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94–991 PDF 2004

S. HRG. 108–577

STRENGTHENING SOCIAL SECURITY: WHAT CAN

WE LEARN FROM OTHER NATIONS?

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON AGING 

UNITED STATES SENATE

ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

WASHINGTON, DC

MAY 18, 2004

Serial No. 108–35

Printed for the use of the Special Committee on Aging

(

SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON AGING 

LARRY CRAIG, Idaho, Chairman 

RICHARD SHELBY, Alabama 

SUSAN COLLINS, Maine 

MIKE ENZI, Wyoming 

GORDON SMITH, Oregon 

JAMES M. TALENT, Missouri 

PETER G. FITZGERALD, Illinois 

ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah 

ELIZABETH DOLE, North Carolina 

TED STEVENS, Alaska 

RICK SANTORUM, Pennsylvania 

JOHN B. BREAUX, Louisiana, Ranking 

Member 

HARRY REID, Nevada 

HERB KOHL, Wisconsin 

JAMES M. JEFFORDS, Vermont 

RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin 

RON WYDEN, Oregon 

BLANCHE L. LINCOLN, Arkansas 

EVAN BAYH, Indiana 

THOMAS R. CARPER, Delaware 

DEBBIE STABENOW, Michigan 

LUPE WISSEL, Staff Director 

MICHELLE EASTON, Ranking Member Staff Director 

(II) 

C O N T E N T S 

Page 

Opening Statement of Senator Larry E. Craig ..................................................... 1

Statement of Senator Evan Bayh ........................................................................... 39

PANEL I 

James B. Lockhart III, Deputy Commissioner, Social Security Administration, 

Washington, DC ................................................................................................... 2

Yoshinori Ohno, member of Japanese House, and chairman, Research Commission on the Annuities System, Liberal Democratic Party of Japan, Kagawa, Japan .......................................................................................................... 15

PANEL II 

Vincent J. Truglia, managing director, Sovereign Risk Unit, Moody’s Investors 

Service, New York, NY ........................................................................................ 46

Axel Boersch-Supan, director, The Institute for Economic Research, University of Mannheim, Mannheim, Germany ........................................................... 58

David O. Harris, senior consultant, Watson Wyatt Worldwide, London, England ........................................................................................................................ 64

L. Jacobo Rodriguez, final services analyst, The Cato Institute, Washington, 

DC .......................................................................................................................... 81

APPENDIX 

Testimony submitted by Richard Jackson, director and senior fellow, CSIS 

Global Aging Initiative ........................................................................................ 121

(III) 

(1)

STRENGTHENING SOCIAL SECURITY: WHAT 

CAN WE LEARN FROM OTHER NATIONS? 

TUESDAY, MAY 18, 2004 

U.S. SENATE, 

SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON AGING, 

Washington, DC. 

The committee convened, pursuant to notice, at 10 a.m., in room 

SD–628, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. Larry Craig (chairman of the committee) presiding. 

Present: Senators Craig, Bayh, and Carper. 

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR LARRY CRAIG, CHAIRMAN 

The CHAIRMAN. Please excuse me. I have been stalling for a few 

moments. We have some of our folks who will testify today stuck 

in traffic, but I assume that we are about ready to go so let me 

convene the Senate Special Committee on Aging. I want to say 

good morning to all of you. We are here today to learn how other 

nations are working to strengthen their Social Security systems. 

The world is aging. Birth rates are declining. People are living 

longer. The worker-to-retiree ratio is declining across the globe. 

The result is that public pension systems around the world are increasingly under pressure. Over the next decades, the world will 

see a growing share of economic resources transferred from the 

young to the old. Much of this transfer will occur through public 

pension systems. The challenge for industrialized nations is how to 

provide a decent standard of living for the old without overburdening the young. 

Japan and Europe are on the leading edge of aging populations 

compared to the United States. Many nations have undertaken or 

are in the middle of enacting reform to secure the retirement income of retirees. The pace and approach to reform differs by nation. 

Many of the largest industrialized economies have generally opted 

to increase taxes and cut benefits. About 30 nations have chosen, 

in whole or in part, to increase the rate of return on assets by enacting prefunded personal retirement accounts. 

As the United States considers personal retirement accounts to 

strengthen Social Security, it is important that we learn what 

other nations are doing. So we are here this morning to improve 

our understanding and to build a record so we in Congress can 

move forward with the best available information. 

With that, I am very pleased to welcome our witnesses to the 

Aging Committee today. We have on our first panel two distinguished government officials from the United States and Japan to 

2

help us better understand what is being done to strengthen Social 

Security around the world. 

Our first panel is made up of Jim Lockhart, Deputy Commissioner from the U.S. Social Security Administration; and Mr. 

Yoshinori Ohno, a member of the Japanese House and chairman of 

the Liberal Democrat Party Research Commission on the Annuities 

System. 

Joining us on our second panel will be Vince Truglia, managing 

director of the Sovereign Risk Unit at Moody’s Investment Services; 

Axel Boersch-Supan, director, Institute for Economic Research, 

University of Mannheim in Germany; David Harris, director, Watson Wyatt Worldwide in London; and Jacobo Rodriguez, financial 

services analyst at the Cato Institute. 

I want to thank all of our witnesses for being with us today and 

now let me turn to Commissioner Lockhart to begin this morning’s 

testimony. Thank you. 

STATEMENT OF JAMES B. LOCKHART, III, DEPUTY COMMISSIONER, SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION, WASHINGTON, 

DC 

Mr. LOCKHART. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for inviting me today 

to testify about strengthening Social Security and also the very important lessons we can learn from experiences in other nations. 

I also want to thank you, Mr. Chairman, for hosting a series of 

events last month in Idaho during which we discussed Social Security’s future. I think they were very useful and very successful and 

I thank you for your support. 

Achieving sustainable solvency is one of the Social Security Administration’s four strategic goals. Although Social Security trust 

funds exceed $1.5 trillion today, Social Security does face serious 

long-range financing issues. 

In 2018, the trust funds are projected to begin paying out more 

in benefits than is collected in payroll taxes, which will begin to 

put significant pressure on government finances. By 2042, just 

prior to the retirement of my two children, the Social Security trust 

fund assets are projected to be exhausted. Absent any changes, any 

reforms to strengthen Social Security, their scheduled benefits will 

be cut by 27 percent. 

The reason Social Security is unsustainable under current law is 

very simple. As you said, it is the aging of America. People are living longer and the birth rate is low. It is projected by 2030 the 

ratio of workers to all beneficiaries—and this ratio includes not 

only retirees but the disabled and the survivors that are covered 

by the Social Security system—which is currently 3.3-to-one will 

fall to 2.2-to-one and continue to fall thereafter. 

This next chart, or the chart I have up here, as you can see on 

the easel and is attached to the testimony, excludes the disabled 

and survivors and tries to show the ratio of workers to retirees 

throughout some of the developed countries in the world. As you 

can see, in 1995, the ratio is well over two-to-one in many of these 

developed countries. In fact, in some like the U.S. and Canada, it 

was over three-to-one. By 2050, it is projected to fall dramatically 

to unsustainable levels in most of these countries. Actually, in 

3

Italy, it will sink to below one-to-one, meaning there will be more 

people receiving retirement benefits than paying taxes. 

Fortunately, the United States is somewhat cushioned by higher 

birth rates and higher immigration levels than some of the other 

developed countries. 

As a result of this global aging, many countries have been actively reforming their Social Security programs. In addition to the 

traditional reforms of raising taxes, which we have actually done 

19 times in the history of Social Security in the United States, or 

reducing benefits, many have decided to prefund a portion of future 

retirement payments by investing funds in stocks and bonds to increase returns. Some countries, such as Canada, have chosen to increase returns by direct trust fund investments, while many others, 

approximately 30, have done so indirectly through personal accounts. 

By looking at the experience of other countries, we can make better choices about how to strengthen Social Security. 

One of the first lessons we can learn is that Social Security reforms will happen. They will have to happen. As President Kennedy said back in 1961, ‘‘The Social Security program cannot remain static. Changes in our population, in our working habits, and 

in our standard of living require constant revision.’’

A second lesson is the importance of acting sooner rather than 

later. The trustees have said this in their annual report for many 

years in a row. We need to act sooner rather than later. Delay may 

cause the need for more significant tax increases and benefit reductions, as it is doing now for some continental European countries 

and Japan. If we act sooner to strengthen our Social Security system, we will be able to select from a broader array of options and 

phase in changes gradually. 

A third lesson, and really it is a whole series of lessons we can 

learn from these countries, is that they can teach us things about 

the impacts of increasing taxes, reducing benefits, and also, very 

importantly, increasing rates of return. In fact, just yesterday, Social Security sponsored with our Retirement Research Consortium 

a conference on global aging to learn more about the impacts of 

these changes. 

Finally, I think it is very important to continue our efforts to improve financial literacy in the United States and to help people understand the need for reform, as we were doing out in Idaho. Once 

the need is understood, the experience of many of these countries 

showed that a bipartisan consensus is achievable to strengthen Social Security. 

In conclusion, we share the challenge of the global aging with 

many countries around the world. It is important to learn as much 

as we can from their experiences. 

Mr. Chairman, I again commend you for holding this hearing 

and especially for your very strong leadership in the bipartisan effort to strengthen Social Security. I will be happy to answer any 

questions. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Jim, thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Lockhart follows:]

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The CHAIRMAN. Now let me turn to Mr. Ohno, who, as I said earlier, is a member of the Japanese House and Chairman of the 

LDP’s Research Commission on the Annuities System. Mr. Ohno, 

it is a great pleasure to have you travel the distance you have to 

be with us today. 

