Most agree that something must be done to restrain future Social Security costs or raise additional revenues, but few agree on what should be done or when. Our research shows how well Social Security serves today's retirees, and how different reforms might affect future retirees.

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Measuring Personal Saving: A Tale of American Profligacy (Policy Briefs/Retirement Project Brief Series)
Author(s): Rudolph G. Penner

Official measures suggest that personal saving has been declining for the past 20 years, and even became negative in 2005. Inadequate saving threatens retirement preparations and reduces investment, which helps boost worker productivity and ultimately wages and living standards. However, neither of the two prominent measures of the saving rate, one based on the National Income and Products Account and the other on the Flow of Funds, exactly conforms to what most people think of as saving. This brief explains the measures and describes how they differ.

Posted: May 14, 2008

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Taking Back Our Fiscal Future (Occasional Paper)
Author(s): Joseph Antos, Robert Bixby, Stuart Butler, Paul Cullinan, Alison Fraser, William Galston, Ron Haskins, Julie Isaacs, Maya MacGuineas, Will Marshall, Pietro Nivola, Rudolph G. Penner, Robert D. Reischauer, Alice M. Rivlin, Isabel V. Sawhill, C. Eugene Steuerle

The authors of this paper—longtime federal budget and policy experts—were drawn together by a deep concern about the nation's long-term fiscal outlook. Despite diverse philosophies and political leanings, they found solid common ground and agree that unsustainable deficits in the federal budget threaten the health and vigor of the American economy and the first step toward establishing budget responsibility is to reform the budget decision process so that the major drivers of escalating deficits—Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid—are no longer on autopilot. The paper provides specific policy recommendations and outlines the reasons action is critical.

Posted: March 31, 2008

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Can Faster Economic Growth Bail Out Our Retirement Programs? (Research Report)
Author(s): Rudolph G. Penner

Government analysts portray a bleak fiscal future as the retirement of baby boomers and soaring health costs push up expenditures on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid much faster than projected tax revenues. Some argue that the analysts' economic growth projections are too pessimistic. This analysis argues that official growth projections are quite reasonable, but even if they are too pessimistic, faster growth will accelerate Social Security costs because of the program's structure and health costs are also likely to grow more rapidly. Faster growth will, however, ease the pain associated with necessary reforms.

Posted: March 19, 2008

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Stabilizing Future Fiscal Policy (Research Report)
Author(s): Rudolph G. Penner, C. Eugene Steuerle

Fiscal policy is out of control. Programs, such as Social Security and Medicare, have design features that push up spending faster than the growth of revenues. It is time to change the course of the automatic pilot driving these programs. To do so, policymakers can develop “triggers” that automatically curb spending. Triggers will level the playing field between programs that have large automatic growth and those where growth or even maintenance of effort cannot be obtained without new legislation. The paper examines triggers employed to reform Social Security in other advanced democracies and explores design options for an optimal trigger.

Posted: August 20, 2007

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Paying a Price for Decisions of Yesteryear (Commentary)
Author(s): C. Eugene Steuerle

In this Baltimore Sun commentary, senior fellow Eugene Steuerle argues that the democratic process is imperiled by retirement, health, and taxation promises that will be very difficult to keep.

Posted: August 12, 2007

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