cooking SS numbers

[Brad De Long]

>
>The explanations given by the actuaries in the annual reports have 
>little credibility; they ignore considerable actual experience and 
>rely, instead, on highly pessimistic speculation about the future. 
>Also, of the 101 changes made in assumptions and methods from 1980 
>to 1998, 68 were negative and 33 positive, indicating a strong bias.

Well, we got mostly bad news about economic growth from 1980 to 1994. 
I think that the Social Security actuaries' estimates of productivity 
growth, immigration, and life expectancy are all too low. But I do 
not believe that the trustees alter the assumptions: when I was in 
Washington the assumptions that came out of the trustees' meeting 
were the assumptions that went in...

Brad DeLong