STATEMENT OF YOSHINORI OHNO, MEMBER OF JAPANESE 

HOUSE, AND CHAIRMAN, RESEARCH COMMISSION ON THE 

ANNUITIES SYSTEM, LIBERAL DEMOCRATIC PARTY OF 

JAPAN, KAGAWA, JAPAN 

Mr. OHNO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am extremely honored 

to be here to testify before the Senate Special Committee on Aging 

regarding the Japanese pension reform now under deliberation in 

the Diet. In Japan, the pension reform is badly needed because our 

society is dramatically aging with fewer children. 

The Japanese people are living longer. This is one of the greatest 

achievements of our society. Page six of my written testimony 

shows how dramatically the Japanese society is aging. This also 

shows that the discrepancy of life expectancy between men and 

women is getting wider and wider. Why? That is another story. 

Living longer is a great pleasure and we should not turn this pleasure into anxiety. 

A more serious problem than living long is extremely low birth 

rates. Currently, the birth rate is 1.32 per woman. It was 2.14 in 

1965. Thus, the Japanese population would halve by the end of the 

21st century. 

As you see at page eight, the average age of first marriage is 

going up now. At their 20’s, unmarried women occupy two-thirds 

of the total. 

Thus, the age dependency ratio is, as you see at page nine, worsening. Under such circumstances, it is necessary to raise contributions and lower benefits every 5 years when the pension system is 

to be reviewed and people are losing trust on their pension system. 

The most important task, therefore, is to restore confidence in the 

pension system and make it sustainable for at least 100 years to 

come. This is, in my analysis, the fundamental purpose of the current reform, because the DNA of the Japanese people is security. 

The gist of our pension reform plan is as follows. First, sustainability. In order to make the Japanese pension system sustainable 

for the coming 100 years, we decided to restructure the level of 

benefits and contributions, as you see at page ten. On the point of 

the level of benefits, we decided that the minimum level of pension 

benefits should be about 50 percent of the average income of working people. It is now almost 60 percent. 

The level of contributions of the employees’ pension, currently 

13.58 percent, will be gradually raised to 18.3 percent over 14 

years, each year by 0.354 percent. We also decided to raise the taxfinanced part of the basic pension from one-third to one-half within 

5 years. 

In addition to the above, for example, the government proposed 

that in case of a working husband and non-working wife, working 

husband’s income-related benefits be divided half and half when 

both of the couple reach the age of 65. But we thought that dividing half and half of the husband’s income-related benefits might be 

16

a stimulus to divorce of the loved couple, so we made the system 

in which the benefits will be half only when they are divorced. 

The opposition party, the Democratic Party of Japan, proposed 

its draft law against ours. The main points of the proposal are the 

integration of the three categories of pension system, that is to say, 

the national pension, the employees’ pension, and the mutual aid 

pension, as you see at page three. 

Final agreement was reached between government parties and 

the opposition party that we will discuss the matter of integration 

later on. The draft law of the pension reform passed the House of 

Representatives, but now the political climate of Japan is rather 

chaotic because it is revealed that some leading politicians did not 

pay into the pension program. We will do our best, we try our best 

so that the law may pass the House of Counselors by the end of 

this Diet session. 

It is said in Japan that the pension is a gift from young generation to parents and grandparents. However, because of the rapidly 

aging society with fewer children, the Japanese pension system is 

becoming unfair between generations. People of my age are to receive benefits eight times of the paid contributions in case of employees’ pension, but people born in 1985 and after will receive benefits only 2.3 times of the paid contributions. However, in the 

framework of the pension system we see not only the remittance 

of money, but also we see a gift of warm heart, which is most important in our human society. 

Yet, the most important is to produce more babies. If we are successful in making the Japanese society more favorable for the 

youngsters to produce more babies, it is not necessary at all to discuss the level of contributions and benefits and all the serious problems will immediately be solved. I am sure that producing more babies is the most fundamental reform of the pension system in 

Japan. 

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Ohno follows:]

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The CHAIRMAN. Let me ask both of you some questions that will 

help bring out several of the points involved. Commissioner 

Lockhart, you provided some lessons to be learned from the foreign 

experience. What do you believe, based on what you know now, 

would be the most important lesson to date? 

Mr. LOCKHART. I think we can learn an awful lot from the foreign experiences, but I think the most important lesson really is to 

act sooner rather than later. If we act sooner, we will have more 

of a range of opportunities, more choices to make. Any changes will 

be less drastic, less abrupt to the people. 

As you remember, in the 1983 reforms, they increased the retirement age from 65 to 67, and just 2 years ago, it started to actually 

move up. If we can make those kinds of gradual changes, that will 

allow people to compensate. 

It will also allow us to look at more options, not just the traditional increase taxes or decrease or slow down the growth of benefits. We can start looking at some of those related to increasing investment returns and prefunding. 

We can learn also from the experience of those countries—how 

they reformed their programs and some of the lessons they learned, 

if they didn’t do it as well as they should have, if they made them 

too expensive, and some other things. So there are a lot of lessons 

out there that we can learn. 

The CHAIRMAN. What activities is the Social Security Administration currently undertaking that would begin to explore all of 

these kinds of options that could be presented to Congress? 

Mr. LOCKHART. First of all, we have been very active internationally. We belong to three international Social Security groups. We 

actively meet with them. We have various working committees on 

things related to policy, in particular. 

Social Security itself has been really strengthening our ability to 

respond to Congress and the administration on reforms. We have 

developed a whole series of models, papers, that really look at all 

aspects of reform, and on top of that, our actuarial shop led by 

Steve Goss has been very active at looking at plans, helping members to structure them, and helping to score them. There has been 

a lot of activity there. I mean, that is the good news, that he has 

been very active in looking at plans, not just Republican plans but 

also Democratic plans. 

So what we have tried to do is put in place all the infrastructure 

to help Congress and the administration make reforms. 

The CHAIRMAN. You mentioned your presence in Idaho last 

month, and I greatly appreciate that presentation. It got good play 

in our State. It was the rolling out of a communications effort and 

an information effort on the part of the Social Security Administration. 

You and I visited earlier before the hearing today about the difficulty of getting public attention at this moment on this issue because of all the other issues that are out there and a Presidential 

political year probably on top of all of that. But having said that, 

I think that both you and Mr. Ohno have spoken to the value of 

information and the value of public knowledge about what is reality and their willingness to adjust and change based on that reality. 

36

Would you visit with us for a few moments about that particular 

information piece that you offered in Idaho, the work that has been 

done on it, and what your plans are to use it effectively over the 

next couple of years? 

Mr. LOCKHART. Yes. As I said early in my testimony, one of the 

four strategic goals of Social Security is achieving sustainable solvency, and that means not just solvency for the 75-year period but 

for the very long term. I think a key aspect of that is to help educate the American people about the future of Social Security. Social 

Security has been one of the most successful, if not the most successful program. Certainly President Bush has said that several 

times. But he and many others have said we need to strengthen 

Social Security for future generations. He has actually asked the 

Social Security Administration to work with members and interested parties in a bipartisan educational effort, and that is really 

what we have been trying to do. 

As you know, those events in Idaho were designed, first of all, 

to lay out the issue to the people and then look at the various alternatives for strengthening Social Security. We tried to do it very 

much in a very level, evenhanded manner. We looked at reforms, 

various reforms related to increasing taxes, various reforms related 

to slowing the growth in benefits, and then looked at the increased 

investment return alternatives. Again, we looked at three different 

kinds of alternatives there. As you know, we also had a simulator 

that we had launched in Idaho which allowed people to actually 

make choices and see what would happen to the system, but also 

more importantly to their benefits and to their taxes. 

We are hoping that this tool and these series of events, which we 

hope to get more sponsors for, could be a very useful component in 

helping the American people understand the issue here, because it 

is an extremely serious long-term issue for American people, for the 

American economy, and the sooner we start moving on it, the better off we will be. 

The CHAIRMAN. We thank you very much for being here this 

morning, and I do believe that presentation was extremely valuable 

and I would agree with you. The simulator is really a hands-on opportunity for the average recipient or beneficiary. I think once 

those kinds of pieces of knowledge are out there and they can actually see how it would impact them individually, that change is doable. It is very sellable to the American people if the educational 

process goes forward. 

What I don’t want to create is the very experience I had and that 

every member of this Congress has had that has served here for 

any length of time, and that is the flood of mail that continually 

comes because somebody got notched, the old notch act, as we 

know. The problem is people don’t understand that the notch was 

one of those adjustments in the system out there that was made 

and then later was allowed to be effectively misrepresented, in part 

because there was not an informational base out there. You and I 

had nothing to do with it, but we have wrestled with it over the 

years. 

Mr. LOCKHART. I think it is an important point, and President 

Bush makes it many times, that any reforms will not touch today’s 

retirees and near-retirees. 

37

The CHAIRMAN. Yes. 

Mr. LOCKHART. Their benefits are safe and secure. As we saw out 

there in Idaho in these events, once you talk to the elderly about 

that, they really start to understand that these are really reforms 

for their children and grandchildren and they actually get into 

thinking about how best to do it and I think that is extremely important. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, and speaking of reforms 

for children and grandchildren is a great sequel to you, Mr. Ohno, 

and again, we are very pleased that you are with us this morning. 

My first question to you would be, you have clearly given a lot 

of thought on how to reform your public pension system. You mentioned sustainability as the first goal of the proposed reforms. How 

well do the proposed reforms achieve their intended goal of sustainability in that 100-year window that you speak of? 

