Tag: Andrew Biggs

The day the Social Security funding crisis became inevitable

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://thehill.com/opinion/finance/4258578-the-day-the-social-security-funding-crisis-became-inevitable/

Excerpt:

What wasn’t inevitable was a funding crisis. In fact, from 1950 to 1971, Congress was able to increase benefits nine times. That changed in 1977 when Social Security Amendments responded to a technical error in 1972 legislation which caused retirement benefits to skyrocket and threatened insolvency by 1979. 

The 1977 law sought to slow the rapid growth in benefits for future retirees. At the time, Congress considered two options. The first, recommended by an expert commission headed by Harvard economist William Hsiao, would link the growth of the initial benefits paid to new retirees to the rate of inflation. The second approach, favored by the Carter administration, would index initial benefits to national average wage growth. 

While differing only in seemingly technical ways, the two approaches had dramatically different effects on Social Security’s long-term finances. Simply put, the Hsiao Commission’s recommendation was fully sustainable under then-legislated tax rates. It would allow, as the commission wrote, “future generations to decide what benefit increases are appropriate and what tax rates to finance them are acceptable.” 

In contrast, the alternative approach of “wage-indexing” initial benefits could not be sustained without substantially higher future taxes. 

The Hsiao Commission bluntly criticized that policy, saying that it “gravely doubts the fairness and wisdom of now promising benefits at such a level that we must commit our sons and daughters to a higher tax rate than we ourselves are willing to pay.” Congress, nevertheless, opted for wage indexing.   

 

Author(s): ANDREW G. BIGGS, JOHN F. COGAN AND DANIEL HEIL

Publication Date: 17 Oct 2023

Publication Site: The Hill

The Looming Tipping Point of New Jersey’s Pension System

Mary Pat Campbell

Link:https://burypensions.wordpress.com/2021/12/14/the-looming-tipping-point-of-new-jerseys-pension-system/

Excerpt:

Andrew Biggs prepared a report for The Garden State Initiative that focused on the impact of more retirees than employees.

Notable excerpts:

Nationally, unfunded state and local government pension liabilities remained roughly stable at about $1 billion from 1975 through 1999, but accelerated rapidly in the following two decades, reaching $4.0 trillion in 2020. The combined unfunded liabilities of New Jersey public plans have increased significantly as well, from $58 billion in 2000 to $186 billion in 2019. (page 4)

….

In summary, federal government figures demonstrate that New Jersey lawmakers promised benefits to employees that were larger than lawmakers were willing or able to fully fund. The New Jersey pension systems instead relied upon returns on risky investments to make up the gap. But, as New Jersey’s investment experience shows, risky investments pay higher expected returns than safe investments precisely because they are risky, even over long periods of time. This leaves only more conventional solutions available, which are both financially and political difficult. All New Jersey pension stakeholders — including lawmakers, public employees and retirees, and taxpayers — must carefully consider how the costs and benefits of pension reforms will be borne. (page 33)

Author(s): John Bury

Publication Date: 14 Dec 2021

Publication Site: Burypensions

Revisiting The ‘Retirement Crisis’ And Retirement Legislation In 2022 – What’s In Store In The New Year?

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.forbes.com/sites/ebauer/2021/12/31/revisiting-the-retirement-crisis-and-retirement-legislation-in-2022whats-in-store-in-the-new-year/

Graphic:

Excerpt:

First, we need to keep a distinction in mind between efforts to ensure the elderly do not suffer actual material deprivation, whether that’s lack of nutritious food or adequate housing or medical needs, for instance, and efforts to help Americans plan for retirement and alleviate their expressed worries about the unknowns of retirement.

Second, issues of well-being, such as social isolation, and larger questions of the “right” form of provision of long-term care assistance, are not simple issues of finances but are nonetheless important as Americans age, and these topics should not be drowned out by a “retirement crisis” narrative. It should also go without saying that we will urgently need to turn our attention to the Medicare system as well.

And, third, in one crucial respect our models may fail us: experts have worked out a set of recommendations for asset allocation and income spend-down in retirement, and a set of projections for building those models, which fall apart if our new low-interest world continues, Japan-like, rather than being a temporary situation that resolves itself as we recover from the pandemic. Whether this is a result of government policies or an inevitable consequence of the changing economy, this could upend both Biggs’ projections of retiree well-being and the path to retirement security envisioned by legislation like the SECURE Act 2.0.

Author(s): Elizabeth Bauer

Publication Date: 31 Dec 2021

Publication Site: Forbes

Multiemployer Pensions: Will the Recent Bailout Destroy Pensions (in the Long Run)?

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://marypatcampbell.substack.com/p/multiemployer-pensions-will-the-recent

Graphic:

Excerpt:

I think it unlikely that Congress, at least this Congress, will pass any MEP reforms. The bill allowing for MEP benefit cuts passed under Obama, during his second term – with a Republican House and a Democratic Senate.

There may eventually be MEP reforms, but with a big cash injection into Central States Teamsters, the reckoning day has been pushed off.

The real crisis was Central States Teamsters going under. It would have taken down the PBGC. The puny plans like Warehouse Employees Union Local No. 730 Pension Trust (total liability amount: $474,757,777) are drops in the bucket compared with Central States (total liability amount: $56,790,308,499).

