Editor’s Note: Although Social Security was noted during the first presidential debate on October 3rd, a proposed solution to the disparity between payments and income was not discussed.
As the Population Ages, Social Security’s Spending Is Projected to Outpace Its Tax Revenues
Source: Congressional Budget Office
Outlays for Social Security totaled a little under $800 billion in fiscal year 2012, equal to about 5 percent of gross domestic product and one-fifth of federal spending. Of the 56 million people who currently receive Social Security benefits, about 70 percent are retired workers or their spouses and children, and another 11 percent are survivors of deceased workers; all of those beneficiaries receive payments through the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) component of Social Security. The other 19 percent of beneficiaries are disabled workers or their spouses and children; they receive Social Security’s Disability Insurance (DI) benefits.
This CBO report, shown below and available in pdf format presents additional information about the long-term projections of the Social Security program’s finances that were included in June in CBO’s The 2012 Long-Term Budget Outlook. Today’s publication updates the projections included in CBO’s 2011 Long-Term Projections for Social Security: Additional Information.
Social Security’s Dedicated Tax Revenues are Falling Short of its Spending
In calendar year 2010, for the first time since the enactment of the Social Security Amendments of 1983, spending for the program exceeded its dedicated tax revenues. In 2011, spending exceeded dedicated tax revenues by 4 percent, and that gap is growing. CBO projects that:
- Over the next decade, spending will exceed dedicated tax revenues, on average, by about 10 percent. With more members of the baby-boom generation entering retirement, spending will increase relative to the size of the economy, whereas tax revenues will remain a roughly constant share of the economy. As a result, the gap between the program’s spending and tax revenues will grow larger in the 2020s and will exceed 20 percent of tax revenues by 2030.
- Under current law, the DI trust fund will be exhausted in 2016, and the OASI trust fund will be exhausted in 2038. It is a common analytical convention to consider the DI and OASI trust funds in combination. CBO projects that, if legislation to shift resources from the OASI trust fund to the DI trust fund was enacted as has been done in the past, the combined trust funds would be exhausted in 2034. However, considerable uncertainty surrounds the various factors that affect the program’s revenues and outlays, and thus the date at which the trust funds would be exhausted.
- The resources dedicated to financing the program over the next 75 years fall short of the benefits that will be owed to beneficiaries by 1.95 percent of taxable payroll—up from 1.58 percent a year ago. That means, for example, that if the Social Security payroll tax rate was increased immediately and permanently by 1.95 percentage points—from the current rate of 12.40 percent to 14.35 percent—or if scheduled benefits were reduced by an equivalent amount, then the trust funds’ projected balance at the end of 2086 would equal projected outlays for 2087.
Social Security Taxes and Spending Differ Greatly Across People with Different Earnings and in Different Cohorts
Dietary Supplements: Claims Fail To Meet Federal Requirements
Summary
WHY WE DID THIS STUDY
The *Government Accountability Office and public interest groups have raised concerns about a specific type of claim-called a structure/function claim-that manufacturers may use on dietary supplement labels. Manufacturers have used these claims to promote health benefits of their products. Stakeholders have urged FDA to strengthen oversight of these claims because they are potentially misleading and may lack scientific support. FDA lacks authority to review or approve these claims before products enter the market. Manufacturers must have competent and reliable scientific evidence to show that claims are truthful and not misleading, but they do not have to submit the substantiation to FDA, and FDA has only voluntary standards for it. A manufacturer must notify FDA when it uses structure/function claims, and a product label must include a disclaimer stating that FDA has not reviewed the claim and that the product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease.
HOW WE DID THIS STUDY
We analyzed structure/function claims for a purposive sample of 127 dietary supplements marketed for weight loss or immune system support. We reviewed the claims to determine the extent to which they complied with FDA regulations. We reviewed substantiation provided by manufacturers to describe the quantity and nature of the evidence. We also assessed the accuracy and completeness of notification letters that manufacturers must submit to FDA for their structure/function claims.
WHAT WE FOUND
Overall, substantiation documents for the sampled supplements were inconsistent with FDA guidance on competent and reliable scientific evidence. FDA could not readily determine whether manufacturers had submitted the required notification for their claims. Seven percent of the supplements lacked the required disclaimer, and 20 percent included prohibited disease claims on their labels. These results raise questions about the extent to which structure/function claims are truthful and not misleading.
