Social Security Reform: Demographic Trends Underlie Long-Term Financing
Shortage (Testimony, 11/20/97, GAO/T-HEHS-98-43).
GAO discussed: (1) the demographic trends contributing to the social
security financing problem; (2) when the problem will begin to confront
the federal government; (3) the alternatives for addressing the problem;
and (4) the implications of these alternatives.
GAO noted that: (1) increasing life expectancy and declining fertility
rates pose serious challenges not just for the social security system
but also for Medicare, Medicaid, the federal budget, and the economy as
a whole; (2) the aging of the baby-boom generation will simply
accelerate this trend; (3) social security receives more from payroll
taxes than it pays out in benefits; (4) this excess revenue is helping
build substantial trust fund reserves that are projected to help pay
full benefits until 2029, according to social security's intermediate
projections; (5) at the same time, this excess revenue helps reduce the
overall federal budget deficit but will start to taper off after 2008;
(6) in 2012, social security benefit payments are projected to exceed
cash revenues, and the federal budget will start to come under
considerable strain as the general fund starts to repay funds borrowed
from the trust funds; (7) although social security's revenues currently
exceed its expenditures, revenues are expected to be about 14 percent
less than total projected expenditures over the next 75 years, according
to Social Security Administration projections; (8) a variety of benefit
reductions and revenue increases within the current program structure
could be combined to restore financial balance; (9) some observers
believe that the program structure should be reevaluated; (10) reform is
necessary, and the sooner it is addressed, the less severe the necessary
adjustments will be; (11) any economic growth and improvements in living
standards achieved will also mitigate the strains that reform will
impose; (12) any course taken will substantially affect both workers and
retirees, other sources of retirement income, the income distribution,
the federal budget, and even the economy as a whole; and (13) such
effects should be well understood in making reforms.
--------------------------- Indexing Terms -----------------------------
REPORTNUM: T-HEHS-98-43
TITLE: Social Security Reform: Demographic Trends Underlie
Long-Term Financing Shortage
DATE: 11/20/97
SUBJECT: Future budget projections
Federal social security programs
Social security benefits
Retirement benefits
Economic analysis
Elderly persons
Population statistics
Budget deficit
Privatization
IDENTIFIER: Medicare Program
Medicaid Program
Social Security Trust Fund
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Cover
================================================================ COVER
Before the Task Force on Social Security Reform, Committee on the
Budget, U.S. Senate
For Release on Delivery
Expected at 10:00 a.m.
Thursday, November 20, 1997
SOCIAL SECURITY REFORM -
DEMOGRAPHIC TRENDS UNDERLIE
LONG-TERM FINANCING SHORTAGE
Statement of Barbara D. Bovbjerg, Associate Director
Income Security Issues
Health, Education, and Human Services Division
GAO/T-HEHS-98-43
GAO/HEHS-98-43T
(207021)
Abbreviations
=============================================================== ABBREV
SSA - Social Security Administration
ABC - x
SOCIAL SECURITY REFORM:
DEMOGRAPHIC TRENDS UNDERLIE
LONG-TERM FINANCING SHORTAGE
============================================================ Chapter 0
Mr. Chairman and Members of the Task Force:
We are pleased to be here today to speak about Social Security
financing reform. Our aging population is placing serious pressures
on Social Security and other forms of retirement income. In the
United States, the population of people aged 65 and older has tripled
since 1940 and is projected to more than double again by 2050.
People 65 and older are expected to make up 20 percent of the U.S.
population as early as 2030, compared with 13 percent today and just
7 percent in 1940. Moreover, the population aged 85 and older is
projected to increase fivefold by 2050. These projections reflect
significant increases in life expectancies. As people live longer,
they will need more income to sustain them throughout retirement.
Unless retirement and work patterns change, fewer workers will be
supporting each retiree. These profound demographic trends underlie
Social Security's projected financing shortfalls.
Today, I would like to discuss the demographic trends contributing to
Social Security's financing problem, when the problem will begin to
confront us, the alternatives for addressing the problem, and their
implications. My testimony is based on work we have done over the
past few years.\1
In summary, increasing life expectancy and declining fertility rates
pose serious challenges not just for our Social Security system but
also for Medicare, Medicaid, the federal budget, and our economy as a
whole. The aging of the baby-boom generation will simply accelerate
this trend.
