Social Security 1933 Life Expectancy Myth

Travis of the Cosmos wrote:That’s always how life expectancy works trapper. Every day your life expectancy gets a little bit longer simply because you are not yet dead.

When people talk about life expectancy they talk about the at birth life expectancy basically always.

Travis of the Cosmos wrote:I don’t care about their arguments which are in service only to people richer and more powerful to them. There are easier ways to point out why they are stupid than talking about actuarial tables. When someone talks about life expectancy they are always talking about life expectancy at birth.

spartanwill wrote:Based on your projections are you arguing that Social Security will be able to meet its full obligations beyond 2033? If so, are you arguing that no changes need to be made? Have you considered other factors besides life expectancy in your analysis. For instance, its a historical fact that fertility rates in the US have dropped significantly over the last 70 years. As a result, the ratio of workers to retiree has dropped as well. Since I plan on living beyond 2033 by a few years, I'd be interested in knowing your calculation for the 'date of insolvency' assuming the government continues to do nothing.

spartanwill wrote:Based on your projections are you arguing that Social Security will be able to meet its full obligations beyond 2033? If so, are you arguing that no changes need to be made? Have you considered other factors besides life expectancy in your analysis. For instance, its a historical fact that fertility rates in the US have dropped significantly over the last 70 years. As a result, the ratio of workers to retiree has dropped as well. Since I plan on living beyond 2033 by a few years, I'd be interested in knowing your calculation for the 'date of insolvency' assuming the government continues to do nothing.

spartanwill wrote:I learned from the Wells Hall board that one should never rely on the government for one's happiness so Ive been planning retirement for a long, long time. SS distributions are just icing on the cake.  My big concern is if they try to means test distibutions as a way of righting the ship. It would be a dream scenario for the far left as it would be a direct transfer of wealth.

As for your life expectancy projections, only time will tell. There are too many other factors that will impact the trust fund besides life expectancy.

Just to note, time has told, at least for the original projections I made back on TOB.  My projections were much closer to reality than the ssa's actuaries.

 Looking at the projected graph I have not taken current ssa data on mortality to project what I would expect, however the ssa actuaries have a habit of ignoring what is actually happening and instead stubbornly sticking to their projections going forward in time.

Looking more closely at that chart it appears to be from somewhere in the pre-covid era (2010 or so) since life expectancy at age 65 has dropped for men dropped in the last couple years to about 77 and has rebounded back to 78.  The area of the graph where it rounds up and starts following pretty much a linear rise is clearly projection.

My current interest in it was that it shows that life expectancy for 65 year olds was in the mid 70's in the 1930's while the article it is in claims that no one much lived to 65 in 1935. The data tables from ssa show that about 60% of the people 65 years old were still alive in 1935.

spartanwill wrote:

Just to note, time has told, at least for the original projections I made back on TOB.  My projections were much closer to reality than the ssa's actuaries.

 Looking at the projected graph I have not taken current ssa data on mortality to project what I would expect, however the ssa actuaries have a habit of ignoring what is actually happening and instead stubbornly sticking to their projections going forward in time.

Looking more closely at that chart it appears to be from somewhere in the pre-covid era (2010 or so) since life expectancy at age 65 has dropped for men dropped in the last couple years to about 77 and has rebounded back to 78.  The area of the graph where it rounds up and starts following pretty much a linear rise is clearly projection.

My current interest in it was that it shows that life expectancy for 65 year olds was in the mid 70's in the 1930's while the article it is in claims that no one much lived to 65 in 1935. The data tables from ssa show that about 60% of the people 65 years old were still alive in 1935.

Again, I just don't see the point you are trying to make. It is only one factor of many.

Zurn wrote:Among other faults, Social Security is systemically racist. Given life span disparities many more black people, as compared to white people, pay into the system but never collect a dime in benefits.

The Social Security Act of 1935 excluded from coverage about half the workers in the American economy. Among the excluded groups were agricultural and domestic workers—a large percentage of whom were African Americans. This has led some scholars to conclude that policymakers in 1935 deliberately excluded African Americans from the Social Security system because of prevailing racial biases during that period. This article examines both the logic of this thesis and the available empirical evidence on the origins of the coverage exclusions. The author concludes that the racial-bias thesis is both conceptually flawed and unsupported by the existing empirical evidence. The exclusion of agricultural and domestic workers from the early program was due to considerations of administrative feasibility involving tax-collection procedures. The author finds no evidence of any other policy motive involving racial bias.

Overall life expectancy in the U.S. in, respectively, 2021 and 2022: 76.4 / 77.5

DWags wrote:

Trapper Gus wrote:

You do know you just stated the basic tenant of CRT, aka that laws in this country are systemically racist?

You have been arguing that point in a number of posts, so it is clear you agree with CRT.

As to your point, yes, many minority groups have shorter lifespans than the "white" majority, thus laws which appear to be neutral can be painted as having disproportionate effects on minorities. While it can be argued that the effect is as CRT defines, in this case at worst this was an unintended consequence as far as I know. If you can find arguments which were used during Congressional debates on the Social Secuity Bills debate I will concede the point.