Mr. OHNO. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. As I told you 

in my first statement, every 5 years, the Japanese pension program 

is to be reviewed, and every 5 years when we review the Japanese 

pension program, we have to change the structure of the pension 

program. That is to say, we have to raise the level of contributions 

and we have to lower the level of benefits. That is the reason why 

the Japanese people at large are losing the confidence, as I told 

you, in the Japanese pension program. 

So in order to make the pension system sustainable for the 100 

years to come, the actuarial calculation of the current pension reform is based on the following figures. First, birth rates. There is 

in 2050 1.39. It is now 1.32. Life expectancy in 2050, men 80.95, 

women 89.22. Rising consumer price, 1.0 percent per year. Rising 

wage, 2.1 percent every year. Interest rate, 3.2 percent, et cetera. 

This is the actuarial calculation basis. 

If the birth rates in 2050 is 1.1, very, very low level, or as I told 

you, 1.32 or 1.39 is the actuarial calculation basis, but if the birth 

rate goes down to 1.1, the pension system will be, I am terribly 

sorry to say this, but insolvent—insolvent, exhausted in 2066. 

Well, if we do not strengthen our pension program, the employees’ pension will be insolvent within 17 years—within 17 years—

and the national pension will be insolvent in 13 years. If we maintain the current level of benefits, we must raise the contributions 

of the employees’ pension to almost 26 percent. Well, on the contrary, if we maintain the current level of contributions, we must 

lower the level of benefits by 40 percent. 

Anyway, we have right now 150 trillion yen for the accumulated 

fund from the contributions and that will be used after around 

2050 and we can see this, if, as I told you before, every actuarial 

calculation basis keeps as it is. It continues for around 100 years 

to come. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Ohno, you have spoken, of course, in your 

testimony to the importance of the increase in Japan of the birth 

rate as a matter of good pension policy. Not only is birth rate an 

issue in your country, it is becoming an issue in our country as it 

relates to the long-term actuarial soundness of the pension fund, 

but also the dynamics of the economy itself, a strong vibrant economy, people at work, contribution into the system. 

38

Would you speak to me or speak to the committee for a few moments about policies that you have considered that would actually 

promote an increase in birth rate, how you would make it more desirable for the Japanese family to have more children, and your 

present look at the economy long term and changes that you might 

produce there to keep it vibrant. 

Mr. OHNO. Mr. Chairman, before I speak about the policy problem, how to increase the birth rates, let me make an analysis why 

the Japanese women are not producing more babies. First of all, 

well, about 40 years ago, there was a pressure on Japanese girls 

to get married before the age of 25. If they were not married before 

the age of 25, they were called ‘‘leftover Christmas cakes’’ or something like that—— [Laughter.] 

Mr. OHNO [continuing]. They look, of course, beautiful, still edible, but no one would buy them. 

Senator BAYH. What did they call the boys, Mr. Ohno? [Laughter.] 

Mr. OHNO. I don’t know. [Laughter.] 

So then there is no pressure like that in Japan of today. Girls 

work and stay with their parents, relying everything, including 

meals and room and everything on their parents. They enjoy their 

lives, relying everything on parents, well, say earn money and 

enjoy their lives, going abroad for sightseeing, et cetera. In Japan, 

they are called ‘‘parasite singles,’’ if you call that in the United 

States or not, I am not quite sure, but this may be the Japanese 

inventive English. 

The CHAIRMAN. It is very descriptive, I will say that. [Laughter.] 

Mr. OHNO. So as I told you before, the average age of first marriage of the Japanese girls, women, is rising, and so, how to educate them, how to let them know about the human contact, warmness of human relations. This is very important for the Japanese 

society. This is the first one. 

As I told you, the average age of first marriage is getting up. It 

is right now 27. About 30, 40 years ago it is 24 years, and right 

now, 27 years old. So this is the average of the first marriage for 

Japanese women. 

Maybe in the second place, I have to say long working hours for 

the Japanese workers, including women. So maybe we have to—

and, of course, Japanese women occupy almost 40 percent of the 

total workforce, so we have to ask the business circle to establish 

some sort of new working habit or practice. This is one of the 

points. 

Third, in Japan, a man does not share the housekeeping business. Japanese husbands share only 5 percent of the total working 

household keeping business, while in Norway, for example, as I understand it, husbands’ share of housekeeping is 40 percent, as I understand it. Well, I don’t know how much percentage in America. 

Fourth, then very high cost of education in Japan—very high cost 

of education in Japan. Children go to cram school in order to pass 

the entrance examination at the university, et cetera. So education 

cost is very, very expensive. That is the reason why they do not 

like to produce more babies. 

39

One more thing, if I may say so, the average size of Japanese 

houses is very, very small, so they have to give up the hope of having one more baby. This is the reality. 

Then on the point of the policy, while there are some policy 

measures we have established and are following, name some, for 

example, improvement of work environment, for example, extension 

of the period of child rearing leave, promotion of shorter working 

hours and securing various types of employment, fulfillment of 

child allowance, et cetera. 

But the most important point I have to say, have to point out 

here, is that government expenditure for the aged people, if it is 

ten, level ten, then the government expenditures for children is 

only two or something like that. As I understand it, in Scandinavian countries, if the ten expenditures, government expenditures 

for the aged is the same level for the children, or more than that. 

So from now on, we have to consider the increase of the expenditure so that we survive this low birth rate world. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much. What you say is phenomenally important when we look long-term at programs like a Social 

Security or pension program, and that is the cultural changes that 

go on in a country, social adjustments and changes that may not 

be predictable in the long term as trends develop that are substantially different from when these programs were initially created. 

Let me turn to one of our colleagues that has joined us, Senator 

Evan Bayh of Indiana. Senator, welcome. 

STATEMENT OF SENATOR EVAN BAYH 

Senator BAYH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I apologize for being 

a little bit late. As you understand and our witnesses may or may 

not, traffic delays are an occupational risk here in Washington, so 

I am sorry to have missed the testimony, but I want to thank you 

for your appearance, and Mr. Chairman, I want to thank you for 

holding this hearing. It is not often that Congress tries to get out 

in front of the curve and anticipate the solution to problems before 

they have reached the critical point. I think the more we can focus 

our nation’s attention upon this looming problem, the better off we 

will be. 

I was looking at some briefing materials. In the year 2018, 14 

years from now, I think—is that right, Mr. Lockhart—the system 

tips over and we begin to pay out more in benefits than we take 

in in revenues. My guess is it is at that moment when the crowding-out effect will begin and other programs will begin to receive 

less funding because of the needs to meet our entitlement obligations, that this will come in stark relief. But if we wait that long, 

then obviously the potential solutions are much more difficult to 

implement. These actuarial problems tend to take on a momentum 

all of their own. 

So in any event, thank you, gentlemen. Mr. Chairman, thank you 

for calling the hearing. Are we in the question time now, Mr. 

Chairman? 

The CHAIRMAN. Please. Go right ahead. 

Senator BAYH. Just a couple things, and Mr. Ohno, please don’t 

think I am ignoring you, but I would like to at least direct my first 

couple questions to Mr. Lockhart. 

40

Is my understanding correct that the magnitude of the challenge 

in Social Security is significant, but Medicare is in all likelihood 

going to be a more sizable problem? Is that correct? If we did nothing and just sort of let the situation run, we would still have in the 

out years about 73 percent of the money coming in to fund Social 

Security, so we are looking at a 27 percent problem or thereabouts, 

is that correct? 

Mr. LOCKHART. Both are very, very serious problems to the 

American people and both long term. The numbers on Medicare are 

larger, but the numbers on Social Security are still very, very 

large. If you look, for instance, at the shortfall over the next 75 

years and say, we need that money today, to invest it today to 

cover the benefits that are scheduled for today and without increasing taxes, that is $3.7 trillion. That is equal to the U.S. debt to the 

public today. 

Senator BAYH. So it is a $3.7 trillion problem? 

Mr. LOCKHART. Over the 75-year period, and as Chairman 

Greenspan says, after the 75-year period, which is an arbitrary 

number, you just fall off the cliff and you keep falling and the number grows to the——

Senator BAYH. Three-point-seven—that is in today’s dollars? 

Mr. LOCKHART. Today’s dollars, earning interest, you need it. 

Senator BAYH. That is about 27, 25 percent? 

Mr. LOCKHART. Well, another way to look at it is—— Senator BAYH. In other words, if we did nothing, we would still 

have enough money coming in to cover about three-quarters of our 

obligations? 

Mr. LOCKHART. That is correct. For instance, if we did nothing, 

no tax increases, no change in benefits, no change in investment 

policy, in 2042 when the trust fund is exhausted, the benefits 

would be cut 27 percent, and then every year thereafter, they continue to fall. 

Senator BAYH. Just to make it clear on the record, I am in the 

camp of hoping that we don’t do nothing, but I am just trying to 

identify the size of the problem. 

I am also interested, Mr. Chairman, in our use—and we all do 

it, we refer to the trust fund. But am I right in saying, Mr. 

Lockhart, just for the record, there really is no pot of money. These 

are just obligations against the ongoing revenues of the government, correct, and so it is money we are taking out of either education or health care or other things that we would like to do as 

a society. There is no bank account with assets sitting in it. 

Mr. LOCKHART. The trust fund consists of special issue Treasury 

bonds that have been issued to Social Security over the years in 

every year in which there has been an excess of taxes over benefits 

paid. In addition, every year, we get new Treasury bonds for the 

interest owed on the trust fund. So, for instance, last year, the increase was about $138 billion, but over half of that was actually 

interest. It wasn’t even excess taxes. 

