Description: By definition, actuaries are preeminent in making actuarial analyses. Nevertheless, in some areas, such analyses can be adequately performed by persons from other professions, such as economists and statisticians. This article describes the misuse of life expectancy data by the Heritage Foundation when they 'calculated' that low-income, single African-American males born after 1959 face a negative rate of return from Social Security. Unfortunately, this misinformation was widely disseminated through the news media and Web sites.

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

Description: This article presents a satire about a research organization that produces studies of simple and irrelevant questions.

Description: A review of a book by a former Commissioner of Social Security, in which he shares his thoughts on what Social Security is, the new law, the financing, the benefits, the types of employment covered, the benefit amounts, the retirement test, and several subsidiary topics.

Description: The article notes, as explained in Norman Solomon’s paper, TSA XV, 167, so-called windfall appropriations are required annually to finance dual benefits to which certain railroad workers became eligible under the Railroad Retirement Act in consequence of pre-1975 employment that entitled them to both Railroad Retirement and Social Security benefits. The author then notes that the Office of Management and Budget has arbitrarily reduced revised appropriations, and that “the actuarial profession should take a strong stand against this by-passing of actuarial determinations.”