Social Security & Medicare Notes

CBO's Social Security Report

This is the report on Social Security> by the Congressional Budget Office. It uses assumptions that are a little more positive and probably more realistic than does the recent report from the Social Security actuaries.

Keep always in mind that what the various reports do is provide a projection of future revenues and benefits, not a forecast. The distinction is very important. A projection is extremely dependent on the size of the various assumptions that go into it. A forecast is expected to be accurate. A projection is known to be more and more inaccurate the further into the future it goes because there is no way of projecting the behavior of the assumptions accurately.

So a projection is not a forecast or a prediction for the distant future. At best it is a warning of what might happen. It can only be expected to be somewhat accurate in the near future.

With this in mind, go look at the CBO's effort here.

posted by Richard @ 7:54 AM