SS

Here's Krugman on the most recent social security trustees report:

The latest report of the Social Security Trustees is out. I think the key message is what has happened to the estimate of actuarial balance — the difference between projected outlays and projected revenues over the next 75 years. This is the thing that’s supposed to get steadily worse as time goes by, as the 75-year window contains ever fewer years in which the baby boomers are in the work force, paying payroll taxes, and ever more years when the boomers are out of the work force and collecting benefits.

In fact, however, the actuarial balance has been improving rather than worsening. It’s now better than it’s been since 1993. What this tells us is that projections made in the mid-to-late 1990s were, in the light of subsequent revisions, way too pessimistic.

Moral: Social Security’s financial problem is relatively minor. It doesn’t deserve the emphasis it receives from most pundits.

You may have noticed SecTreasury Henry Paulson out spewing the same old administration fear mongering garbage about social security yesterday. The fact is that social security is fine. Medicare is in deep trouble (as is all health care), but social security needs only very minor adjustments to easily keep it viable indefinitely. But you know Republicans. They see a pot of money and want to raid it.