Today, Social Security receives more from payroll taxes than it pays
out in benefits. This excess revenue is helping build substantial
trust fund reserves that are projected to help pay full benefits
until 2029, according to Social Security's intermediate projections.
At the same time, this excess revenue helps reduce the overall
federal budget deficit but will start to taper off after 2008. In
2012, Social Security benefit payments are projected to exceed cash
revenues, and the federal budget will start to come under
considerable strain as the general fund starts to repay funds
borrowed from the trust funds.
Although Social Security's revenues currently exceed its
expenditures, revenues are expected to be about 14 percent less than
total projected expenditures over the next 75 years, according to
Social Security Administration (SSA) projections. A variety of
benefit reductions and revenue increases within the current program
structure could be combined to restore financial balance. However,
some observers believe that the program structure should be
reevaluated.
Reform is necessary, and the sooner we address it, the less severe
the necessary adjustments will be. Any economic growth and
improvements in living standards we can achieve will also mitigate
the strains that reform will impose. However, any course we take
will substantially affect both workers and retirees, other sources of
retirement income, the income distribution, the federal budget, and
even the economy as a whole. Such effects should be well understood
in making reforms.
--------------------
\1 See the list of related GAO products at the end of this statement.
BACKGROUND
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:1
When Social Security was enacted in 1935, the nation was in the midst
of the Great Depression. About half of the elderly depended on
others for their livelihood; roughly one-sixth received public
charity. Many had lost their savings in the stock market crash.
Social Security was created to help ensure that the elderly had
adequate income and did not depend on welfare. It would provide
benefits that workers had earned with their contributions and the
help of their employers.
In creating Social Security, the Congress recognized an immediate
need to bolster the income of the elderly; an individual retirement
savings approach would not have significantly affected retirement
income for years to come. The Social Security benefits that early
beneficiaries received significantly exceeded their contributions,
but even the very first beneficiaries had made some contributions.
The Social Security Act of 1935 included a companion welfare program
to help the elderly who had not earned retired worker benefits under
Social Security.
Initially, very few of the elderly qualified for Social Security
benefits; therefore, funding the benefits required relatively low
payroll taxes. Increases in payroll taxes were always anticipated to
keep up with the benefit payments as the system "matured" and more
retirees received benefits. From the beginning, Social Security was
financed on this type of "pay-as-you-go" basis, with any 1 year's
revenues collected primarily to fund benefits to be paid that year.
The Congress had rejected the idea of "advance funding" for the
program, or collecting enough revenues to cover future benefit rights
as workers accrued them. Many feared that if the federal government
amassed huge reserve funds, it would just find a way to spend them
elsewhere.
Over the years, the size and scope of the program have changed. In
1939, coverage was extended to dependents and survivors. In the
1950s, state and local governments were given the option of covering
their employees. The Disability Insurance program was added in 1956.
The Medicare program was added in 1965. Beginning in 1975, benefits
were automatically tied to the Consumer Price Index to ensure that
the purchasing power of recipients' income was not eroded by
inflation. These benefit expansions also contributed to higher
payroll tax rates.
Today, Social Security has met the goal of its creators in that it
provides the foundation for retirement income. In 1994, about 91
percent of all elderly households received Social Security benefits,
compared with 67 percent who received some income from saved assets,
just over 40 percent who had income from pensions, and 21 percent who
had earned income. Social Security contributed over 40 percent of
all elderly income, compared with about 18 percent each for the other
sources. It provided the predominant share of income for the lowest
three-fifths of the U.S. income distribution. On average, Social
Security provided $9,200 to all elderly households. The other
sources of retirement income determine which households have the
highest income.
