication has lagged by a little or lot and all I can say is that it will appear sometime between next Monday April 1 and the 15th of Whenever. When it does it will appear on the following webpage, which somewhat to my surprise has been newly formatted. And in a more useful way for SS Defenders. Baby steps. Reports from the Board of Trustees.

Okay that is the Where and When. Before getting to the How and Why let me talk a little bit about the Trustees and the Trust Fund. Because they are not necessarily what they seem. Much more in extended.

Bruce Webb for Social Security Defenders

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Wednesday March 27, 2013 · 2:00 PM PDT

2013/03/27 · 14:00

Priceman touched on the Three Alternatives today: Intermediate Cost, supposed to be the most probable outcome, more optimistic Low Cost, and more pessimistic High Cost. This post proposes to put some numbers to those alternatives and in passing show why targeting 75 year Solvency (as both the Ryan Budget and the new Durbin Commission proposal do) is lunacy. All of the Tables come from the 2012 Annual Report of the Trustees of Social Security: List of Tables.

First thing to note is that these represent just a sub-set of the Demographic and Economic assumptions, as per footnote 'a' more expanded data can be found in Tables V.A1-A4 & V.B1-B2
Second, and as variously pointed out by Roger and Priceman in previous posts, Low Cost arithmetically projects a fully funded Social Security system, that is 100% of scheduled benefits with no changes in cap formula or retirement age.
Third, and as pointed out by Priceman and to be the subject of an important post by Guest Blogathon Poster Economist Dean Baker, the productivity and real wage numbers of Intermediate Cost are well below historical trend. And while commenters views might vary, I don't see the Low Cost counterparts as unreachable. At all. Particularly if we consciously targeted proposals to increase wages and lower unemployment. For example a return to late Clinton Admin numbers blows all this right out of the water and Social Security actually projects to OVER fund.

More numbers below.

Bruce Webb for Social Security Defenders

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Wednesday March 20, 2013 · 12:47 PM PDT

2013/03/20 · 12:47

When the Ryan Roapmap to Prosperity/2013 Republican House Budget was released some otherwise sharp observers like Ezra Klein claimed it just gave Social Security a pass:

Here is Paul Ryan’s path to a balanced budget in three sentences: He cuts deep into spending on health care for the poor and some combination of education, infrastructure, research, public-safety, and low-income programs. The Affordable Care Act’s Medicare cuts remain, but the military is spared, as is Social Security. There’s a vague individual tax reform plan that leaves only two tax brackets — 10 percent and 25 percent — and will require either huge, deficit-busting tax cuts or increasing taxes on poor and middle-class households, as well as a vague corporate tax reform plan that lowers the rate from 35 percent to 25 percent.

Paul Ryan’s budget: Social engineering with a side of deficit reduction

Well Ezra got played. Actually Ryan built in language designed to force a 'reform' of Social Security IN THE VERY FIRST YEAR. And in a way certain to be based on a cuts only 'fix' that by the way can be fully blamed on the President and two Presidential appointees or at worst the 'bipartisan' process involved. But understanding why this is so requires some unpacking of the language and the underlying concepts Ryan uses to hide his fingerprints.

Below the fold will be found the bulk of Sec 704 of the Legislative Text of the 2013 Chairman's Mark of the House Republican Budget. (pdf) The bold portions are added by me and discussed below the text and in comments.

Bruce Webb for Social Security Defenders

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Friday March 15, 2013 · 11:00 AM PDT

2013/03/15 · 11:00

When talking about the relation between Social Security and 'deficit' 'debt' 'assets' 'unified budget' I often get the objections: "That is not what 'deficit/surplus' means!" "Under the law there IS NO 'Unified Deficit'" "Debts owed to the Government CANNOT be Assets to another branch of that Government".

Well, whatever. The fact is that SSA, CBO and OMB use certain terms for their own purposes in their own data tables, usages that may or may not be common across those agencies and ignoring that in favor of some essentially meta-discussion drawn from somebody's 'Principles of Accounting' textbook or even the US Code just STARTS us out chasing our terminological tails. What I suggest is reading the Reports ON their own terms IN their own terms and only after you grasp what they are trying to say to fit that back (if possible) to OTHER technical and legal usages. That said lets start with portions of Table VI.A3 from the 2012 Report, showing the combined Trust Funds from 1957 through 2004 (there was no DI Trust Fund in 1956 or before).

