Presentation by Julie Topoleski, Chief of the Long-Term Analysis Unit in CBO’s Health, Retirement, and Long-Term Analysis Division, to the Social Security Advisory Board’s 2019 Technical Panel on Assumptions and Methods.
CBO’s long-term Social Security projections are based on a detailed microsimulation model that starts with data about individuals from a representative sample of the population and projects economic and demographic outcomes for that sample through time. Differences in projections of four major factors—population, earnings subject to Social Security taxes, real interest rates, and key components of nominal GDP growth—account for four-fifths of the difference between CBO’s and the Social Security Trustees’ projections of Social Security’s 75-year actuarial balance.
