Description: This panel discussion, which occurred at the May 1982 Society of Actuaries meeting in Colorado Springs, covered U.S. Social Security issues. Topics included: 1. Financial status of the Social Security program. 2. Changes recently adopted and proposed. 3. Impact of these changes on the private pension system 4. Role of the actuarial profession regarding the Social Security program. The following papers were referenced in this discussion: OASDI Earnings Test, by Warren R. Luckner Measures of Actuarial Status for Social Security: Retrospect and Prospect, by Dwight K. Bartlett III

Description: Concomitant with the industrial revolution, the function of providing old age income shifted from families and local institutions to government social security and private pension plans. The history of this change in the U.K. and U.S. is reviewed. A simple mathematical model provides insights into the role played by three rates [the rate of increase of the working population, the time preference rate, and the rate of real wage growth] in determining optimum funding policy. From Actuarial Research Clearing House 1994, Vol. 2.

Description: This paper discusses the cause of the long-term financial problem of the Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance OASDI program, outlines an alternative actuarial financing approach for OASDI as a solution to this problem, and details the advantages of this approach over the current financing method. Followed by several discussion papers submitted

Description: This presentation, session number 80PD, took place at the 1999 Spring Meeting of the Society of Actuaries, held June 16-18 in Seattle. The panelists discuss the far-reaching, and not fully understood, proposals for fundamentally changing Social Security, including proposals from Congress, private individuals and groups, and by members of the recent Advisory Council on Social Security. They include “privatizing” Social Security, partially or fully, and changing the investment policy to allow trust fund investments in private securities. Discussion from participants is included. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 25, No. 2.