The Future of Mortality, Disability, and Work: Helping to Inform the Social Security Trust Fund Projections

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The Board held an event on “The Future of Mortality, Disability, and Work: Helping to Inform the Social Security Trust Fund Projections” on Friday, August 25, 2023.

Each year, the Board of Trustees reports to Congress on the current and projected financial and actuarial status of the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) and Disability Insurance (DI) programs. The Social Security Administration’s Office of the Chief Actuary (OCACT), on behalf of the Trustees, projects future OASDI program cost and income based on assumptions about key demographic and economic variables affecting the number of people paying into and receiving benefits from these programs over time. This forum brought together OCACT in conversation with other experts to consider the implications of recent research and scientific findings on future expectations for a subset of those variables—mortality, disability, and work.

This page collects materials from the event, including a recording of the entire session. Each panel section has a brief description, a list of panelists, a video recording, and any presentation slides used. Videos are annotated by chapter.

10 – 11:30 am ET

This panel discussed expectations for future mortality trends in light of issues such as COVID-19 and possible future pandemics, rising deaths from drugs, suicide, and chronic liver disease among the working-age population, and rising pediatric mortality. How long people will live to pay into and receive Social Security in the future is a key consideration for program projections.

Panelists

• Robert Anderson, PhD, Chief, Mortality Statistics Branch, National Center for Health Statistics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
• David M Cutler, PhD, Otto Eckstein Professor of Applied Economics, Harvard University
• Karen Glenn, FSA, EA, MAAA, Deputy Chief Actuary for Long-Range Actuarial Estimates, OCACT, SSA
• Stephen C Goss, ASA, MAAA, Chief Actuary, OCACT, SSA
• Christopher JL Murray, MD, DPhil, Director, Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME); Professor and Chair of Health Metrics Sciences, University of Washington
• Christopher J Ruhm, PhD, Professor of Public Policy and Economics, University of Virginia
• Steven Woolf, MD, MPH, Professor and C. Kenneth and Diane Wright Distinguished Chair in Population Health and Health Equity, Virginia Commonwealth University
• Emma Tatem (moderator), Lead Policy Analyst, SSAB

11:30 am – 1 pm ET

This panel explored factors impacting technological and medical advances and changing workplace flexibilities. OCACT projects the number of people expected to receive disability benefits in the future using three key disability assumptions: incidence, death, and recovery rates. Incidence rates—the proportion of insured workers who file for and are awarded benefits each year based on SSA’s definition of disability—have fallen steeply since 2010 to levels well below expected.

Panelists

• Stephen C Goss, ASA, MAAA, Chief Actuary, OCACT, SSA
• Allen W Heinemann, PhD, Professor of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine
• Christopher JL Murray, MD, DPhil, Director, IHME; Professor and Chair of Health Metric Sciences, University of Washington
• David Shaywitz, MD, PhD, VP Distinguished R&D Fellow, Data & Digital, Takeda; Lecturer, Harvard Medical School; Adjunct Fellow, American Enterprise Institute*
• Michael L Stephens, ASA, Acting Deputy Chief Actuary for Short-Range Actuarial Estimates, OCACT, SSA
• Conway Reinders (moderator), Lead Policy Analyst, SSAB

*Personal capacity; affiliations for identification purposes only.

2 – 3:30 pm ET

This panel discussed expectations about the changing nature of work and why it is particularly uncertain. People qualify for OASI and DI by contributing to the Social Security Trust Funds through taxes on their earnings from covered jobs. What work will look like is critical to understanding program contributions and costs.