It can also be argued that defined revenue stream programs are unfair to undocumented immigrants who use false documentation to work in this country and pay those taxes.

Here is an argument I have heard of regarding Social Security benefits being racially motivated, and the Social Security Administration's counter argument, FWIW:



https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v70n4/v70n4p49.html

Oops beat me to it. Great minds think alike or in this case mushy old minds think kind of alike.

Trapper Gus wrote:

spartanwill wrote:

Again, I just don't see the point you are trying to make. It is only one factor of many.

Really the simple point, and it is simple and mostly meaningless as Travis pointed out, is that the anti-social security people often say that "when social security started hardly anyone lived beyond age 65" which is just not correct.

In 1931, according to the SSA tables of survivorship, out of 100,000 births there were 50,195 still alive.  Effectively 50% of those born 65 years early. (I said 60% earlier, my bad and I had to dig out the data from years ago that I used in this discussion on TOB)

And this chart shows that those 50% people lived to an average of 78 years old if we add men and women together and average.

The person writing the article even makes the claim that most had died, which is just so wrong it is laughable.  

But if you are me, who likes people to get the numbers right, it is GD frustrating to see this simple mistake made over and over and over again in the press.

I think they keep making this mistake because they keep using average lifetime from birth, which is a number distorted by infant mortality, especially until we had modern medicine. In 1880 23% of the population died by age 20.

I agree it is such a simple point it is hard to see what I am talking about.

Trapper Gus wrote:

Zurn wrote:Among other faults, Social Security is systemically racist. Given life span disparities many more black people, as compared to white people, pay into the system but never collect a dime in benefits.

You do know you just stated the basic tenant of CRT, aka that laws in this country are systemically racist?

You have been arguing that point in a number of posts, so it is clear you agree with CRT.

How would you propose to fix it? Privatize a portion of the contribution?

As to your point, yes, many minority groups have shorter lifespans than the "white" majority, thus laws which appear to be neutral can be painted as having disproportionate effects on minorities. While it can be argued that the effect is as CRT defines, in this case at worst this was an unintended consequence as far as I know. If you can find arguments which were used during Congressional debates on the Social Secuity Bills debate I will concede the point.

It can also be argued that defined revenue stream programs are unfair to undocumented immigrants who use false documentation to work in this country and pay those taxes.

Here is an argument I have heard of regarding Social Security benefits being racially motivated, and the Social Security Administration's counter argument, FWIW:

The Social Security Act of 1935 excluded from coverage about half the workers in the American economy. Among the excluded groups were agricultural and domestic workers—a large percentage of whom were African Americans. This has led some scholars to conclude that policymakers in 1935 deliberately excluded African Americans from the Social Security system because of prevailing racial biases during that period. This article examines both the logic of this thesis and the available empirical evidence on the origins of the coverage exclusions. The author concludes that the racial-bias thesis is both conceptually flawed and unsupported by the existing empirical evidence. The exclusion of agricultural and domestic workers from the early program was due to considerations of administrative feasibility involving tax-collection procedures. The author finds no evidence of any other policy motive involving racial bias.

https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v70n4/v70n4p49.html

spartanwill wrote:

Trapper Gus wrote:

Really the simple point, and it is simple and mostly meaningless as Travis pointed out, is that the anti-social security people often say that "when social security started hardly anyone lived beyond age 65" which is just not correct.

In 1931, according to the SSA tables of survivorship, out of 100,000 births there were 50,195 still alive.  Effectively 50% of those born 65 years early. (I said 60% earlier, my bad and I had to dig out the data from years ago that I used in this discussion on TOB)

And this chart shows that those 50% people lived to an average of 78 years old if we add men and women together and average.

The person writing the article even makes the claim that most had died, which is just so wrong it is laughable.  

But if you are me, who likes people to get the numbers right, it is GD frustrating to see this simple mistake made over and over and over again in the press.

I think they keep making this mistake because they keep using average lifetime from birth, which is a number distorted by infant mortality, especially until we had modern medicine. In 1880 23% of the population died by age 20.

I agree it is such a simple point it is hard to see what I am talking about.

You might as well be yelling at clouds.

spartanwill wrote:

Trapper Gus wrote:

You do know you just stated the basic tenant of CRT, aka that laws in this country are systemically racist?

You have been arguing that point in a number of posts, so it is clear you agree with CRT.

As to your point, yes, many minority groups have shorter lifespans than the "white" majority, thus laws which appear to be neutral can be painted as having disproportionate effects on minorities. While it can be argued that the effect is as CRT defines, in this case at worst this was an unintended consequence as far as I know.  If you can find arguments which were used during Congressional debates on the Social Secuity Bills debate I will concede the point.

It can also be argued that defined revenue stream programs are unfair to undocumented immigrants who use false documentation to work in this country and pay those taxes.

Here is an argument I have heard of regarding Social Security benefits being racially motivated, and the Social Security Administration's counter argument, FWIW:



https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v70n4/v70n4p49.html

 FIFY

How would you propose to fix it?  Privatize a portion of the contribution?