WHAT WE RECOMMEND
We recommend that FDA seek explicit statutory authority to review substantiation for structure/function claims to determine whether they are truthful and not misleading. We recommend that FDA improve the notification system for these claims to make it more organized, complete, and accurate. We also recommend that FDA expand market surveillance to enforce the use of disclaimers for structure/function claims and to detect disease claims. In its comments on the draft report, FDA did not explicitly concur with our first recommendation, but said it would consider it. FDA concurred with our second and third recommendations.
Copies can also be obtained by contacting the Office of Public Affairs at Public.Affairs@oig.hhs.gov.
Complete Report: Download the complete report
*The US Government Accountability Office (GAO) is an independent, nonpartisan agency that works for Congress. Often called the “congressional watchdog,” GAO investigates how the federal government spends taxpayer dollars.
If You Think You’d Miss Big Bird, How About Downton Abbey, Mystery!, Antiques Roadshow and The Nutcracker? NPR? PRI?
“I’m sorry Jim. I’m gonna stop the subsidy to PBS. I’m gonna stop other things,” Romney said. “I like PBS, I like Big Bird, I actually like you too.”
It’s easy enough to identify the Public Broadcasting Company as an elimination for government funding, but those monies represent 15% of their entire funding, enough to cripple the organization’s ability to not only produce new award-winning programs but to purchase others from producers and networks here and abroad.
PBS has become a whipping boy for those ambitious politicians who may have disagreed with their arts policies in the past, but for those who cannot afford cable costs — and that increasingly, has become an option for many seniors’ own budget cutting — PBS, NPR and PRI are bright spots on a landscape of less appealing, increasingly violent and inane television shows on other networks.
Frontline is soon to present …
Come Nov. 6, voters are going to have two very different candidates to choose from in Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. You’ve heard about their politics, and their plans for the country. But what about who they are — and how they became the people and politicians they are today? Continue
“I worked with Big Bird. I served with Big Bird. You, sir, are no Big Bird,” The Lance Arthur, @thelancearthur, of San Francisco tweeted.
— T. G.
The Debates: Are the Candidates ‘Artfully Dodging”?
The Presidential Debate were broadcast from the Ritchie Center, Denver, Colorado.
Artful Dodgers: Responding But Not Answering Often Undetected
Seeing questions can help voters detect dodges and be better informed, a study says
How can some people respond to a question without answering the question, yet satisfy their listeners? This skill of “artful dodging” and how to better detect it are explored in an article published by the American Psychological Association.
People typically judge a speaker with the goal of forming an opinion of the speaker, which can make them susceptibile to dodges, according to the study, The Artful Dodger, published online in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied. Limited attention capacity is another reason people fall for dodges, said the authors, citing a previous study in which people counting basketball passes failed to notice a man in a gorilla suit walking through the game.
Dodge detection greatly increased when listeners were directed to pay close attention to the relevance of speakers’ answers with regard to the questions, or if the text of the correct question was visible to the listeners as the speaker responded. The ability to recognize a dodge more than doubled, from 39 percent without the text to 88 percent with the text.
“Given concerns that voters are uninformed or misinformed and the many calls for increased education of voters—from politicians and pundits alike—these results suggest that very simple interventions can dramatically help voters focus on the substance of politicians’ answers rather than their personal style,” said authors Todd Rogers, PhD, and Michael I. Norton, PhD, both of Harvard University.
The researchers conducted four different experiments with four separate groups of people totaling 1,139 men and women averaging 44 years old. In three of the studies, participants watched a video of a mock political debate and then responded to an online survey. In the fourth study, participants listened to excerpts of a recording of a mock political debate and then responded to questions.
The study results indicated that people are frequently unable to remember an initial question if a speaker answers a similar question. Moreover, listeners rated speakers who answered a similar question just as positively as those who answered the correct question. Listeners had the most negative reactions if speakers answered blatantly different questions or if they fumbled their words even while answering the correct question.
But dodges aren’t always bad, the authors noted, “such as when someone asks coworkers for their opinion on a new outfit.” They pointed out that while posting the text of questions can be done for televised debates, it’s not practical to carry around a poster of your questions when going about everyday life. And dodge detecting can be detrimental if people are engaging in creative, wide-ranging conversations.
“Still, our results suggest that in many cases, dodges cause sought-after and relevant information to go unspoken, with little awareness and few consequences,” the authors said.