Panelists

• Karen Glenn, FSA, EA, MAAA, Deputy Chief Actuary for Long-Range Actuarial Estimates, OCACT, SSA
• Stephen C Goss, ASA, MAAA, Chief Actuary, OCACT, SSA
• Stipica Mudrazija, PhD, Assistant Professor of Health Systems and Population Health, University of Washington
• Steven W Popper, PhD, Senior Economist and Professor, Pardee RAND Graduate School
• Shelly Steward, PhD, Director, Future of Work Initiative, Economic Opportunities Program, Aspen Institute
• Emily Roessel (moderator), Senior Policy Researcher, SSAB

Robert Anderson, PhD, has served as Chief of the Mortality Statistics Branch at CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics since 2004. He oversees and is responsible for the production, analysis and dissemination of national mortality statistics and has worked on issues related to disease classification, improvements in data quality (especially with regard to cause of death reporting), and quantifying the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on mortality in the United States.

 

 

David M Cutler, PhD, is the Otto Eckstein Professor of Applied Economics in the Department of Economics at Harvard University and holds secondary appointments at the Kennedy School of Government and the School of Public Health. His expertise is in health and public economics and economic demography.

 

 

Stephen C Goss, ASA, MAAA, has been Social Security’s Chief Actuary since 2001. He has worked in areas related to health and long-term care insurance and pension, disability, and survivor protection.

 

 

 

Karen Glenn, FSA, EA, MAAA, is SSA’s Deputy Chief Actuary for Long-Range Actuarial Estimates. She is responsible for the demographic and economic assumptions that underlie the 75-year estimates of the cost of the Social Security program.

 

 

 

Allen W Heinemann, PhD, is Director of the Center for Rehabilitation Outcomes Research at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab and Professor of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. His research interests focus on health services research, psychosocial aspects of rehabilitation including substance abuse, and measurement issues in rehabilitation. 

 

 

Stipica Mudrazija, PhD, is Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Systems and Population Health at the University of Washington and Nonresident Fellow at the Urban Institute. He studies issues related to population aging, intergenerational support, and the health and well-being of older adults in the United States and internationally.

 

 

Christopher JL Murray, MD, DPhil, is Director of the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation and Professor and Chair of Health Metrics Sciences at the University of Washington. He is a physician and health economist who leads the Global Burden of Disease, Injuries, and Risk Factors enterprise, which quantifies the comparative magnitude of health loss due to diseases, injuries, and risk factors by age, sex, and geography over time.

 

 

Steven W Popper, PhD, is Senior Economist at the RAND Corporation and Professor at the Pardee RAND Graduate School. He works on decision-making under deep uncertainty, science and technology policy, strategic decision-making foresight and future studies, and security planning.

 

 

 

Christopher J Ruhm, PhD, is Professor of Public Policy and Economics at the University of Virginia. His research has focused on excess deaths due to the COVID-19 pandemic, drug poisoning deaths in the United States, the relationship between macroeconomic conditions and health, the determinants of health and risky behaviors, and the causes and consequences of alcohol and illegal drug policies.

 

 

David Shaywitz, MD, PhD, is participating in his personal capacity but holds the roles of VP-Distinguished R&D Fellow at Takeda, Lecturer at Harvard Medical School, and Adjunct Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. A physician-scientist by training, he has focused his career on biomedical innovation, particularly the opportunities and challenges associated with implementing emerging technologies.

 

 

Michael L Stephens, ASA, is the Acting Deputy Chief Actuary for Short-Range Actuarial Estimates in the Office of the Chief Actuary at the Social Security Administration. He leads the office’s work on developing 10-year projections of the numbers of beneficiaries, total benefits, and the actuarial status of the trust funds for the Social Security program, as well as 25-year projections of recipients and total payments for the Supplemental Security Income program. 

 

 

Shelly Steward, PhD, serves as Director of the Future of Work Initiative, part of the Aspen Institute’s Economic Opportunities Program. A sociologist by training, she has studied the changing nature of work and is an expert on nonstandard work arrangements and the gig economy.

 

 

 

Steven Woolf, MD, MPH, is Director Emeritus of the Center on Society and Health at Virginia Commonwealth University, where he is Professor of Family Medicine and Population Health and holds the C. Kenneth and Diane Wright Distinguished Chair in Population Health and Health Equity. Woolf is also a clinical epidemiologist trained in preventive medicine and public health; he is board certified in family medicine and in preventive medicine and public health.