>Brad DeLong wrote:
>> 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...
> Then why are the actuaries' recommendations kept secret?
> Seth
I'm getting confused. So far as I know the actuaries don't make recommendations. They report on their projections. Of course, they may urge attention be paid to their projections.
So, do they make recommendations, secret or otherwise?
Also, some of their data and methods are indeed secret according to a 1994 report by outsiders. You can get this report as am.exe (for Actuarial Methods) from the Social Security ftp site (it's easier to find the report at the ftp site than at the web site) ftp://ftp.ssa.gov/ You have to poke around.
The outsiders verified the SSA actuaries methods. There were quibbles but no serious disagreements.
That being said, I accept Doug's contention that their basic assumptions are too low. For example, they assume about 60 years of GDP growth that are well below that of the Depression.
IMO, their assumption of immigration simply doesn't account for the immigration that we are really experiencing.
I don't accept that the actuaries are involved in a devious plot. Under the Republican administrations (and Congress) they have suffered severe cutbacks. SSA says that some of their most experienced actuaries are working now well beyond their retirement age. I could allow myself to suspect that the cutbacks are a Congressional plot to kill Social Security if somebody pressed my paranoia buttons.
John K. Taber
-- Another damn, thick, square book. Always scribbling, scribbling, scribbling, eh, Mr. Gibbon? -- Duke of Gloucester.