Senator BAYH. I guess my point is, in 2018 when we tip over and 

we start paying out more in benefits than we take in tax revenues, 

these are not actually—the money is going to have to come from 

somewhere, correct, and there is not some magical trust fund sitting there we can just take the money out of and say, ‘‘Well, we 

41

will plug the gap by doing that.’’ We are either going to have to 

raise taxes or cut other parts of the budget——

Mr. LOCKHART. That is very correct, Senator. At that point, Social Security comes knocking on the door of the Treasury and 

Treasury will have to start paying the interest in cash and/or redeeming the bonds. Obviously, where that money comes from is increasing taxes, cutting government spending somewhere else, or 

borrowing it somewhere else. 

But it even happens before 2018. Pressure really starts about 

2008, 2009 when us baby boomers start to retire and——

Senator BAYH. Believe me, it is going to come as a revelation, I 

think, Mr. Chairman, to folks up here on Capitol Hill whenever the 

date arrives when they say, ‘‘What do you mean, we have to appropriate money for Social Security?’’ This has never happened. We 

thought there was a trust fund. It is going to come as—you mean 

we have to have less for the other things we want? It is going to, 

I think, be a real eye opener for people who haven’t followed this 

problem, probably a shock to the system. 

Just a couple of other questions. Our country has experienced a 

renaissance in productivity growth over the last few years and it 

seemed to hang in there pretty well even during the most recent 

economic downturn. I would like to ask you, if we are fortunate 

enough to see—I imagine it will taper off, but hopefully will taper 

off at a higher plateau than was the case over the last couple of 

decades—if we are fortunate enough to experience higher productivity growth, can that play some role in helping to close this gap 

or not? 

Mr. LOCKHART. Certainly, higher productivity will help. We are 

projecting reasonably high productivity in our 75-year numbers. 

But if it goes beyond that, it will certainly help, but it can’t solve 

the problem. 

Senator BAYH. Forgive my ignorance. What are you forecasting 

over the——

Mr. LOCKHART. About 1.6 percent. 

Senator BAYH. You are a brave man to try and forecast anything 

over 75 years. 

Mr. LOCKHART. Well, it is not me. It is our independent actuaries 

at Social Security. But the trustees get very involved in those discussions. In fact, there have been some very significant discussions 

over the years about productivity numbers. 

But if you do sensitivity analysis over productivity, it still won’t 

grow your way out of the problem, and the real issue goes back to 

what Chairman Ohno was saying, is that there is just not enough 

population growth. If you have very few workers, even if you have 

relatively high productivity, you are not going to be able to pay for 

all of today’s retirees or tomorrow’s retirees. 

Senator BAYH. So you have factored in some of—forgive me, I 

was thinking you said—what is your average estimate of productivity growth? 

Mr. LOCKHART. About 1.6 percent, but, I mean, it has been higher and it has historically been lower, and we can send you some 

numbers around what that will do to the numbers, but if you increased it, you would almost have to get to about a 3-percent proVerDate 0ct 09 2002 08:56 Aug 26, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00045 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\94991.TXT SAGING1 PsN: JOYCE
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ductivity level continually for the 75-year period to actually solve 

this issue and that would be pretty unheard of. 

Under the intermediate assumptions of the 2004 Trustees Report, the annual change in productivity is assumed to decrease 

from 3.4 percent for 2003 to the ultimate assumed level of 1.6 percent by 2012. 

If the assumed ultimate level of annual productivity were increased from 1.6 percent to 2.1 percent (an extra 0.5 percent increase in the ultimate annual productivity assumption) and all 

other assumptions were equal to those under the intermediate assumptions, this would lead to an improvement in the financial status of the Social Security program. The maximum improvement on 

the 75-year actuarial deficit is about 0.5 percent of taxable payroll). 

The word maximum is used because it is assumed that all the 

extra increase in productivity falls through to average real earnings. That is, the assumptions for the other linkages to average 

real earnings (hours worked per week, compensation to GDP, etc.) 

remain as assumed under the intermediate assumptions. 

Senator BAYH. Can I just, in knocking this around just in my 

own mind, I didn’t anticipate that this would solve the problem, 

but if we are a little on the upside on productivity, that can make 

a contribution to helping hopefully close the gap. 

Mr. LOCKHART. Yes, I think that is right. Economic growth will 

help us, too. Anything we can do to stimulate economic growth will 

be helpful, as well. Yes, that will close the gap somewhat. But the 

key issue, as you were saying earlier, is if we can make these 

changes earlier, we have a lot of time and we can make them 

smaller and we have a lot of time to have them have an impact. 

Frankly, some of these changes might actually increase productivity, I mean, might increase growth of the economy, so you would 

have a dual benefit. 

Senator BAYH. Well, the good news, if there is any, over a 75-

year period, these things go up and down. Mr. Chairman, I never 

cease to be amazed. We try and estimate, as you know, Mr. 

Lockhart, and Mr. Ohno, you may be aware, too, our budget is on 

a 10-year basis. When I was Governor of my State, we had biennial 

budgets. The estimates were never right for 2-year periods, let 

alone 10 or 75 years. So again, I tip my hat to you and the actuaries for attempting this. 

But the good news, if there is any, may be, Mr. Chairman, it 

seems to be that the pace of innovation, if anything, is accelerating. 

If you look at our economies—and it ebbs and flows over long periods of time, but if you try and anticipate what our economy’s longterm comparative advantage is going to be, it is probably going to 

be structuring our activities more around high innovation, valueadded parts of the economy. So perhaps if that is true and we can 

make the most of those opportunities, maybe we can bump up that 

productivity number a little bit, not solve the problem, but at least 

make a modest contribution, which leads me to my next question. 

I don’t want to hog the microphone here, Mr. Chairman. I had 

a couple of other questions. 

The CHAIRMAN. You can proceed. 

Senator BAYH. The GDP price deflator, did you discuss that in 

your testimony? 

43

Mr. LOCKHART. No, I didn’t. I think we are assuming a 2.8 percent inflation rate over the 75-year period. 

Senator BAYH. The annual cost-of-living adjustment, that is what 

I wanted to get to. I gather that on a technical basis, some experts 

feel that that overstates the true rate of inflation. If that were to 

be adjusted to what the technical analysts feel is a more accurate 

number, what kind of contribution would that make to solving the 

problem? 

Mr. LOCKHART. Well, I am not an expert on various CPIs with 

all the little letters after them, but it is my understanding that it 

would have, again, a marginally beneficial impact to the system. 

Obviously, there are issues, and as I said to the chairman, President Bush has made it clear that he wants to protect the benefits 

of today’s retirees and near-retirees. 

Senator BAYH. That is just one item that some people, I remember former Senator Moynihan and others had put out there to 

say——

Mr. LOCKHART. Right, and Chairman Greenspan recently—— Senator BAYH [continuing]. Absolutely nobody wants to tinker 

around, or nobody wants to—it is just a technical matter. I mean, 

is this, the current way it is being calculated, is that an accurate 

expression or——

Mr. LOCKHART. I think there are experts on both sides and I am 

really not an expert, so I will not comment on it. 

Senator BAYH. That never stops people in our positions from 

commenting, but I thank you for your reticence. 

Two more quick questions. It seems to me that the real challenge 

we are trying to arrive at here is how do we—and I want to get 

to the rate of return issue. Is there a way we can harvest greater 

rates of return while still maintaining the safety net mechanism? 

There are different ways to go about that. 

Have you looked at all at the experience of some State pension 

funds, where they invest in stocks and other higher rate of return 

instruments, but they do it by, rather than the individual accounts—and I am not expressing an opinion one way or the other, 

but they pool their resources, invest them and generate a higher 

rate of return over longer periods of time and yet maintain the 

safety net by guaranteeing a certain pension. Have you looked at 

that option and do you have an opinion about that? 

Mr. LOCKHART. Certainly, I know that world very well. I spent 

probably a 30-year career in the world of pensions, meaning the 

corporate side and international side, for that matter. So I am very 

familiar with all forms of pensions. Certainly, the State systems 

have some pluses and minuses to them. 

I think actually you can—and some of the proposals out there are 

creating a safety net within Social Security but also allowing personal accounts to individuals. That way, the individual has a little 

more choice and control of their assets and it does give them a nest 

egg. 

Senator BAYH. Let me follow up on that. How would you go about 

guaranteeing a minimum rate of return, in other words, the safety 

net, within the individual account approach? 

Mr. LOCKHART. There are a whole series of different kinds of personal account approaches. There are all sorts of bills that have 

44

been introduced. There was the President’s commission. I think the 

key issue is to keep a defined benefit portion in any type of reform 

to have that safety net under there that is a defined guarantee, a 

defined benefit plan, and then layer on top of that the personal account—as is done in some of the reforms we are looking at. So you 

have, like many corporations do today, a defined benefit plan with 

a personal account, in that case a 401(k) on top of it. 

Senator BAYH. The advantage of that over the State pension 

model in your mind would be—— Mr. LOCKHART. Well, what we are talking about here is much 

more money than any State pension plan has. We are talking trillions of dollars, and I think that could lead to some real political 

issues if a government agency owned a major portion of many 

American companies. The CBO, I think probably last June or 

thereabouts, wrote a paper on this and really started to talk about 

some of these issues. What happens if a factory is being shut down 

in someone’s district? Wouldn’t there be pressure on the Social Security trustees to put pressure on that company not to do it? 

Senator BAYH. Has that been the experience with State pension 

funds? 

Mr. LOCKHART. That is a good question and I really don’t want 

to make many comments about State pension plans, but there have 

been some things about social investing and other issues in State 

pension plans. There has been, you know, certainly some pressure 

from time to time. Most of them don’t succumb to it, but there has 

certainly been pressure. 

Senator BAYH. My final question has to do with the transition 

costs to a private account system. Have we been able to estimate 

what the transition costs would be? 