Discussion below. (Warning, may be too convoluted and inside baseball to be useful, and so jargon laden as to be unintelligible, feel free to ask 'WTF?' in comments)

Bruce Webb for Social Security Defenders

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Thursday March 14, 2013 · 12:18 PM PDT

2013/03/14 · 12:18

Well ready or not a dkos Social Security blogathon is coming your way March 25-29 #HandsOffMySS. Spearheaded by Kossack Roger Fox you can expect some big names from the outside (including my pal/mentor Dean Baker) plus hot advocacy from mad as hell Kossacks. And some dryasdust numbers stuff from me.

But since there are always some folk who like to come to the first day of the Grad Seminar having already read the whole syllabus, I thought I would make some reading suggestions. In this case on the history of the War ON and the War FOR Social Security.

The first stop is the official online history of SSA from SSA.gov/history Historical Background And Development Of Social Security. The whole thing is interesting enough but those interested in the development of what we know as Social Security today could safely scroll down the the section titled Committee on Economic Security (CES), the actual 1934 designers of the programs first implemented by the Social Security Act of 1935.

For the second and third and other stops follow me below the Orangy thingamabob.

Bruce Webb for Social Security Defenders

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Monday March 11, 2013 · 11:55 AM PDT

2013/03/11 · 11:55

also: Solvency, Sustainable Solvency
Okay lets start with the following from CBO:

What we have here is the standard picture of Social Security 'crisis'. We have one line labeled 'Outlays' and then 'Outlays with Scheduled Benefits' going from lower left to upper right. We have another line called 'Tax Revenues' that later merges with 'Outlays with Payable Benefits'. In the left hand 'actual' section of the figure we see 'Tax Revenues' crossing with 'Outlays' back in 2009. At this point the gap between tax revenues and outlays was back filled from the existing Trust Fund, first in the form of interest and then increasingly by redemption of Special Issue Treasuries until the latter (and of course all interest accruing on them) are depleted, an event currently projected for around 2033. At which time under current law 'Outlays' simply reset to match 'Tax Revenues' and benefits move from 'Scheduled' to 'Payable' via a 25% cut in benefits. This is the standard definition of 'Crisis'.

Up to this point both 'Defenders' and 'Reformers' are on the same page. But views and definitions depart radically after, because both sides take very different lessons and policy prescriptions away from the same 'Crisis'. To turn to those figurative pages follow me below the Thingy.

Bruce Webb for Social Security Defenders

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Sunday March 10, 2013 · 11:00 AM PDT

2013/03/10 · 11:00

Most of what almost everyone knows about Social Security finance is wrong. Not YOU of course, I mean the other guys. But as a favor to me look over my shoulder as I edicate the wrong'uns under the crueller and make sure I don't make mistakes. Read More

Social Security Policy Options (again)

Bruce Webb for Social Security Defenders

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Tuesday January 29, 2013 · 5:47 AM PST

2013/01/29 · 05:47

Means testing at various thresholds, Chained CPI, handful of Cap increases. In this figure a score of 0.6 means entirely backfilling the 75 year actuarial gap. (For those who care that is percentage of GDP). Note that if you set means testing levels at 'rich' levels you don't really get much bang and same for donut hole proposal for cap increases (e.g. the Obama-Biden 2008 proposal to partially lift the cap only for $250k+ folk).
Over to you all, I just like starting from real data points.

Source: CBO 2010 'Social Security Policy Options'

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RSS

2014 Social Security Report Released

2014 Social Security Report: July 28

U.S. Public Debt, Long Term Debt and 'Real Debt'

Social Security: Still the 'Phony Crisis'

2013 Social Security Report: Where and When to be Found, Tips on How and Why to be Read

The Three SS 'Alternatives': Economic Projections, Uncertainty, Probability

Ryan Social Security Roadmap: the Reischauer-Blahous Commission

Social Security Finance: ON and IN its Own Terms, Part 1

The War ON and FOR Social Security: some reading suggestions

Social Security Lingo: Scheduled Benefits, Payable Benefits, 'Crisis'

Social Security Operations to 1993: OR Trust Fund Hits and Myths

Social Security Policy Options (again)