In my commentary on Social Security yesterday, I referred to the latest trustees’ report as evidence of the continuing need for reform. Anyone who happened to see New York Times columnist Paul Krugman’s blog a day earlier might understandably wonder whether we were looking at the same report. Krugman highlights a modestly improving actuarial balance as justification to conclude, “Social Security’s financial problem is relatively minor. It doesn’t deserve the emphasis it receives from most pundits.”
One of Krugman’s commenters corroborates what was my hunch, which is that worsening economic conditions (or other reasons) have led more seniors to put off retirement, or at least full retirement. This has made the actuarial balance number slightly better.
But the dominant theme of the report, as I accurately stated in my commentary, was that Social Security remains in financial trouble, is not sustainable, and should be reformed sooner rather than later. An analogy: Five armed hoodlums confront you and a friend in a dark alley. You say to your companion, “We’re in trouble.” He says, “I don’t know, one of those guys’ guns appears to be an older model. It may not shoot perfectly straight.”
It’s true, but not very comforting in view of the situation as a whole.
Krugman linked it as well, but I’ll do so again here, so that any fairminded reader can judge for himself which of us portrayed the report’s findings more forthrightly. (See the “Overview” for a summary.)