Article: “The Artful Dodger: Answering the Wrong Question the Right Way,” Todd Rogers, PhD, Harvard University and Analyst Institute, and Michael I. Norton, PhD, Harvard Business School, Journal of Experimental Psychology, Applied.
Photograph of the Ritchie Center, Wikipedia
First Stroke: Gender, Health Ambiguity and Depression
Post-stroke depression is a major issue affecting approximately 33% of stroke survivors. A new study published in September 14, 2012 issue of Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation reports that the level to which survivors are uncertain about the outcome of their illness is strongly linked to depression. The relationship is more pronounced for men than for women.
“Male stroke survivors in the US who subscribe to traditional health-related beliefs may be accustomed to, and value highly, being in control of their health,” says lead investigator Michael J. McCarthy, PhD, of the University of Cincinnati College of Health Sciences School of Social Work. “For these individuals, loss of control due to infirmity caused by stroke could be perceived as a loss of power and prestige. These losses, in turn, may result in more distress and greater depressive syndromes.”
Thirty-six survivors (16 female, 20 male) who had experienced their first stroke within the preceding 36 months participated in the study. Survivors’ depressive symptoms and ability to perform activities of daily living, such as bathing and cutting food with a knife and fork, were measured. The degree to which survivors were experiencing health ambiguity, or uncertainty about the outcomes of their illness, was evaluated by their agreement with statements such as “I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” and “I have a lot of questions without answers.”
Investigators found health ambiguity was significantly associated with greater depression for both sexes, and the association was stronger for male survivors than for females. “These findings suggest that reducing health ambiguity through proactive communication with patients and family members may be an effective approach for reducing survivor distress and, ultimately, for improving rehabilitation outcomes, Dr. McCarthy says. “They also reinforce the importance of rehabilitation professionals acknowledging that health-related beliefs can have a tangible impact on patient outcomes.”
Dr. McCarthy notes that there was a wide variability in time since diagnosis in the study, and patients were likely at different points in recovery with respect to health ambiguity and depressive syndromes. The small sample size and lack of sample diversity may limit the generalizability of the findings to the broader stroke population. “Future research, with more socioeconomically diverse samples, should examine how gender-based health-related beliefs affect survivor outcomes, and explore the factors that protect female stroke survivors from the harmful effects of health ambiguity,” he concludes.
“Gender, Health Ambiguity, and Depression among Survivors of First Stroke: A Pilot Study,” by M.J. McCarthy, K.S. Lyons, L.E. Powers, and E.A. Bauer appeared in the September Archives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation published by Elsevier.
Toys at Our House: Shopping for Visiting Children
We keep lots of puzzles for grandchildren, things that can be picked up and played with quickly, hopefully to desired conclusions. Some are absolutely classic, some new, but all engage fingers and eyes, puzzles to intrigue and keep a child or an adult absorbed. Here are some to be considered for the holidays and birthdays:
X-Ball. “Designed by Roger von Oech as a companion product to the award- winning Ball of WhacksR, the innovative X-Ball presents a playful new way to stimulate creativity. 30 magnetic Xs click together to form an icosidodecahedron. The uniquely angled geometry of the X-shaped pieces allows users to invent their own shapes and designs. X-Ball pieces can also be used with the Ball of Whacks pieces.”
Hoberman Switch Pitch: We picked this up at San Francisco’s Exploratorium recently and grandchildren as well as adults can’t resist picking it up and throwing into the air. A teacher’s source site explains its applications in this way: “A beautiful lesson in activation energy. Point out the activated complex. Show the difference between translational and rotational energy. Use to demonstrate the activation energy needed for a reaction when two particles collide. Relate to the Arrhenius equation: k=Ae-Ea/RT. Demonstrate isomerization.”
The Marie Curie Glow in the Dark Bobblehead has been designed as part of the series ‘Pioneers of Science’ in recognition of her contribution to society. She discovered Polonium and Radium, isolated radioactive isotopes, came up with the Theory of Radioactivity, and was the first woman to win a Nobel Prize.
Cyclone Puzzle. Not for children under three, it’s a puzzle that you take apart and then rebuild. The Lagoon Group’s site, http://www.give-me-a-clue. com can help you out. We’ve seen one of granddaughters do it quickly after observing the construction.
Then there’s the colorful HaPe Bamboo Prism Puzzle Wooden Mosaic Set. We can’t resist having it in our living room just as a decorative object. Who could? Canadian toy maker HaPe is perfect for creative kids of all ages. Their new Totter Tower, again for children under three, helps children gain a sense of geometry,spatial awareness as well as improving hand-eye coordination.