Social Security has contributed substantially to reducing poverty
rates for the elderly, which declined dramatically from 35 percent in
1959 to under 11 percent in 1996. In comparison, 11.4 percent of
those aged 18 to 64 and 20.5 percent of those under 18 were in
poverty in 1996. For over half the elderly, income other than Social
Security amounted to less than the poverty threshold in 1994. Still,
pockets of poverty do remain. About 30 percent of elderly households
are considered poor or nearly poor, having incomes below 150 percent
of the poverty threshold. Women, unmarried people, and people aged
75 and over are much more likely to be poor than are other elderly
persons. In fact, unmarried women make up over 70 percent of poor
elderly households, compared with only 45 percent of all elderly
households.
DEMOGRAPHIC ROOTS OF SOCIAL
SECURITY'S FINANCING PROBLEM
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:2
In the United States, the elderly population (those aged 65 and
older) grew from about 9 million in 1940 to about 34 million in 1995,
and it is expected to reach 80 million by 2050, according to Bureau
of the Census projections. Moreover, the very old population (those
aged 85 and older) is expected to increase almost fivefold, from
about 4 million in 1995 to nearly 19 million in 2050. (See fig. 1.)
As a share of the total U.S. population, the elderly population grew
from 7 percent in 1940 to 12 percent in 1990; this share is expected
to increase to 20 percent by 2050.
Figure 1: Population Aged 65
and Older, by Age Group,
1940-2050
(See figure in printed
edition.)
Note: Data for 2000 to 2050 are midrange Bureau of the Census
projections.
Source: U.S. Bureau of the Census, 65+ in the United States
(Washington, D.C.: U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1996).
Although the baby-boom generation will greatly contribute to the
growth of the elderly population, other demographic trends are also
important. Life expectancy has increased continually since the
1930s, and further improvements are expected. In 1940, 65-year-old
men could expect to live another 12 years, and women could expect to
live another 13 years. By 1995, these numbers had improved to 15
years for men and 19 for women. By 2040, these numbers are projected
to be 17 years and 21 years, according to SSA's intermediate
actuarial assumptions. Note that these assumptions yield a lower
rate of elderly population growth than do the Census assumptions.
Some demographers project even more dramatic growth.
A falling fertility rate is the other principal factor in the growth
of the elderly's share of the population. The fertility rate was 3.6
children per woman in 1960. The rate has declined to around 2.0
children per woman today and is expected to level off at about 1.9 by
2020, according to SSA's intermediate assumptions.
Increasing life expectancy and falling fertility rates in combination
mean that fewer workers will be contributing to Social Security for
each aged, disabled, dependent, or surviving beneficiary. There were
3.3 workers for each Social Security beneficiary in 1995, but by
2030, only 2.0 workers are projected for each beneficiary (see fig.
2).
Figure 2: Workers Contributing
to Social Security per
Beneficiary, Historical and
Projected, 1960-2040
(See figure in printed
edition.)
Note: Projections use SSA's intermediate actuarial assumptions.
Source: Board of Trustees, 1997 Annual Report of the Board of
Trustees of the Federal Old Age and Survivors Insurance and
Disability Insurance Trust Funds (Washington, D.C.: SSA, 1997).
These demographic trends have fundamental implications for Social
Security, other forms of retirement income, and our economy as a
whole. Increasing longevity means that each year more people will
receive Social Security benefits. As a result, Social Security
revenues must be increased, benefits must be reduced, or both. For
pensions and retirement savings, increasing longevity means these
income sources will have to provide income over longer periods, which
will similarly require increased contributions or reduced retirement
income. As already noted, there will be relatively fewer workers to
pay the Social Security taxes needed to fund benefits. However, more
fundamentally, unless retirement patterns change, there will be
relatively fewer workers producing the goods and services that both
workers' households and elderly households will consume. Yet in
recent years, workers have been retiring earlier, not later, and not
always by choice.
These demographic trends also pose challenges for our long-term
budget outlook. They will lead to higher costs in Medicare and
Medicaid as well as in Social Security. In a recent report to the
Chairmen of the Senate and House Budget Committees,\2 we discussed
the results of our latest simulations of the long-term budget
outlook. Recent congressional action to bring about a balanced
budget and surplus in the next 10 years will give us some breathing
room, but spending pressures in these programs, if left unchecked,
will prompt the emergence of unsustainable deficits over the longer
term.