Mr. LOCKHART. I like to call it a transition investment because 

that is what it really is. It is actually reducing the long-term cost 

by putting some money up a little sooner rather than later. 

Various plans have transition investments in the range of, again, 

in today’s dollars, present value, what you would need today, of $1 to $2 trillion versus that $3.7 trillion I talked about earlier. Really, 

because some of these plans actually produce sustainable solvency 

which means the program is fixed forever, if you will, you can compare it to that $10 trillion number. So at a cost—— Senator BAYH. I am sorry, what was the $10 trillion number? 

Mr. LOCKHART. The $10 trillion——

Senator BAYH. That is to fix it forever? 

Mr. LOCKHART. Yes, basically——

Senator BAYH. The $3.7 trillion is for what, 75 years? 

Mr. LOCKHART. A 75-year period, but then the 76th year it just 

falls off the cliff again. It is a new number we introduced in the 

Trustees’ Report last year and it is really trying to look at the very 

long-term issue. Obviously, those numbers, there is variability 

around them, but it is an indication of the potential we might need 

to fill. If you look at the transition investment of $1.5 trillion, that 

can be very small compared to the long-term costs if we don’t fix 

the system. 

Senator BAYH. In a private account approach, as I understand it, 

the Social Security recipients of most modest means are actually 

subsidized somewhat, is that correct? 

45

Mr. LOCKHART. Well—— Senator BAYH. They actually receive more in benefits than they 

paid in? Could you still maintain that—— Mr. LOCKHART. Most of the private account proposals I have seen 

have actually increased the safety net for the lower-income workers. In fact, they consciously have done that. 

Senator BAYH. So there would still be a subsidy—— Mr. LOCKHART. Well, I wouldn’t call it a subsidy because everybody contributes to this program. I mean, that is one of the great 

things about Social Security. 

Senator BAYH. But the people at the higher end would be, in fact, 

having some of the money they pay in, as is currently the case, go 

to help people at the lower end. 

Mr. LOCKHART. Yes. The people at the lower end get a higher replacement rate, get a higher return on their investment. 

Senator BAYH. That is currently the case, isn’t it? 

Mr. LOCKHART. Yes, and some of the proposals are even raising 

that safety net higher than that, just again to protect the longerworking, lower-wage workers. 

Senator BAYH. Good. I am interested in exploring all these options and am merely in favor of what works. 

Mr. Chairman, again, I want to thank you. It is refreshing for 

us to take a look at a problem that, gee, 75 years, that is not too 

often we look that far over the horizon. Our children and grandchildren will thank us if we do that, and I thank you for holding 

the hearing today, and thank you, gentlemen, for your time. 

The CHAIRMAN. Senator, thank you for being here and asking 

those questions this morning. It is important that we begin this dialog and that the Congress of the United States become increasingly aware of the urgency of it in relation to long-term stability. 

You and I both know with our experience here that we usually tend 

to wait until the last minute. This is an issue in which we cannot 

wait until the last minute to make those changes. Oh, we could, 

but you and I might not survive them politically. It is to our political advantage and to our economic advantage and to the advantage of our children and grandchildren that we make them longterm and that we get out in front of this issue. I think that is good 

business and good politics and that is what we are trying to accomplish. 

Chairman Ohno, thank you very much for coming and sharing 

with us this morning the challenges, and I view them as challenges, you have in your country. In many respects, there are challenges similar to ours, different countries, different cultures, but 

there are some similarities. As we look across the world to other 

countries that are making these adjustments, yours will be one 

that we will watch very closely. So we thank you for being with us 

this morning. 

Mr. OHNO. Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Yes? 

Mr. OHNO. Could I say something? 

The CHAIRMAN. Please. 

Mr. OHNO. In my opinion, the pension reform should be considered not only from the viewpoint of the level of contributions and 

benefits, but also from a viewpoint of macro economy, corporate 

46

profitability, fiscal stability, working and lifestyle. Everything 

should be taken into account when we consider the pension reform. 

Thank you very much. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much. Commissioner, thank you 

for being with us this morning. 

Mr. LOCKHART. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. We will ask you to step down and we will introduce our next and last panel. 

While they are coming, I was visiting with the Commissioner 

earlier this morning and I will never forget, oh, a year ago, I guess, 

we had Alan Greenspan before us and we were questioning him 

then, you and I, and others were contemplating how we adjust 

Medicare, get prescription drugs into it, and I asked the question, 

in measurements of difficulty, how much more difficult is it, one 

over the other, to make the reform. 

I think the Chairman was very clear in saying, oh, Social Security just takes political will. It is relatively easy to fix because you 

are dealing with predictable numbers that you can control and 

manage, whereas with Medicare or health care, you are dealing 

with a very dynamic economy. He said, one major change in health 

care delivery and/or a breakthrough in science could throw all of 

your actuarials or all of your variables off by a considerable 

amount simply by cost factors. 

I had not thought of it in that context. I looked at them as trust 

funds and social programs and benefit relationships, but not with 

the idea of how they apply to the dynamics of a set number versus 

a non-set number. 

Senator BAYH. All of that is true. If history is any guide, my 

guess is it would throw them off on the up side, not on the down 

side. 

The CHAIRMAN. Oh, very much so. Very much so. 

Let me introduce our next panel. We have with us this morning 

Vincent Truglia, managing director of the Sovereign Risk Unit at 

Moody’s Investor Services. We also have with us Axel BoerschSupan, director, Institute of Economic Research, University of 

Mannheim in Germany; David Harris, director of Watson Wyatt 

Worldwide in London; and Jacobo Rodriguez, financial services analyst at the Cato Institute. 

Mr. Truglia, we will turn to you first for your testimony. 

STATEMENT OF VINCENT J. TRUGLIA, MANAGING DIRECTOR, 

SOVEREIGN RISK UNIT, MOODY’S INVESTORS SERVICE, NEW 

YORK, NY 

Mr. TRUGLIA. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Let me first 

start by pointing out that my perspective in this is looking at pensions and health care benefits truly from a credit risk point of view. 

There are obviously many other different perspectives you could 

have, but it does produce a somewhat different view than other 

perspectives. 

Given that, it is our expectation that every industrialized nation 

will, ‘‘default’’ on its pension and health care claims, and what do 

I mean by that? A default simply means that you don’t meet the 

terms of the original contract, and in this case, if a government did 

that on a bond obligation, that would simply be considered a finanVerDate 0ct 09 2002 08:56 Aug 26, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00050 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\94991.TXT SAGING1 PsN: JOYCE
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cial default. But simply changing the rules on pension and health 

care reforms also represents the equivalent of a default. 

The only reason society seems to care less about a default on a 

pension or health care claim is that it is a societal convention. We 

just happen to place greater importance on a contract if it happens 

to be a truly financial obligation. 

If we take a look around the world, and we have looked at lots 

of different countries and we have taken a look at endless estimates of their net present value of their pension obligations, it becomes pretty clear that, as I mentioned, every country will have to 

change its pension and health care claims. When we start looking 

at the individual analysis, what you have to start with as a credit 

analyst is the amount of debt outstanding. 

I have on this table here, and it just is trying to look at the 

major industrialized countries and put them into small groups, you 

have the U.S. and France and Germany and the U.K. approximately at the same area. The mean for AAA and AA rated countries of debt to GDP is about 58 percent and the median 56 percent. The U.S. has a slightly higher debt-to-GDP ratio than others 

and so we are probably in the middle range. But every country on 

this list cannot afford to suddenly add the equivalent of $3.5 trillion or $5 trillion worth of debt to the overall total. 

Now, this is one measure of what countries look like, and you 

can see, given the earlier presentation, that there are two outliers. 

One is Italy, but the other one is really Japan and Japan is really 

in a class all by itself, starting out with a ratio of 170 percent of 

government debt to GDP at this time. 

There is another ratio, however, that probably gives you a better 

idea of how much governments can actually afford given their existing levels of debt and that is to take a look at the general government debt-to-revenue ratio. Here, you can see the U.S. is significantly worse than certainly the mean or the median and especially 

for most continental European countries, and the reason for that 

is that we have a smaller government. We take less revenue in, in 

general. You can see Italy doesn’t look that much worse than the 

U.S. simply because the Italian government is so large and takes 

so much revenue relative to GDP. 

Once again, though, the outlier is here Japan, and this is unprecedented for an industrialized country. Their existing debt is already over five times their total revenue. Now, what you see here 

is that the Japanese, because of their economic situation for the 

last 10 years, have not been able to raise revenues, and that is why 

it is going to be fascinating to see what actually happens when 

they start to increase these pension contributions, which as you 

know is the same as a tax, what happens to the economy when you 

do that. They have been very reluctant to do that and they have 

been financing all their deficits, very large deficits, through debt 

creation. 

Now, the question is, how much can you do of that? What is the 

upper limit? Well, if you look historically, when governments in the 

pre-World War II period, where we actually had defaults, when 

they reached about 170 to 180 percent of national income, that put 

great stress on financial systems. 

48

The problem we have today, even though Japan is already there, 

is that when you make a comparison with those earlier periods, 

you also had countries functioning under a gold standard and we 

think that that actually has created greater limitations because 

you had balance of payments considerations and constraints much 

sooner then than you would have today. So we think that countries 

can probably absorb more debt than they did under that old system. 

But when looking at the individual pension and especially the 

health care estimates, we obviously have to use net present values 

and I think the Senator alluded to some of the problems regarding 

actuarial calculations for pensions in general. But when you look 

at these net present value estimates, they are through the roof in 

most instances. 

