**GAO-03-246R**                      Published: Mar 04, 2003. Publicly Released: Mar 04, 2003.                  

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## Highlights

The combined Federal Old-Age, Survivors and Disability Insurance (OASDI) programs, commonly referred to as Social Security, provide protection against loss of earnings due to retirement, death, or disability. During calendar year 2001, the most recent year for which complete data were available at the time of our review, about 46 million people, including 91 percent of Americans age 65 or older, received $432 billion in benefits from the trust funds maintained for these programs. The Board of Trustees of the trust funds is required to report annually on the current and projected financial status of the Social Security programs to the Congress and the American people. The Social Security Administration's (SSA) Office of the Chief Actuary (OACT) provides estimates to the board to assist them in setting demographic, economic, and programmatic assumptions about OASDI's future performance that are needed to prepare long-range and short-range projections of the financial status of the trust funds for the trustees' reports. Based on the board's assumptions, OACT then prepares the projections and the trustees' report for the board. In its 2002 annual report, the Board of Trustees estimated that, under current rules, OASDI expenditures would begin to exceed revenue in calendar year 2017, causing the trust fund to be exhausted in 2041. Our specific objectives were to identify and evaluate the adequacy of OACT's (1) control activities over the projection process, (2) human capital practices related to workforce planning, and (3) tracking and resolution process to address recommendations from technical panels and other reviewers.

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## Topics

Retirement Security

Disability benefitsInternal controlsRetirement benefitsTrust fundsFuture budget projectionsStaff utilizationPersonnel managementLabor forceAccounting standardsData errors