--------------------
\2 See Budget Issues: Analysis of Long-Term Fiscal Outlook
(GAO/AIMD/OCE-98-19, Oct. 22, 1997).
HOW SOCIAL SECURITY'S PROBLEM
WILL DEVELOP OVER TIME
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:3
These demographic trends pose long-term financing challenges for both
Social Security and the federal budget. Social Security revenues are
expected to be about 14 percent less than expenditures over the next
75 years, and demographic trends suggest that this imbalance will
grow over time. In 2029, the Social Security trust funds are
projected to be depleted. From then on, Social Security revenues are
expected to be sufficient to pay only about 70 to 75 percent of
currently promised benefits, given currently scheduled tax rates and
SSA's intermediate assumptions about demographic and economic trends.
In 2031, the last members of the baby-boom generation will reach age
67, when they will be eligible for full retirement benefits under
current law.
While Social Security funds are expected to be sufficient to pay full
benefits for more than 30 years, Social Security's financing will
begin having significant implications for the federal budget in only
10 years. Moreover, restoring Social Security's long-range financial
balance would not necessarily address the significant challenge that
its current financing arrangements pose for the overall federal
budget. Social Security cash revenues currently exceed expenditures
by roughly $30 billion each year (see fig. 3). Under current law,
the Department of the Treasury issues interest-bearing government
securities to the trust funds for these excess revenues. In effect,
Treasury borrows Social Security's excess revenues and uses them to
help reduce the amount it must borrow from the public. In other
words, Social Security's excess revenues help reduce the overall, or
unified, federal budget deficit. Moreover, the trust funds earned
$38 billion in interest last year, which Treasury pays by issuing
more securities. If Treasury could not borrow from the trust funds,
it would have to borrow more in the private capital market and pay
such interest in cash to finance current budget policy.
Figure 3: Social Security's
Cash Revenues Exceed
Expenditures Now but Fall Short
Later
(See figure in printed
edition.)
Sources: 1997 Annual Report of the Board of Trustees of the Federal
Old Age and Survivors Insurance and Disability Insurance Trust Funds
and unpublished SSA data.
Ten years from now, these excess cash revenues are expected to start
diminishing, and so will their effect in helping balance the budget.
In just 15 years, Social Security's expenditures are expected to
exceed its cash revenues, and the government's general fund will have
to make up the difference, in effect repaying Social Security. As a
result, Social Security's cash flow will no longer help efforts to
balance the budget but will start to hinder them. In 2028,
repayments from the general fund to Social Security are expected to
reach about $183 billion in 1997 dollars. In that year, this amount
would equal the same share of gross domestic product as the deficit
for the entire federal government in fiscal year 1996, or 1.4
percent, according to SSA projections.
ALTERNATIVES FOR REFORM
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:4
Restoring Social Security's long-term financial balance will require
some combination of increased revenues and reduced expenditures. A
variety of options is available within the current structure of the
program. However, some proposals would go beyond restoring financial
balance and fundamentally alter the program structure. These more
dramatic changes attempt to achieve other policy objectives as well.
The current Social Security system attempts to balance two competing
policy objectives. The progressive benefit formula tries to ensure
the "adequacy" of retirement income by replacing a higher portion of
lower earners' income than of higher earners' income. In effect,
Social Security redistributes income from higher earners to lower
earners. At the same time, the formula attempts to maintain some
degree of "equity" for higher earners by providing that benefits
increase somewhat with earnings.
Within the current program structure, a wide range of options is
available for reducing costs or increasing revenues. Previously
enacted reforms have used many of these in some form. Current reform
proposals also rely, at least in part, on many of these more
traditional measures, regardless of whether the proposals largely
preserve the current program structure or alter it significantly.
Ways to reduce program expenditures include
-- reducing initial benefits by changing the benefit formula for
all or some beneficiaries, for example, by changing the number
of years of earnings used in the formula;
-- raising the retirement age or accelerating the currently
scheduled increase;
-- lowering the annual automatic cost-of-living adjustment; and
-- means-testing benefits, or limiting benefits on the basis of
beneficiaries' other income and assets.
