Research and Publications

Response to the 2008 Social Security Trustees Report

05.01.2008 | The annual Trustees report was envisioned as a way to provide policy makers and citizens with information on the long-term stability of Social Security. The report projects the finances of the program for the next 75 years. Doing so has always required a degree of fortune telling. Adding to the confusion of this already difficult task, is that in recent years, conservative politics appears to be having a greater influence on the contents of the report. The report is increasingly influenced by the partisan politics of the Presidential appointees who serve as trustees. | Read

Social Security Update: A Look at the Trustees Report and a Plan for the Future

04.01.2005 | Social Security has been a great success for seven decades. The 2005 Trustees’ Report confirms that the program can easily continue to provide economic security to all Americans through the 21st century. | Read

Social Security for the 21st Century

05.01.2004 | If Social Security finances are really in good shape, why have so many politicians, policy analysts, and reporters warned us that something must be done to "save" Social Security? How have so many Americans become convinced that Social Security won't be there for them? | Read

Social Security and Public Opinion

03.01.2002 | While Washington residents initially support restructuring Social Security to a system of private accounts, they change their opinion when they learn about the loss of guaranteed benefits and the costs of transition. | Read

A Tale of Two Reforms

06.13.2001 | Contrasts the future for a typical middle class family under two reform Social Security reform proposals. | Read

The Power of the Bottom Line: Policy Implications of Cost Estimates for Paid Family Leave and Social Security

06.01.2001 | As policy analysts and scholars, most of us devote a great deal of time and thought to the details and assumptions behind the bottom line numbers. But once we have produced and published a number, it takes on a life of its own. The bottom line number gets reported and used by people on all sides of an issue, severed from the multiple assumptions and careful qualifications that tempered and grounded it. | Read