And we end with the most classic of all puzzles: We first saw these rolling ball puzzles in England but they’re a US firm called ParlorPuzzles.biz. Their BB puzzles center on figures such as Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, artists Fragonard, Seurat and Vermeer. This year they’re featuring American Presidents including Clinton, Obama and FDR. Eleanor has her own puzzle, too, as well as aviatrix Amelia Earhart. Other categories are American collector stamps and a number of dog and cat breeds.
Transfigured by the Magic of Light and Shade: Impressionism and Fashion
Woman with a Parrot, 1866, oil on canvas, 185.1 x 128.6 cm. © The
Metropolitan Museum of Art, Dist. RMN / image of the MMA. Also entitled Young Lady of 1866
Although the Impressionists continued to capture on canvas the constantly changing natural world, their revolutionary contribution was not limited to painting landscapes. Their sharp observation also made them sensitive to urban change and the behaviour of city dwellers. In their desire to depict contemporary life, the Impressionists often chose to represent the human figure in an everyday setting, to capture the “modern” man going about his business or in moments of leisure.
Manet and Degas were perfect examples of this new Parisian, the “flâneur”, the sophisticated, nonchalant observer of “modern life” and its daily cast of characters. Although they were not interested in scrupulous representation of physiognomy, costume and dress, the Impressionists nevertheless recorded the fashions and attitudes of their time through their desire to present the portrait as a snapshot of the subject in familiar
surroundings, through their ability to revitalise both the typology and topography of the genre scene, and above all by focusing on “the daily metamorphosis of exterior things” to quote Baudelaire.
Sequestration: “A self-inflicted wound” to a struggling economy
By Jake Grovum, Staff Writer; Stateline, the Pew Center on the States
How a Spending Stalemate Would Affect the States
“A self-inflicted wound” to a struggling economy. “Ham-handed cuts” nobody thought would actually happen. “The big, dumb spending cuts that no one wants.”
Those are just three descriptions given to the looming federal budget reductions that are scheduled to take effect Jan. 2, 2013, unless Congress stops them. If they are enacted, more than $1.2 trillion would be cut from federal spending in the next ten years, including nearly $110 billion next year alone. The specter has produced jitters around the country. Heightening anxiety is the broader, so-called “fiscal cliff,” a term that adds in the tax cuts also set to expire at the end of this year.
And there’s reason to fear. The Congressional Budget Office has said going over the fiscal cliff would plunge the country back into recession in the first half of 2013. Unemployment would climb back over 9 percent, and economic growth wouldn’t return for two years.
“Basically, this is a nightmare,” Jared Bernstein, a former economic adviser to Vice President Joe Biden and a senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, said at a recent briefing. “This economy really doesn’t need another self-inflicted wound, and that’s what this would be.”
But for state and local governments in particular, the budget cuts would have acute and tangible ramifications. The reductions, known as the “sequester,” would be made across the board to a broad swath of federal spending. The cuts could not only ravage economies, but force states to backfill funding and scale back countless safety net programs.
Under the sequester, as laid out in the resolution to the 2011 debt ceiling crisis, the cuts would be divided between defense and non-defense discretionary spending. In the next fiscal year, for example, defense-related discretionary spending would be cut $54.6 billion, or 10 percent. Non-defense would be cut $38 billion, or 7.8 percent.
Big-ticket state-federal items such as Medicaid are exempt. Social Security and the bulk of Medicare spending are as well, although Medicare providers are facing a 2 percent, or $11 billion, cut.
But holding those programs harmless means the cuts will fall on about a third of the federal budget, and much of the federal bureaucracy. The Federal Aviation Administration, which supports the operation of airports large and small, would be cut, along with Congress’ own budget. Almost every federal agency, from the Small Business Administration to the Army Corps of Engineers and NASA, would face reductions. Even the IRS’ fund for paying informants would be cut by $10 million.
Spending cuts wouldn’t differentiate between programs on the basis of necessity or effectiveness; reductions would be imposed broadly and equally. As the White House put it in a recent Office of Management and Budget report: “Sequestration is a blunt and indiscriminate instrument. It is not the responsible way for our nation to achieve deficit reduction.”
Cuts to the States
Of all the myriad reductions threatening states, there’s one that seems to have generated the most public concern: cuts to education.