Ways to increase revenues include
-- increasing Social Security payroll taxes,
-- investing trust funds in securities with potentially higher
yields than the government bonds in which they are currently
invested, and
-- increasing income taxes on Social Security benefits.
A variety of proposals would address Social Security's long-term
funding problems by significantly restructuring the program, usually
by privatizing at least a portion of it. Such proposals still
essentially achieve financial balance by effectively raising revenues
and reducing costs, but they do so in ways that pursue other policy
objectives as well. Some of these proposals would reduce the role of
Social Security and the federal government in providing retirement
income and would give individuals greater responsibility and control
over their own retirement incomes. These proposals often focus on
trying to improve the rates of return that individuals earn on their
retirement contributions and thus place greater emphasis on the
equity objective. Also, some proposals focus on trying to increase
national saving and on funding future Social Security benefits in
advance rather than on the current pay-as-you-go basis. In this way,
the relatively larger generation of current workers could finance
some of their future benefits now rather than leaving a relatively
smaller generation of workers with the entire financing
responsibility. Moreover, the investment earnings on the saved funds
would reduce the total payroll tax burden.
Generally, privatization proposals focus on setting up individual
retirement savings accounts and requiring workers to contribute to
them. The accounts would usually replace a portion of Social
Security, whose benefits would be reduced to compensate for revenues
diverted to the savings accounts. Some privatization proposals
combine new mandatory saving and Social Security benefit cuts, hoping
to produce a potential net gain in retirement income. The
combination of mandated savings deposits and revised Social Security
taxes would be greater than current Social Security taxes, in most
cases.
Virtually all proposals addressing long-term financing issues would
increase the proportion of retirement assets invested in the stock
market or in other higher-risk investments. Some proposals call for
the accounts to be managed by individuals, while others would have
them managed by the government. The common objective is to finance a
smaller share of retirement costs with worker contributions and a
larger share of the costs with anticipated higher investment returns.
In the case of individual savings accounts, workers would bear the
risk of economic and market performance. Individuals with identical
earning histories and retirement contributions could have notably
different retirement incomes because of market fluctuations or
individual investment choices. Some proposals would require retirees
to purchase a lifetime annuity with their retirement savings to
ensure that the savings provided income throughout their retirement.
Privatization proposals raise the issue of how to make the transition
to a new system. Social Security would still need revenues to pay
benefits that retirees and current workers have already earned, yet
financing retirement through individually owned savings accounts
requires advance funding. The revenues needed to fund both current
and future liabilities would clearly be higher than those currently
collected. For example, to fund the transition, one proposal would
increase payroll taxes by 1.52 percent for 72 years and involve
borrowing $2 trillion during the first 40 years of the transition.
Privatization would also have a significant effect on the
distribution of retirement income between high and low earners. The
current Social Security benefit formula redistributes income and
implicitly gives low earners a somewhat higher rate of return on
their contributions than high earners. Privatization proponents
claim that all earners would be better off under privatization,
although high earners would have relatively more to gain from any
increased rates of return that privatization might provide.
Moreover, if workers were contributing to their own retirement
savings, their contributions would not be available for
redistribution as they are now. Some privatization proposals would
retain some degree of Social Security coverage and therefore permit
some redistribution to continue.
Privatization proposals also tend to separate retirement benefits
from Social Security's survivors' and disability benefits. In the
case of death or disability before retirement, individual savings may
not have been building long enough to sufficiently replace lost
income. Some privatization proposals, therefore, leave these social
insurance programs largely as they are now.
IMPLICATIONS OF REFORM
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:5
Financing reforms could affect the nation's economy in various ways.
For example, raising the retirement age could affect the labor market
for elderly workers. Also, if reforms increased national saving,
they could help increase investment, which in turn could increase
productivity and economic growth. Economic growth could help ease
the strains of providing for a growing elderly population. However,
reforms may not produce notable increases in national saving since,
to some degree, any new retirement saving might simply replace other
forms of individual saving. Moreover, any additional Social Security
savings in the federal budget would add to national saving only if
they were not offset by other budget initiatives.