Author(s): Mary Pat Campbell

Publication Date: 5 April 2021

Publication Site: STUMP at substack

Prelude to a State Pension Bailout

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://www.wsj.com/articles/prelude-to-a-state-pension-bailout-11614547953

Excerpt:

Ordinarily, insolvency means pension freezes and benefit reductions, but multiemployer pensions are run by labor unions, a key Democratic constituency. And so the House Covid bill plans to dole out an estimated $86 billion from 2022 to 2024 to 186 pensions, enabling these plans to pay full benefits through 2051. With no incentive to cut costs, there’s little reason to think the pensions will be solvent after 2051. Look forward to more spending down the road.

Bailout supporters argue they’re helping impoverished workers make ends meet, but that doesn’t add up. The average monthly benefit from a plan like Central States is a seemingly modest $1,400. But that average is skewed downward by large numbers of employees who retired after only a few years of service. The one-third of Central States retirees who receive more than $2,000 a month — plus Social Security benefits — make a bailout expensive. No one in this group is even close to being in poverty.

….

The larger worry is that Congressional Democrats’ willingness to bail out private-sector multiemployer pensions signals they would do the same for state and local employee plans. Public-employee pensions operate under the same loose funding rules as multiemployer pensions, and public plans in Illinois, Kentucky, New Jersey, Texas and other states are no better funded than the worst multiemployer plans.

Author(s): Andrew Biggs

Publication Date: 28 February 2021

Publication Site: Wall Street Journal

THE CONSEQUENCES OF CURRENT BENEFIT ADJUSTMENTS FOR EARLY AND DELAYED CLAIMING

Mary Pat Campbell

Link: https://crr.bc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/wp_2021-3_.pdf

Abstract
Workers have the option of claiming Social Security retirement benefits at any age between 62 and 70, with later claiming resulting in higher monthly benefits. These higher monthly benefits reflect an actuarial adjustment designed to keep lifetime benefits equal, for an individual with average life expectancy, regardless of when benefits are claimed. The actuarial
adjustments, however, are decades old. Since then, interest rates have declined; life expectancy has increased; and longevity improvements have been much greater for high earners than low earners. This paper explores how changes in longevity and interest rates have affected the
fairness of the actuarial adjustment over time and how the disparity in life expectancy affects the equity across the income distribution. It also looks at the impact of these developments on the costs of the program and the progressivity of benefits.


The paper found that:
• The increases in life expectancy and the decline in interest rates argue for smaller reductions for early claiming and a smaller delayed retirement credit for later claiming.
• Specifically, the benefit at 62 should equal 77.5 percent, as opposed to 70.0 percent, of the full age-67 benefit, and the benefit at 70 should equal 119.9 percent, instead of 124.0 percent, of the full benefit.
• The outdated actuarial adjustments are a modest moneymaker for the program – about $1.9 billion in 2018, with most of the gains coming from those claiming at 62, who are typically lower earners. Surprisingly, the correlations between earnings and life expectancy and between earnings and claiming behavior have only modest implications for both the cost and progressivity of Social Security benefits.
• Finally, the cost and distributional effects of earnings-related life expectancy and claiming cannot be addressed through the actuarial adjustments for early and late claiming. They reflect the fact that high earners get their large benefits for a long time and low earners get their more modest benefits for a shorter time.

Authors: Andrew G. Biggs, Anqi Chen, and Alicia H. Munnell

Publication Date: January 2021

Publication Site: Center for Retirement Research at Boston College

The Consequences of Current Benefit Adjustments for Early and Delayed Claiming

Mary Pat Campbell
The Consequences of Current Benefit Adjustments for Early and Delayed Claiming

Abstract:

Workers have the option of claiming Social Security retirement benefits at any age between 62 and 70, with later claiming resulting in higher monthly benefits.  These higher monthly benefits reflect an actuarial adjustment designed to keep lifetime benefits equal, for an individual with average life expectancy, regardless of when benefits are claimed.  The actuarial adjustments, however, are decades old.  Since then, interest rates have declined; life expectancy has increased; and longevity improvements have been much greater for high earners than low earners.  This paper explores how changes in longevity and interest rates have affected the fairness of the actuarial adjustment over time and how the disparity in life expectancy affects the equity across the income distribution.  It also looks at the impact of these developments on the costs of the program and the progressivity of benefits.

The paper found that:

The increases in life expectancy and the decline in interest rates argue for smaller reductions for early claiming and a smaller delayed retirement credit for later claiming.

Specifically, the benefit at 62 should equal 77.5 percent, as opposed to 70.0 percent, of the full age-67 benefit, and the benefit at 70 should equal 119.9 percent, instead of 124.0 percent, of the full benefit.

The outdated actuarial adjustments are a modest moneymaker for the program – about $1.9 billion in 2018, with most of the gains coming from those claiming at 62, who are typically lower earners. Surprisingly, the correlations between earnings and life expectancy and between earnings and claiming behavior have only modest implications for both the cost and progressivity of Social Security benefits.

Finally, the cost and distributional effects of earnings-related life expectancy and claiming cannot be addressed through the actuarial adjustments for early and late claiming. They reflect the fact that high earners get their large benefits for a long time and low earners get their more modest benefits for a shorter time.

The policy implications of the findings are:

Increases in life expectancy and the decline in interest rates suggest smaller reductions for early claiming and a smaller delayed retirement credit for later claiming.

Accounting for differential mortality would involve changing benefits, and is not a problem that can be solved by tinkering with the actuarial adjustments.

PDF link to full paper: https://crr.bc.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/wp_2021-3_.pdf

Authors: Andrew G. Biggs, Anqi Chen, Alicia H. Munnell

Publication Date: January 2021

Publication Site: Center for Retirement Research at Boston College