Description: A letter to the editor regarding how the Social Security trustees project Social Security costs: Is it actuarial science or politics? From Pension Section News, January 2006, No. 60.

Description: The projection methods used by the Social Security Administration's Office of the Chief Actuary are important. The resulting projections are cited regularly by policy-makers, academics and others interested in the long-term financial solvency of the OASDI system. However, a complete description of this projection methodology that is vital for serious policy discussions is not available to the general public. This summary was constructed in connection with the Social Security Advisory Board's 1999 Technical Panel on Methods and Assumptions. A goal of the Methods and Modeling working group of the Technical Panel was to 'work to ensure that the projection methods used by the Office of the Chief Actuary become more public.' From Actuarial Research Clearing House 2000, Vol. 1.

Description: Presented at Annual Meeting October 1986. Discusses: Reasonableness of cost projections in the 1986 OASDI Trustees Report, Possible policy alternatives in response to the higher cost projected for years after 2020, How to reduce the variability in cost trends due to economic and demographic changes, Financing implications of differences and similarities in cost trends between Social Security pensions and private pensions, paper, 'Components of Trends in Social Security Costs' by Francisco R. Bayo, Milton P. Glanz and Charles L. Trowbridge.