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-- Programs and Services -- Contact Information Retired Social Security chief says only minor repairs needed
In the cacophony of proposals to change Social Security, one stands out due to the institutional memory of its author, Robert Ball, who joined the Social Security Administration in 1939 and ran it from 1962 to 1973.
Bell, age 91, recently penned his latest analysis. But first he offered a history lesson for those who would use history to justify a switch to private accounts.
It is true, Ball said, that in 1950, there were 16 workers paying into the system for every person receiving benefits, compared to only three workers today. But proponents of private accounts “ignore the fact that in 1950 only about 15 percent of the elderly were eligible for benefits and that it was expected by all . . . that the ratio would...change dramatically.”
Using a more recent time frame
The proper comparison, Ball said, dates only to 1975, when most seniors were finally eligible for Social Security and the ratio of contributors to beneficiaries was already three-to-one.
Ball himself has three proposals. First, raise the cap on wages that are subject to Social Security taxes in order to restore the proportion of wages subject to such taxes to 90 percent, the proportion Congress set in 1983.
Second, freeze the estate tax in 2009, when the rate will be 45 percent and the exemption will be $3.5 million, instead of letting it disappear altogether. Finally, permit administrators of the trust funds to buy stocks – the very strategy adopted by backers of private accounts in their search for a higher rate of return. Mostly, though, Ball wants people to calm down.
“Social Security hasn’t failed,” he said. “What is needed are some relatively small changes which are desirable in any event.”