Reforms would affect other sources of retirement income and related
public policies as well. For example, raising payroll taxes could
affect the ability of workers to save for retirement, especially if
these increases were combined with tax increases enacted to help with
Medicare or Medicaid financing. Raising Social Security's retirement
age or cutting its benefit amounts could increase costs for private
pensions that adjust benefits in relation to Social Security
benefits. Reforms would also interact with other income support
programs, such as Social Security's Disability Insurance program or
the Supplemental Security Income public assistance program.
Reforms could have effects both immediately and far into the future.
For example, bringing newly hired state and local government workers
into the Social Security system would immediately increase revenues
but would increase benefit payments only when the newly covered
workers retired. However, even changes that take effect years from
now can affect how workers plan now for their retirement, especially
how much they choose to save. Therefore, the sooner solutions are
enacted, the more time workers will have to adjust their retirement
planning. Acting sooner rather than later also would mean that the
funding shortfall could be addressed over a longer period at a lower
annual cost.
Finally, any financing reforms would implicitly have distributional
effects. For example, increasing Social Security taxes would reduce
the disposable income of current workers but would help sustain
retirement benefits for retirees in the future. Cutting benefits
instead of increasing payroll taxes would have the opposite
distributional effect. Also, Social Security redistributes income
from high to low earners to some degree; some reforms would change
this. In particular, reform proposals vary considerably in their
effects on specific subpopulations, some of which are at greater risk
of poverty, such as older women and unmarried women. For example,
since men and women have different earnings histories, life
expectancies, and investment behaviors, reforms could exacerbate
differences in benefits that already exist.
OBSERVATIONS
---------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:6
Ensuring that Americans have adequate retirement income in the 21st
century will require that the nation and the Congress make some
difficult choices. Social Security has been effective in ensuring a
reliable source of income in retirement and greatly reducing poverty
among the elderly, and reforms will determine what role it will play
in the future. The effect of reforms on other retirement income
sources and on various groups within the aged population should be
well understood when making reforms.
Also, the demographic trends underlying Social Security's financing
problem are contributing significantly to increasing cost pressures
for Medicare and Medicaid. Federal budget policy faces a profound
challenge from the tremendous imbalance between these promised
entitlements and the revenues currently planned to fund them. While
Social Security's financing is projected to pay full benefits until
2029, it will start to pose challenges for the federal budget much
earlier--only 10 years from now. This fact illustrates the critical
importance of examining how budget policy interacts with proposed
reforms to Social Security and other entitlements. It also
illustrates the need to act sooner rather than later. Timely policy
adjustments can help us get onto a more sustainable fiscal path and
may even help increase national saving and promote economic growth,
which could ease the adjustments that current demographic trends will
require.
-------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 0:6.1
This concludes my testimony. I will be happy to answer any
questions.
RELATED GAO PRODUCTS
Budget Issues: Analysis of Long-Term Fiscal Outlook
(GAO/AIMD/OCE-98-19, Oct. 22, 1997).
401(k) Pension Plans: Loan Provisions Enhance Participation but May
Affect Retirement Income Security for Some (GAO/HEHS-98-5, Oct. 1,
1997).
Retirement Income: Implications of Demographic Trends for Social
Security and Pension Reform (GAO/HEHS-97-81, July 11, 1997).
Social Security Reform: Implications for the Financial Well-Being of
Women (GAO/T-HEHS-97-112, Apr. 10, 1997).
401(k) Pension Plans: Many Take Advantage of Opportunity to Ensure
Adequate Retirement Income (GAO/HEHS-96-176, Aug. 2, 1996).
Social Security: Issues Involving Benefit Equity for Working Women
(GAO/HEHS-96-55, Apr. 10, 1996).
Federal Pensions: Thrift Savings Plan Has Key Role in Retirement
Benefits (GAO/HEHS-96-1, Oct. 19, 1995).
Social Security Retirement Accounts (GAO/HEHS-94-226R, Aug. 12,
1994).
Social Security: Analysis of a Proposal to Privatize Trust Fund
Reserves (GAO/HRD-91-22, Dec. 12, 1990).
Social Security: The Trust Fund Reserve Accumulation, the Economy,
and the Federal Budget (GAO/HRD-89-44, Jan. 19, 1989).
*** End of document. ***