Improving the Social Security Trustees Report

Every four years, the congressionally-appointed Social Security Advisory Board assembles an expert panel to evaluate how Social Security’s trustees and actuaries analyze and project the program’s long-term finances. The 2007 Technical Panel on Assumptions and Methods, chaired by former Congressional Budget Office (CBO) director Dan L. Crippen, will soon deliver its final report, which could alter views regarding the future Social Security financing shortfall and how it might be addressed.

At this AEI forum, Crippen and three other members of the Technical Panel--Steven Lieberman of the Moran Company, Jeffrey Passel of the Pew Hispanic Center, and Shripad Tuljapurkar of Stanford University--will discuss their findings and recommendations. AEI resident scholar Andrew G. Biggs and former CBO unit chief John Sabelhaus will comment. AEI visiting scholar Kent Smetters will moderate.

About the Author

 

Kent
Smetters
  • Kent Smetters is the Boettner Chair Associate Professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School and a faculty research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research. He previously served as deputy assistant secretary for economic policy at the U.S. Treasury. He coauthored Fiscal and Generational Imbalances: New Budget Measures for New Budget Priorities (AEI Press, 2003) and coedited The Pension Challenge: Risk Transfers and Retirement Income Security (Oxford University Press, 2004). He has published academic articles in leading journals, including the American Economic Review, the Journal of Political Economy, and The Quarterly Journal of Economics. He is often cited in major media outlets.
  • Phone: 215-898-9811
    Email: ksmetters@aei.org
  • Assistant Info

    Name: Chad Hill
    Phone: 202-862-5862
    Email: chad.hill@aei.org

 

Andrew G.
Biggs
  • Andrew G. Biggs is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, DC. Prior to joining AEI he was the principal deputy commissioner of the Social Security Administration (SSA), where he oversaw SSA's policy research efforts and led the agency's participation in the Social Security Trustees working group. In 2005 he worked on Social Security reform at the National Economic Council and in 2001 was on the staff of the President's Commission to Strengthen Social Security. Andrew’s work at AEI focuses on Social Security reform, state and local government pensions, and comparisons of public and private sector compensation. His work has appeared in academic publications as well as outlets such as the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and Washington Post, and he has testified before Congress on numerous occasions. He holds a Bachelors degree from the Queen's University of Belfast, Masters degrees from Cambridge University and the University of London and a Ph.D. from the London School of Economics.
  • Phone: 202-862-5841
    Email: andrew.biggs@aei.org
  • Assistant Info

    Name: Rohan Poojara
    Phone: 202-862-5852
    Email: rohan.poojara@aei.org
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