U.S. Social Security demographers offer woo futurism

Every year a half dozen demographers and economists project the solvency of the US Medicare (senior healthcare) and Social Security (old age income support) systems for the next 75 years. The reports are fascinating because even with the parameters of their optimistic, modal and pessimistic scenarios you have wildly different outcomes, from the collapse of the welfare state to financial stability. When you start tweaking the parameters the way we at the IEET would like to it gets even more interesting. (Summary)

Their projection of the average life expectancy at of an American *born in 2081*, for instance, is between their pessimistic “high-cost” estimate of 90 years (girls) and their optimistic “low-cost” estimate of 79 years (boys). Their estimates for people who are 65 years old in 2081 (and therefore haven’t even been born yet) is 83-91 total years (18-26 additional years at age 65 in 2081).

When you factor in their linear projections on immigration (ignoring climate change population displacement for instance), birth rates, the retirement age, employment, taxation, wealth, and so on its pretty amazing that they aren’t embarrassed to repeat this exercise every year. (IHT article on the report)

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