But I remember in the 1990’s when the Italians reforming their 

pension system under the Dini reforms, all of a sudden, the Italian 

net present value of their pension reform, which was rather modest—in the long run, it wasn’t important, but over the next few 

decades it was very modest—and suddenly the net present value 

declined by 200 percent of GDP. Well, the lesson we learned there 

is ignore these numbers. They are just too susceptible to dramatic 

shifts in the final outcome. 

When looking at what will happen to governments, and again 

rating governments, what we are very careful about is the what we 

consider intergenerational resource allocation, and we think that 

sometimes people misuse that concept. From our point of view, 

there can never be an intergenerational resource transfer from the 

present, or from the future to the present or the present to the future. All you ever have is an intergenerational transfer in the 

present. All fiscal problems are always in the present. So we are 

actually optimistic in that as long as you expect industrialized democracies to act reasonably at every point in time, then you don’t 

get a default on the government debt. 

Now, does that mean that we don’t have a problem? No, it 

doesn’t, because fundamentally, the problem is not fiscal. Fundamentally, the problem is standards of living in the future and all 

you have to then do is what is going to create the highest standard 

of living going forward. So any pension reform that has a negative 

effect on increasing standards of living over time are probably a 

negative. 

What do we think is going to happen over the next 50 years? One 

is I guarantee you that the forecast for the birth rate decline will 

not happen because the incentives as population shrinks to have 

children in all likelihood will rise. 

Two, one of the biggest changes we have seen in the last 50 years 

is the decline in working by older people. Again, an extreme example is the Italians after World War II. About 50 percent were still 

in the workforce above 65 years old. Today, it is down to 4.5 percent. For the industrialized world, we were at, at that time, slightly 

under one-fourth of all people over 65 were still working. Today, we 

are down to 9 percent. 

So I think what is going to happen, and we are already seeing 

the beginnings of it, is the normal economic incentives are going to 

occur for people to work a longer period of time. There will be a 

49

change in the nature of their occupation, perhaps. But that is what 

is probably going to occur. 

Then the final thing that is going to probably happen is that we 

are going to have and have to maintain more immigration, but that 

is temporary because as you know so well and have seen all the 

studies, the whole world is aging. So Mexico will have the same age 

distribution we have today and China, in fact, will be older than 

we are today. So what they are going to have to do is the same 

thing we are going to have to do, is figure out how do we produce 

more income in the future so when you are fighting over resource 

allocation in the future and income distribution in the future, that 

the discussions will be more civil than they otherwise would be. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you for that overview. I think all of that 

fascinates us as we move down this road. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Truglia follows:]

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The CHAIRMAN. Let me turn to you, director Boersch-Supan. 

Please proceed. 

STATEMENT OF AXEL BOERSCH-SUPAN, THE INSTITUTE FOR 

ECONOMIC RESEARCH, UNIVERSITY OF MANNHEIM, MANNHEIM, GERMANY 

Mr. BOERSCH-SUPAN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for having me 

here. Just picking up on what you said before, it is actually already 

the last minute to do reforms, essentially because reforms——

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you for saying that. I think it is, too. 

Mr. BOERSCH-SUPAN. Reforms take a while, and you have got a 

problem in 2018. In any case, in the grand scheme of things, Germany and the United States have very similar pension systems, so 

there are a lot of lessons which can be drawn on either side. 

Social Security is still the most dominant income source for most 

of the elderly. It is financed pay-as-you-go. It is earnings related. 

The big differences are, and that is a little bit strange if you think 

of European programs, the German system redistributes less than 

the American system. The other thing is the German system is 

very generous, much more generous on average. Replacement rates 

are 70 percent rather than about 50 percent. 

The reform pressures also in Germany are much higher, and that 

is mainly due to a lower birth rate in Germany and to a somewhat 

higher life expectancy than the United States. Actually, we had a 

picture here which shows that the ratio of workers to retirees in 

Germany right now is what the United States will have in 2050. 

So look at Germany now and you will see what the United States 

will look like in 50 years, 45 years. 

Because of the reform pressure, we had a string of recent reforms 

in Germany. The main reform process started in 2001, 4 years ago, 

3 years ago, and that was a two-pronged approach. One was to 

scale down pay-as-you-go benefits. That is what you call default. 

The second was to increase occupational and personal pensions. 

That reform more or less failed for two reasons, because the benefit cuts were not transparent and they were very unpopular, but 

nobody understood how they actually worked. The second and third 

pillar pensions, occupational and private pensions, are highly overregulated. So there was little acceptance. These were voluntary 

pensions and nobody took them up. 

That required another reform fairly soon after. In 2004, actually, 

it just went through the Bundestag in March, it deregulated the 

second and third pillar pensions so the uptake, it will be hoped, 

will be higher. But the crucial step, and that is a real important 

step, was to index benefits to the financial basis of the system. So 

the benefits are now indexed to what we call the system dependency ratio. That is the number of workers per the number of beneficiaries. This automatically creates solvency in the system by reducing, according to the financial basis, the benefits. It is a brutal 

way, but it works for sure just because you index to what you can 

pay. 

So Germany essentially converted the current defined benefit 

system in a notional defined contribution system. It is the contributions which define what can be paid to the pensioners. 

59

This will lead to a reduction in the replacement rate from about 

70 percent now to 60 percent in 25 years, in 2030. So it is about 

a 15 percent benefit cut. That is not as hard as—— The CHAIRMAN. Fifteen percent? 

Mr. BOERSCH-SUPAN. Fifteen, yes. So it is not the 27 percent you 

were talking earlier, but still is substantial. 

The system is self-stabilizing by this very construction. That is, 

if there is higher than expected fertility, for example, or labor force 

participation, then these benefit cuts will be milder than currently 

expected. On the other hand, if life expectancy increases even faster than we used, to think then benefits will automatically go down 

by that proportion. 

So I think there are four main lessons which we have learned, 

which one can learn from the German reforms. First, indexation to 

the system dependency ratio is politically feasible. It went, although with a lot of talking, through the Bundestag. 

Second, the mechanics of what we call the sustainability factor, 

that is this indexing mechanism, is relatively easy to communicate 

to the public, and that was one reason why this reform actually 

went through. 

Third, the sustainability factor provides an automatic budget stabilization feature. I think that is really important for having solvency in the long run. 

The fourth one is the resulting pension gap, this 15 percent, 

which is not little, but it can actually be filled by personal pension 

accounts and that is what the government is now pushing by using 

tax privileges. 

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much and we appreciate that 

testimony. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Boersch-Supan follows:]

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The CHAIRMAN. Now let me turn to David Harris, director of 

Watson Wyatt Worldwide in London. David, welcome to the committee. 

STATEMENT OF DAVID O. HARRIS, SENIOR CONSULTANT, 

WATSON WYATT WORLDWIDE, LONDON, ENGLAND 

Mr. HARRIS. Mr. Chairman, thank you and committee members. 

I am pleased to appear before the Senate Aging Committee to discuss Social Security reform experiences in Australia and the 

United Kingdom. Equally, as a former resident of this good country, I am also a member of Social Security, so I have got a personal 

vested interest, if you like. 

The CHAIRMAN. I am glad for that disclosure. Thank you. [Laughter.] 

Mr. HARRIS. All right. 

The CHAIRMAN. Now we will understand all your bias. Please 

proceed. 

Mr. HARRIS. For many countries, the need for Social Security reform is becoming more pressing as populations rapidly age. Moreover, through generous promises linked with Social Security programs in many developed nations, chronic economic and social reforms will likely have to be implemented against the backdrop of 

either cutting benefits or increasing associated contributions, and 

indeed, difficult political situation to confront. 

The ongoing relative success of Australia and the United Kingdom’s retirement model is a clear proof that successful pension reforms can be achieved in developed nations that benefit the entire 

nation as a whole. I think it is important to point here that women, 

minority groups, and blue-collar workers have been seeing significant benefits flow to them in having the ability now to efficiently 

craft out their own retirement savings. 

It is important also to note, simply put, that the countries like 

Australia and the United Kingdom have moved toward encouraging 

individuals, especially lower-income groups and women, to save on 

an individual retirement basis, so offsetting the economic impacts 

of rapid aging. 

I will just move to some of the important points or features of 

both systems. The old age pension in Australia is seen by many as 

providing both a foundation or a bedrock of our retirement system. 

It is non-contributory and largely is drawn out of taxation. The 

view by most Australians is if you work for 40 or so years, you are 

entitled to an old-age pension, and that was shared by my mother 

and my late father. 

But the important point here to note is that Australia in the 

1980’s recognized, like the United States, that through aging populations and fiscal constraints, new ways or new measures needed 

to be executed, if you like, to ensure that retirement savings were 

stimulated. 

It is important to note in 1983 that only 40 percent of the workforce was covered by some form of second pillar pension and that 

in total asset terms, Australia had roughly 32 billion Australian 

dollars. Today, Australia has 88 percent of its workforce covered by 

a mandatory second pillar retirement system with 568 billion Australian dollars in assets. It is interesting to note that 80 percent 

65

of our assets in second pillar are invested abroad, largely in the 

United States, which is an important point. 

How did Australia move toward individual funding in the second 

pillar? There was a general recognition that something had to be 

done certainly in the first pillar with regard to its fiscal constraints. The Australian old-age pension only provides 26 percent 

of male total average weekly earnings as a benefit. 

In 1992 to 1993, the then-Labor government, supported by trade 

unions—and that is an important point—supported the notion of 

individual retirement accounts, a stark contrast to this country. 

What happened thus far is that Australia has implemented a retirement system that is predicated on the basis of 9 percent of 

every employee’s salary being committed to an individual retirement account. 

It is important to note, Mr. Chairman, that on average also, Australians contribute up to 3 percent on a voluntary basis to individual retirement accounts in the second pillar. 

