What was it like to be the chief actuary of the U.S. Social Security Administration?
The chief actuary has certain prescribed duties, principally preparing—in conjunction with the system’s Trustees—an annual report on the financial outlook for Social Security and Medicare; and financial analyses of proposed changes in the systems. After overseeing these technical analyses for a few months, I concluded that the systems would have almost insurmountable financial and design challenges in the years ahead as the baby boom population matured; that the greatest obstacle to effecting rational changes was the lack of understanding—both among the public and within the administration—of the nature of Social Security and its financing; and that no one in the administration or elsewhere seemed concerned about, or was addressing, these problems. It was time to step outside my important—but relatively narrow—role as a technician, and inform the public, as well as the legislators and the administration, about the long range consequences of continuing obliviously down this path. This I
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- What was it like to be the chief actuary of the U.S. Social Security Administration?
