Description: This paper attempts to gather information regarding various components of the Canadian retirement income system, and to quantify the impact on the system of unanticipated morality improvements, particularly at age 65 and over, and of lower than expected equity returns. From 2005 Living to 100 and Beyond Monograph, M-LI05-1.

Description: This paper consists of two parts. The first concerns the financing of public systems, the second is a challenging introduction to variances encountered in life insurance and life annuity theory. The first part emerges from work by some actuarial students and faculty at the University of Michigan during the past five years. The second part was stimulated by some developments in the preparation of the second edition of Actuarial Mathematics.

Description: This article describes a report by the GAO that was prepared at the request of Congressman Wolff. Robert J. Myers, the author of the article, that the GAO report is “an excellent summary of the various recent studies on the financial problems confronting the OASDI system. Four of the studies have been recently reviewed in The Actuary: An Actuarial Audit of the Social Security System by Kaplan and Weil April 1975, the 1975 Trustees Report June 1975, Report of the Panel on Social Security Financing to the Committee on Finance, U.S. Senate May 1975, and Reports of the Quadrennial Advisory Council on Social Security October 1975. Also considered in the report are editorial comments by The Wall Street Journal which first impelled Congressman Wolff to request the GAO Report.”

Description: The question is frequently raised: Do workers get their money's worth from the payroll taxes that they pay under the U.S. Social Security program? Analyses by nonactuaries are usually faulty because of incorrect methodology and/or incorrect assumptions. This paper presents an analysis of cash retirement benefits for various cases of workers at two earnings levels who attained age 65 and retired in the past and who will attain the normal retirement age and retire at several dates in the future. In summary, the vast majority of workers who retired in the past received, and are receiving, benefits of far greater value than the taxes that they paid. This situation will change in the future, especially if tax rates rise to a level sufficient to support the program over the long run. Many workers who retire in the future will not get their money's worth when the combined employer-employee taxes are considered. This result would be expected eventually for a program that is financed almost entirely by these payroll taxes. However, the vast majority of workers will get their money's worth if only the employee tax is considered. From Transactions of Society of Actuaries 1992, Vol. 44.

Description: This paper discusses Cecil Nesbitt's paper on elementary models of the reserve fund for OASDI in the United States. From the Actuarial Research Clearing House 1991, Vol.1.

Description: Summary of the annual cost-of-living adjustment and changes in other wage-indexed programs parameters for Social Security in 2024.

Description: This article discusses Social Security amendments of 1983 that include triggering devices based on trust-fund ratios that affect the funding or benefits of the system for both OASDI and Medicare.

Description: Article from The Actuary September 1992 – Volume 26, No. 7 is about Social Security's projected costs exceeding income

Description: Commentary from Robert Myers regarding the apparent success of the actuarial cost estimating procedure for the Social Security program on its 40th anniversary.

Description: This article is a review of the “Report of the Universal Social Security Coverage Study Group,” published by the department of Health and Human Services in March, 1980. The author of this review notes that the mission of this group was “to examine the feasibility and desirability of mandatory Society Security for employees of the federal government, of state and local governments, and of private non-profit organizations. The article discusses what the report sees as major problems with the lack of universal coverage, and recommendations to address them. Editor’s Note: This is excerpted from a full review to appear in the Transactions.