When I heard the learned numbers man talk about Social Security, I might have wondered what all the fuss had been about. He did not even mention the president’s proposal for private accounts─something that struck me like ignoring the presence of an elephant in a small living room.
To hear Stephen Goss tell it, the job of chief actuary for Social Security brings him a lot of fun because it involves making guesses about the future. He describes his role as “not political at all,” but like that of a baseball umpire working behind the plate.
Goss was the chief speaker at a recent forum at UMass Boston. Professor Yung-Ping Chen, himself an expert on the subject, had asked the actuary to present the facts about the current Social Security situation. Predictably, the event attracted few young people, a further indication that this country’s youth do not see that the current debate has far more importance for them than for those already advanced in age
During the Chief Actuary’s presentation, I found little evidence that he takes seriously the fevered discussions about Social Security that have spread across America. To him, solving the problems of this crucial national program requires nothing more than clear-headed analysis and carefully calibrated responses.
In Goss’s view, our national pension system needs some tweaking, but not immediately. He believes Social Security to be basically sound: Not until 2017 will the benefits paid out exceed the amount of tax money coming in and not until 2041 will the system run out of tax funds. Goss does, however, allow that certain problems will require Congress to take action, sooner or later.
This expert on the numbers attributes the system’s prospective problems mainly to the drop in American birth rates. “If women were still giving birth to an average of 3.3 children, then there would be no problem,” he says. But by 1972, the birth rate had dropped to two children per family and remains at that level.
Various economic and social changes in American society have resulted in fewer children, especially among white people. The drop in births is not as great as in some other countries, notably Italy and other European nations; but this demographic change in the United States looms large enough to upset Social Security’s revenues.
Another point emphasized by Goss concerns the ratio between the number of workers who pay into the system and those who have retired and are currently drawing benefits. In 1975, there were 3.2 workers for every beneficiary, a ratio that he calls “extremely stable.”
To people who feel disturbed at today’s relatively low level of workers per beneficiary, Goss says that the inflated numbers during World War II have given them unrealistic expectations. He admits, however, that without major changes, the ratio will drop to only about two workers per beneficiary.
When the question of private accounts finally emerged in the question period, Goss’s main response to this proposal was to say: “It depends how you do them.” He seemed to favor those plans that would be funded, not from the Social Security trust funds, but rather from the general treasury.
Again, you would not know from the chief actuary that values have much of anything to do with the current debate about the future of Social Security. He seemed content to detail the numbers as if crucial choices, many of them political in nature and reflecting fundamental ways of looking at the world, had no part to play in the national discussion about changes in the system.
Yes, he laid out some of the possible choices: you can lower benefit levels, raise tax rates, increase the taxable maximum, include those public employees currently not participating in the system. And, ultimately, I suppose he would add private accounts.
But he paid little attention to the human meaning of the choices. To me, the decisions ought to reflect the values that Americans consider important. And, given the divisions among us, these moves will not come easily.
For me, solidarity among old and young ranks high as a value. So does the responsibility of our government to take care of members of the community who cannot care for themselves. I support preferential options for the poor and for the disadvantaged to the extent that such options are feasible. And proposals to cut back on the Social Security income of us members of the middle class strike me as unfair, to say the least.
Schemes designed to establish private accounts, even when advanced under the euphemism of “personal accounts,” are ways of privatizing a system that should remain public in every part so that the general welfare can be best served.
The common good, not the welfare of Wall Street investment bankers, must remain the measuring stick when making changes in a system on which so many Americans depend for financial survival.
Richard Griffin