Description: Summary of discussions from various panelists on the topic of Social Security. They looked at recent developments with respect to general legislation expanding coverage, discussion of the Constitutional issues with respect to Social Security, developing experience of the new Canadian old-age pension plan, inadequacy of the funding levels relative to promised benefits for both the Canadian old-age plan and US Social Security.

Description: The article first tries to determine a consensus view of what social security should accomplish and then tries to measure how well the current level of benefits succeeds in meeting these goals. Assessing benefit adequacy is an essential element in putting the overall program on a sound financing footing.