So today, Australia has moved from, if you like, reliant on a payas-you-go non-earmarked first pillar system to an enriched compulsory environment where it argues that individuals should pay significant amounts into their retirement future. 

It is important also to note, and I would leave you with this 

thought, if we are talking about taxation of pensions, was to tell 

you that taxation of superannuation in Australia can be described 

as TTT. In Australia, we tax the contributions. We tax the income 

coming out of the fund. We tax the fund flows coming from the 

fund itself, TTT, quite a significant amount, and for a politician, an 

interesting trick if you can perform that and then you can get elected with a successful majority the next year, which was cleverly 

done. 

Moving now toward our former colonial masters, if you like, the 

United Kingdom, where I am proudly a resident now of, the United 

Kingdom has underlying a first pillar pension predicated on the 

basis of a very major first pillar pension, that is, 20 percent of average male total work earnings or male full-time working earnings 

equals the first pillar pension. 

To put it in real terms, the first pillar pension in the United 

States equates to 79.60 pounds per week. A round fare, I can assure you, return to Edinburgh is 84 pounds a week. So it is very, 

very, very meager in terms of amount in the first pillar. This has 

been uplifted or increased by pension credits or improvements to 

this first pillar. 

But what is important to note with regard to the United Kingdom is in the 1980’s and 1990’s, there was very much a fundamental shift, partly sponsored by the then-Thatcher government 

and later Major government, to ensure that individuals move toward more fully funded or more, if you look, took great responsibility in their retirement savings. 

This notion of the individual taking or crafting out their own retirement savings is being picked up, if you like, by the mantra of 

the Blair government, and in April 2001, they moved toward what 

was called stakeholder pension, where individuals who are now entitled to a low-cost, very efficient, if you like, pension product largely driven on an individual basis. This product, called the stakeVerDate 0ct 09 2002 08:56 Aug 26, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00069 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\94991.TXT SAGING1 PsN: JOYCE
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holder pension product, has only a maximum price cap of one percent. No further charges above that can be levied. Importantly now, 

the Blair government is enacting more significant reforms to their 

broader-based pension saving. 

It will be interesting to note, and just finally concluding, which 

is most startling is that the pension reform approach now being 

adopted by the Blair government is predicated on the U.S. experience. Like the PBGC in the U.S., which the current United Kingdom government believes is a success, a pension protection fund 

will now be enacted in the United Kingdom to cover shortfalls in 

existing defined benefit schemes. 

Importantly, critics like Mike Crick and Chris Mapp of the Investment and Life Insurance Pension Committee suggested regulatory complexity still dogs the United Kingdom pension system. So 

overall, where the United Kingdom’s retirement model is moving, 

Mr. Chairman, to one of sustainability and with the individual taking greater control in regard to their retirement. 

Just finally, I would leave you with my conclusions. In the 

United States, the challenge of Social Security reform might seem 

immense, if not impossible, from initial observations. Yet what 

countries like Australia and the United Kingdom demonstrate is 

the ability for a nation to give its people a greater ability to craft 

out a sufficient and appropriate level of retirement wealth to meet 

expected future needs and demands. 

Certainly no one country’s experiences with regard to Social Security reform can be easily translated to another. Yet what countries like Australia and the U.K. can demonstrate to public policy 

planners in the United States is the strong propensity that the individual is ideally placed to determine his or her own retirement 

needs and assess market risk, which is a very important point to 

make. 

Give people certainty with regard to retirement or Social Security is an important basis to the two models I have described. This 

harnessing of the individual’s need to maintain retirement security 

in retirement will increasingly become a major political and social 

issue, not only in the United States but equally continue on in Australia and the U.K. 

Ideally, Social Security reform should encompass all perspectives 

of a country’s society. Failure to act or to simply adopt a myopic 

position by lawmakers is no answer in the long term for the citizens in a nation like the United States. Thank you. 

The CHAIRMAN. David, thank you very much. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Harris follows:]

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The CHAIRMAN. Now to our last panelist, Mr. Rodriguez, service 

analyst for the Cato Institute. We are pleased to have you with us 

this morning. Please proceed. 

STATEMENT OF L. JACOBO RODRIGUEZ, FINANCIAL SERVICES 

ANALYST, THE CATO INSTITUTE, WASHINGTON, DC 

Mr. RODRIGUEZ. I am pleased to be here. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your invitation to appear before this committee. In my remarks today, I will focus on the pioneering effort of Chile because 

that effort remains still to this day the standard against which 

other pension reforms in Latin America are and should be measured. 

Indeed, if there is a main lesson to be drawn from the collective 

experiences of Latin American countries, it is that not all reforms 

are created equal. Some Latin American countries have introduced 

important flaws in the design of their private pension systems that 

have limited the success and popularity of those systems. 

In 1981, Chile replaced its bankrupt Social Security system with 

a fully funded system of individual retirement accounts managed 

by the private sector. That revolutionary reform defused the fiscal 

time bomb that is ticking in other countries with pay-as-you-go systems under which fewer and fewer workers have to support the retirement benefits of more and more retirees. More important, Chile 

created a system that, by giving workers clearly defined property 

rights in their contributions, offers proper work and investment incentives, and acts as an engine of, not an impediment to, economic 

growth. 

Since the Chilean system was implemented, labor force participation, pension fund assets, and benefits have all grown. Today, more 

than 95 percent of Chilean workers have joined the system. The 

pension funds have accumulated over $50 billion in assets, an 

amount that is equivalent to about 67 percent of Chilean gross domestic product. The average real rate of return has been over 10 

percent per year. 

The system’s popularity with workers has turned it into the third 

rail of Chilean politics, one that politicians by and large have not 

dared touch. Of course, there have been regulatory improvements 

and updates, but those have been carried out by a highly technical 

and independent agency that regulates and supervises the system 

and its participants. 

Abroad, if imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, the Chilean 

system should be blushing from the accolades it has received. Since 

1993, ten other Latin American nations have implemented pension 

reforms modeled after Chile’s. In short, the Chilean system has 

clearly become the point of reference for countries interested in 

finding an enduring solution to the problem of paying for their retirement benefits of aging populations. 

The basic story is well known, but it is worth recapping briefly. 

Every month, workers deposit 10 percent of their income in their 

own individual pension savings accounts, which are managed by 

the specialized pension fund administration company of their 

choice. These companies invest workers’ savings in a portfolio of 

bonds and stocks, subject to government regulations on the specific 

type of investments and the overall mix of the portfolio. 

82

Contrary to a common misperception, there is no obligation to 

buy government securities, a requirement that would not be consistent with the notion of privatization, and the pension funds can 

invest up to 30 percent of the portfolio overseas, a measure that allows workers to hedge against currency and country risk. 

Workers who want to retire early or with a higher pension can 

contribute up to an additional 10 percent of their wages. The pension fund companies are required to take out life and disability insurance on behalf of their clients and to provide them with statements of account at least every 4 months. 

At retirement, workers can use the funds accumulated in their 

accounts to purchase annuities from an insurance company, or alternatively, they can make programmed withdrawals from their accounts. The amount of those withdrawals depends on the worker’s 

life expectancy and those of his dependents. 

The government provides a safety net for those workers who at 

retirement do not have enough funds accumulated in their accounts 

to obtain a minimum pension. But because the new system is much 

more efficient than the old one and because under the new system, 

a worker must have at least 20 years of contributions to qualify for 

the minimum pension, the cost to the taxpayer of providing the 

minimum pension has been so far negligible. 

Through their pension accounts, Chilean workers have become 

the owners of the means of production in Chile and they have 

grown much more attached to the market economy and to a free 

society. This has had the effect of reducing class conflicts, which in 

turn has promoted political stability and helped depoliticize the 

Chilean economy, which is an important factor to consider in the 

context of Latin American societies. 

Pensions today do not depend on the government’s ability to tax 

future generations of workers nor are they a source of election-time 

demagoguery. To the contrary, pensions depend on the workers’ own efforts and, thereby, afford workers satisfaction and dignity. 

The Chilean system, of course, is not perfect and has some shortcomings. Critics often point to high administrative costs, the lack 

of portfolio choice, and the high number of transfers from one fund 

to another as evidence that the system is inherently flawed and inappropriate for the United States. 

Chilean authorities have taken some important steps to improve 

an already good system. The most important structural reform of 

the last three or four years is the introduction of multiple investment funds. After the year 2000, the pension fund administration 

companies could only manage one fund. In early 2002, the regulatory agency that supervised the system instituted a rule that 

mandated the pension fund administration companies to offer five 

different funds, funds that range from very low risk to high risk. 

This adjustment allows workers to make prudent changes to the 

risk profile of their portfolios as they get older. For instance, they 

could invest all the mandatory savings in a low-risk fund and any 

voluntary savings in a riskier fund, or they could invest in a higher-risk fund in their early working years and then transfer their 

savings to a more conservative fund as they approach retirement. 

This reform has been an important step and there are indications 

that consumers are behaving as one would expect; that is, by diverVerDate 0ct 09 2002 08:56 Aug 26, 2004 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00086 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 C:\DOCS\94991.TXT SAGING1 PsN: JOYCE
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sifying their investments across the menu of funds. There are other 

steps which are described in my written testimony that Chilean 

regulators have taken or should take to ensure the continued success of the private pension system. These adjustments should be 

consistent with the spirit of the reform, which has been to adopt 

a more liberalized regulatory structure as the system has matured 

and as the fund managers have gained experience. 

But all the ingredients for the system’s success—individual 

choice, clearly defined property rights and contribution, private administration of accounts, and a strong and independent supervisor—have been present since 1981. Some shortcomings remain, to 

be sure, but the Chilean model still provides an excellent example 

to those countries, industrialized and developing alike, that are 

thinking about their retirement systems. 

