Description: The United States has received severe negative press the last several years regarding its massive U.S. federal government debt, currently estimated as of April 2007 at about $8.9 trillion. This article looks at the U.S. debt relative to other countries and also explores the impact on U.S. investments.

Description: The article summarizes a survey conducted by the Pension Section's Research Team. Nearly 2,400 actuaries responded with answers that ranged from abolishing the system to expanding the program to include all workers. The question, What changes, if any, should be made to the current system? is recapped.

Description: This table displays U.S. adult prevalence of all those obese during 2005–2006 by age, gender and selected ethnic group.

Description: This editorial mentions four issues from the recent Social Security Trustee's Report that will each be covered in more depth in future editorials.

Description: This article summarizes the results of the first part of a U.S. Appointed Actuaries survey asking about the usefulness of the various documents that have been created to guide valuation actuaries.

Description: This table shows the results of an attribution of the major contributing factors to the rate of mortality improvement in cardiovascular disease between 1980 and 2000.

Description: Article from The Actuary, May 1985 – Volume No. 19, Issue No. 5 that discusses the NAIC adoption, for future use, of two tests of continued adequacy of the 1983 Table A.

Description: This brief article notes that in a recent decision the U.S. Supreme Court touched on a fundamental issue of employee benefits philosophy, in holding that defined benefit pension plans must grant benefit accrual credit for periods of military service. The author argues that this seems contrary to current attitudes.

Description: This article discusses the U.S. military retirement system, an unfunded non-contributory defined-benefit plan, and the legislative proposal that would convert the system to an entry-age-normal funding method.

Description: The Actuary Vol. 22, No. 1. This article discusses the impact of a change in procedure in the financing of the US Military Retirement System. The change requires amortizing the past service liability. The impact will depend upon whether the amortization is achieved by increasing current taxes and decreasing the current deficit, or by merely increasing the national debt and leaving the current deficit unchanged. The author asserts that the new financing method will not weaken the financial condition of the military retirement system, and that it has the potential to strengthen its financial condition if the funding of the past service liability is handled appropriately.