Description: From the 1960 Transactions Vol. 12 No. 32, this ‘Digest of Informal Discussion’ addresses current developments and proposals with respect to Social Security legislation in the United States and Canada, and individual retirement legislation.

Description: The Advisory Council to Social Security will soon be replaced by a board to manage a new independent system. This article discusses recent recommendations made by the Council and the role actuaries have played on it.

Description: This paper reviews proposals from the IPSAS- B, the IMF and Eurostat in relation to the reporting of pension liabilities in national accounts.

Description: The article explores the lack of focus of Social Security reform proposals on the the next twenty years and the imminent drawing down of the Social Security Trust Fund sometime near the end of that period.

Description: This article is a review and discussion of the 1976 “Report of the Consultant Panel on Social Security to the United States Congressional Research Service.” The report contains the results of another government-initiated study of the OASDI system which puts forth a second solution to a problem first publicly identified by the 1975 Advisory Council on Social Security, a problem which has come to be known as the “decoupling issue.” Because the solution proposed by the actuaries and economists making up this consultant panel is significantly different from that of the Advisory Council, this report has inspired some degree of friendly debate among actuaries and others interested in the technicalities of the OASDI benefit formula. Panel members are Peter A. Diamond, James C. Hickman, Ernest J. Moorhead, and William C. Hsiao, Chairman.