FORECASTING US AGE STRUCTURE AND THE FUTURE OF SOCIAL-SECURITY - THE IMPACT OF ADJUSTMENTS TO OFFICIAL MORTALITY SCHEDULES

The level of future expenditures on such old-age entitlement programs in the United Slates as Social Security and Medicare, and the developm ent of public policy to fund these programs, are dependent on accurate estimates of the current and future size of the beneficiary populatio n. Since most persons who will be eligible to draw benefits from these programs over the next 65 years have already been born, the critical demographic factor for projecting the size and age structure of the be neficiary population is mortality. Recent studies question the validit y of old-age mortality rates in the United States, in large part becau se of problems with age misstatement and because of what appear to be unusually low death rates in North America relative to other low-morta lity populations with reliable data. The authors examine the consequen ces of adjusting old-age mortality rates for observed and forecasted l ife expectancies, for forecasts of the size of the older population an d for the projected funding of selected age-entitlement programs in th e United States. Forecasts made using adjusted mortality schedules lea d to estimates of life expectancy at birth and at older ages that, ove r the next 60 years, are lower than those published by the Census Bure au and the Social Security Administration.