Table 2 , so there was a large and growing population of people who could receive Social Security. Indeed, the actuarial estimates used by the Committee on Economic Security CES in designing the Social Security program projected that there would be 8.
So Social Security was not designed in such a way that few people would collect the benefits. As Table 1 indicates, the average life expectancy at age 65 i. So, for example, men attaining 65 in can expect to live for Increases in life expectancy are a factor in the long-range financing of Social Security; but other factors, such as the sheer size of the "baby boom" generation, and the relative proportion of workers to beneficiaries, are larger determinants of Social Security's future financial condition.
Male Female Male Female This graph compares the average age a male is expected to reach according to their current age.
It highlights the increase in life expectancy at birth since the 19th century. Although it shows only males, females show a similar pattern. The additional life expectancy of a one-year-old compared with a newborn continued to increase from to ; at its peak there was a difference of 8. This may have been due to the fact that it was not a legal requirement to register births until , so data prior to this may have been less accurate Births and Deaths Act There has been a steady decline since the early 20th century, because of the improvements in public hygiene, childhood immunisations and the creation of the NHS Female life expectancy at birth was 3.
This smaller gap in the midth century was in part due to diseases and high infant mortality that affected men and women indiscriminately. In the late 18th and early 19th centuries the gap between male and female life expectancies began to slowly widen, peaking at 6. It has been narrowing since, due to faster improvements in mortality for men than for women. As well as men's working conditions being a factor, the widening gap can be explained by the decline in tuberculosis TB.
Deaths from the disease, which had been rife in the 17th and 18th centuries, and affected women more than men, had begun to decline in the 19th and 20th centuries. In the 20th century more women were surviving childbirth and were having fewer children, reducing their risk of dying in labour. Since the s, men have been catching women up in terms of survival. That's why they set the retirement age at Life expectancy does raise important questions, however.
Here's one: On average, how many years do people live to collect their Social Security checks? Let's look at the numbers. Census data shows that people who reached the age of 65 when Social Security was created in lived until roughly age 74, on average. In they could be expected to live until they were 82 or That's good news for everyone concerned, and it's certainly actuarially significant for Social Security. There was greater mortality during people's work lives back then, too.
A thirty year old would live another Figures are from US census data. So some of the people who died young in earlier decades might have been expected to pay into the program for at least some period of time without ever collecting benefits. While the overall life expectancy figure is too crude to be meaningful, these numbers present legitimate if highly manageable concerns. That's why the Greenspan Commission was created in After the Greenspan Commission's changes were enacted, the program was able to build enormous surpluses in its trust funds - surpluses which still exist in the form of government debt, and which are expected to grow despite years like the current one, in which benefits payments will exceed tax revenues.
The Greenspan Commission certainly knew that baby boomers were coming -- the youngest of them was 19 in - and they knew about expected increases in overall life expectancy which, in any case, was only three and a half years less in than it is today.
That's why the program's in such good financial shape.
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