Description: This article presents statistics on the growth of actuarial employment with Blue Cross/Blue Shield plans over the last 25 years.

Description: The author discusses a perceived loophole in the Social Security system whereby an employer could reduce employees’ wages by all or a portion of their Social Security payroll tax and then pay this tax for the employees. This procedure, which had been little used through the years except by householders employing domestic workers, was dubbed “FICA-II,” and the article notes that 1980 legislation prohibited the practice other than for domestic workers and a few other limited exemptions.

Description: This article is a review of the 1977 book “The Future of Social Security,” by Alicia H. Munnell, formerly on the staff of the Brookings Institution and now an Assistant Vice President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston. The author of this review notes that the financial problems of the Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance program have drawn considerable public attention during the past few years, and this has produced quite a number of books and papers on the subject with various recommendations as to what should be done about the future of the program. The reviewer thinks highly of this book, which covers the philosophical questions of individual equity vs. social adequacy, and the question of the effect of OASDI on savings and capital accumulation. Note: A detailed review of the book will appear in the Transactions.

Description: Reports on recent month-end fund balances in the Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance funds. They had been facing a great financial crisis recently and now are in much better financial condition.

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: Article from The Actuary, June 1971 – volume 5 - Issue 6 reviews the Advisory Council on Social Security's 1971 report on Social Security and Medicare.

Description: Highlights the recent changes to Social Security and Medicare from enactment of the Tax Reform Act of 1986 and the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act. Also highlights some changes voted in by one of the houses but not by both, and therefore not enacted.

Description: This article is a review of the report, An Actuarial Audit of the Social Security System, by Robert S. Kaplan and Roman L. Weil. Mr. Myers suggests that economists were not the appropriately chosen authors for an actuarial audit.

Description: Full version of The Actuary, April 1997, Vol. 31, No. 4.