States are set to receive more than $15.7 billion in basic elementary and secondary education dollars from the federal government, which includes Title I funding for the disadvantaged. Under sequestration, that would be cut nearly $1.3 billion. The $12.6 billion in federal money for special education would also be reduced more than $1 billion.
Loss
“He died last May,” are the words I use when I relate to my friends the traumatic event that changed my life a few months ago. I don’t use the usual gentle euphemisms — “he
passed away or he was called to another place.” For me, though I like to think of him released from his illness and once again feeling healthy and safe, I know that I have to accept the reality of never seeing him again. His body is gone because it no longer exists and its remains have returned to the earth.
When I miss him so deeply, I call aloud to him — “OK, you can come back now.” I feel he is just waiting for me to reach out to him, to find a way to connect with him. Oddly I feel a slight touch of anger in these sad moments. He could alleviate my grief … he was always able to do the impossible, and so, he should do that NOW and just come back to me.
“I am waiting to tell you so many things,” I exclaim to him. “I need your help with the roses that have stopped flowering. We had a terrible storm and you will be shocked by
the tree damage. Your nephew wants to collect on that political bet he made with you. My sister-in-law died and my brother is in the hospital in a deep depression.”
But I can do little to change my new reality. I coach myself to accept my overwhelming feelings during these sorrowful and poignant moments. My sadness is intensified by the doubling up of sensations — loss and permanent change.
“He is gone,” I say to myself over and over, trying to force understanding deep into my being. I continue to envision him here, near me in his chair, in his place in our bed. I look for a sign in some lucky breaks I have gotten — convenient parking spots, a good hotel room. But the smile that comes to my lips when I think of these happenstance scenes fades, as I know I am creating a fantasy in his honor.
Acceptance may have to wait awhile as my life goes on. Mercifully these contemplative moments are frequently interrupted by activities that compel my attention. I pause and
reflect. Will it ever be that one day I will comprehend fully and accept as real, the eternity of my loss?
©2012 Adrienne G. Cannon for SeniorWomen.com
Photograph: Scabiosa atropurpurea ‘Scarlett’, known as the widow’s flower
Bumble Bee Adventures: A Pollinator’s Destination Routes Tracked
Understanding the Flight of the Bumblebee
Bumblebees are remarkable navigators. While their flight paths may look scattered to the casual eye, all that buzzing about is anything but random. Like the travelling salesman in the famous mathematical problem of how to take the shortest path along multiple stops, bumblebees quickly find efficient routes among flowers.
And once they find a good route, they stick to it. The same goes for other animals from hummingbirds to bats to primates that depend on patchy resources such as nectar and fruit. Perhaps this is not such a surprising feat for animals with relatively high brain power. But how do bumblebees, with their tiny brains, manage it? As new research in this issue of PLOS Biology by Lars Chittka and colleagues shows, a simple strategy may be enough for a real-world solution to this complex problem.
For computers, solving the travelling salesman problem means methodically calculating and comparing the lengths of all possible routes. But such an exhaustive approach isn’t feasible in practice, and indeed animals can find a near-optimal foraging route, or trapline, without trying them all. Determining exactly how they do this, however, has been stymied by the difficulties of tracking animals as they forage in the wild. Chittka and colleagues got around this problem by tracking bumblebees (Bombus terrestris) on five artificial flowers set in a mown pasture. The “flowers” had landing platforms with drops of sucrose in the middle, and were fitted with motion-triggered webcams.
To keep the bees’ focus on the artificial flowers, the experiments were done in October, when natural sources of nectar and pollen were scarce. To make the bees want to find all five flowers, each sucrose drop was only enough to fill one-fifth of a bumblebee’s crop. And to keep the bees from finding one foraging site from another visually, the flowers were arranged in a pentagon that was 50 m on each side, which is more than three times as far as bumblebees can see them.
The researchers released bees individually from a nest box that was about 60 m from the nearest flower, and used the webcams to track the sequence of flower visits during consecutive foraging bouts. The bees found the closest flowers first and added new flowers during subsequent bouts. With experience, they repeated segments of the visitation sequence that shortened the overall route while abandoning those that did not. Traplines linking all five flowers in a short route were established after an average of 26 foraging bouts, which entailed trying only about 20 of the 120 possible routes.
Photograph: A bumblebee (Bombus terrestris) worker with a transponder attached to its back, visiting an oilseed rape flower. Image credit: Andrew Martin.