I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the opportunity you have given 

me today and I look forward to your questions. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you all very much. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Rodriguez follows:]

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The CHAIRMAN. No matter which country it is, the challenge is 

one of substantial magnitude, and for those of us who are the shapers of public policy, I will also say it has a political challenge to 

it. But there appears to be a common theme as adjustments and 

changes in these pension or Social Security systems go forward. Is 

it fair to say that common theme is a growing increase—or let me 

put it this way—a growing belief that individuals ought to be more 

responsible for their retirement than they were in the past? That 

would be a question to all of you. Therefore, government incentifies 

that responsibility? 

Mr. TRUGLIA. Around the world, we have found that there has 

been less willingness on the part of societies to socialize risk, so 

yes, it is almost across the world that we are calling upon people 

to be more responsible than they were in the past. 

Mr. BOERSCH-SUPAN. Well, I think the most important insight is 

that there are no miraculous solutions. Babies are nice. They stabilize the system in the long run. But they are definitely no substitute for pension reform in the short run. In the short run, I 

mean the next 30 years. Actually, in the short run, the next 30 

years, it would make things more expensive. 

Productivity, as your colleague Senator says, is also no solution, 

because as long as you pay, like in the United States, pensions in 

proportion to wages, pensions go up just as much as wages go. So 

productivity cannot finance pensions. 

Fully prefunding, so fully making everybody responsible for himself, is not an option anymore. That had been an option in the 

1980’s, but the baby boom generation actually retires in 15 to 20 

years. So a full transition is just not feasible anymore. 

Given all these constraints, the only logical solution is to cut Social Security, the public pension pillar, somewhat, as much as you 

can afford politically, and offset that by prefunded pensions. You 

will see this solution necessarily in all the countries across the 

world, and I am sure we will also see it in the United States. 

Mr. HARRIS. Mr. Chairman, I agree with the thoughts here. I 

think taking control for the individual of guiding or crafting out 

their own retirement savings and future is very much ingrained, 

very much in the Australian and the U.K. model. I think it is important to also stress an underlying premise, is that of political 

risk. Both countries, both Australia and the United Kingdom, have 

witnessed a significant shift or movement away from the underlying predication of the regional Social Security models, i.e., it was 

basically if you worked in Australia for 40 years, you would get an 

old-age pension. Now, there is a very stringent income and assets 

test. Equally, in the United Kingdom, the old-age pension in the 

first pillar used to be indexed to average wages rather than prices. 

So I think, importantly, what you are seeing in both countries, 

and certainly they have certainly less generous first pillar pension 

arrangements than, say, Germany, is that the individual is being 

provided with the tools to craft out their own retirement needs 

more effectively, and this links very much into the principle or concept of market-based risk and allowing the individuals to be empowered to, if you like, determine their own retirement destiny. 

The CHAIRMAN. Mr. Rodriguez. 

114

Mr. RODRIGUEZ. I think I would answer your question in the affirmative. I think that there has been a trend toward greater reliance on individuals and on their ability to manage risk, and I think 

that when given the proper incentives, individuals have shown that 

they are quite adept at managing their own risk and making wise 

and informed decisions about how to allocate their own resources 

between present and future consumption. 

The CHAIRMAN. When the Chilean model is looked at and juxtaposed against our system, one of the criticisms is the transitional 

costs to get us from where we are today progressively toward a personal retirement account. Would you discuss with us those costs 

and how they affected Chile or the Chilean programs as you 

transitioned out of and into where you are today? 

Mr. RODRIGUEZ. Let me give you a little bit of background before 

I answer that question directly. When Chile was considering this 

reform, the ratio of workers to retiree had decreased to 2.2. In the 

United States, I think it is about three today, or a little bit over 

three. The implicit debt of the system was estimated about 80 percent of GDP. 

My colleague, Jagadeesh Gokhale, who testified before this committee earlier this year, has estimated that the implicit debt of the 

United States system is about $7 trillion. So that figure would be 

a little bit less as a percentage of GDP than what it was in Chile. 

There were three rules for the transition that were set up. The 

first rule was respect your promises. That is, to those people who 

were already retired, their pension benefits as promised were guaranteed. 

The second rule was to those workers who are already in the 

labor force, they were given the choice of moving to the new system 

or staying in the old system under the rules of the game that had 

been established when the new system was implemented. 

The third rule of the transition was to new workers, they had to 

go. Because the old pay-as-you-go system, wasn’t sustainable, they 

had to go to the fully funded private system. 

The Chilean government used five different methods to finance 

the transition. The first method was to recognize part of the implicit debt, to recognize it explicitly by issuing recognition bonds. 

One thing that I did not mention was that those workers who decided to move from the old system to the new system were given 

a recognition bond that recognized the contributions that they had 

made into the old system. That way, they did not have to start 

under the new system with a zero balance in their accounts. So the 

Chilean government recognized part of the implicit debt, about half 

of it, by issuing recognition bonds. That was the first method. 

The second method was there was a difference between what 

they had to contribute under the new system and what they had 

to contribute in payroll taxes under the old system. Under the old 

system, it was about 20 percent of wages. Under the new system, 

it was 10 percent plus the administration cost and the life and disability insurance premiums. So the total contribution under the 

new system was about 13 percent of wages. Under the old system, 

it was 20 percent of wages. 

The CHAIRMAN. The new system is what? 

Mr. RODRIGUEZ. Thirteen percent. 

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The CHAIRMAN. Thirteen? 

Mr. RODRIGUEZ. Ten percent that went into the account, and 

then initially, the administration costs were about 3 percent of 

wages, and that included the life and disability insurance. Today, 

those costs have come down to about 2.3 percent of wages. 

So there was a difference there of 7 percentage points. What the 

Chilean government did was to maintain that difference as a temporary tax on the transition. That tax has decreased gradually over 

the years, and today, that tax is zero so that the payroll tax in 

Chile is zero. That was the second method. 

The third method was to privatize state-owned enterprises and 

other state-owned resources and use the proceeds from those 

privatizations to fund the transition. 

The fourth method was to cut government spending at all levels, 

and this was a sustained effort that had to be maintained over a 

number of years. It is still being maintained. 

Finally, the reform, plus other reforms, have improved the functioning of the economy, which has led to an increase in the rate of 

economic growth and the increase in the rate of economic growth 

has led to an increase in general tax revenues, especially those 

coming from the value-added tax. 

So those are the five different methods that the Chilean authorities used, and their situation that I think was more drastic than 

the situation the United States faces today, yet they were able to 

accomplish the transition to a fully funded system. 

The CHAIRMAN. I thank you for that, because I knew that it was 

a significant change and I know that it wasn’t just the system itself 

that was changed. It was literally government reform somewhat 

across the board. That, of course, is significant. What are the participation rates today? 

Mr. RODRIGUEZ. When we talk about participation rates, we have 

to be careful about what we are talking. If you take the number 

of Chilean workers who have a private pension account, that is 

over 100 percent of the labor force because there are workers who 

may have been in the labor force before, especially young workers 

and women, who have come out of the labor force. Of course, these 

workers still have a pension account and whatever balance is in 

their accounts is theirs and that money is still earning interest. 

If we talk about the people who contribute on a regular basis, the 

number is lower. It is about 60 percent of the people who have a 

pension account. 

Then if we are talking about as a percentage of the total number 

of account holders, the number is still a little bit lower because 

there are people who come in and out of the labor force or of the 

formal sector of the economy and there are people who may become 

salaried workers at one point in their lives and then become independent workers. This reform was only mandatory, as the old system was only mandatory, for salaried workers, not for independent 

workers or members of the military. 

But the participation rates are similar to participation rates 

under the old system overall. Of course, to the extent that participation rates are low, they have more to do with the structure of 

the labor market that may encourage some workers to leave the 

formal sector of the economy and go into the informal sector of the 

116

economy and not so much with the structure of the system, which 

I think provides the right incentives to save. 

Let me add that participation rates in Chile are higher than in 

other Latin American countries, and the size of the informal sector 

in Chile, because it has a better functioning economy, is much 

smaller than in other Latin American countries. 

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. Axel, the main innovation of the reforms that you were talking about in part was the introduction of 

a tax-favored individual account similar to our IRAs. Why do you 

think the take-up on the IRAs has not been as high in Germany 

over the past few years as it was in the United States, let us say 

in the 1980’s? 

Mr. BOERSCH-SUPAN. Well, two, actually three points. Also in the 

United States, as much as I remember, it took quite a while until 

IRAs were really sort of a broad financing instrument——

The CHAIRMAN. Then it became so popular we had to reduce it. 

Mr. BOERSCH-SUPAN. Right. But that took about six, 7 years. 

Now, we introduced in Germany these accounts in 2001, so it is not 

even half the time. 

The CHAIRMAN. Well, then that wouldn’t be a fair comparison. 

Mr. BOERSCH-SUPAN. So one may want to be patient here. The 

other thing is——

The CHAIRMAN. What is your reaction to the current——

Mr. BOERSCH-SUPAN [continuing]. They are highly regulated, and 

I think that is the big problem, and they are regulated both on the 

buyer’s side, so everything has to be annuitized. The payouts have 

to be paid out as an annuity, so they are not bequeathable, for example, or they cannot be used to pay down a house, for example. 

That restricts the popularity quite a bit. 

On the seller’s side, there are quite a few restrictions. For example, the commission if you sell a policy of this sort was heavily 

backloaded, and that is obviously what the sellers don’t like. They 

want frontloaded schemes. 

The CHAIRMAN. Sure. 

Mr. BOERSCH-SUPAN. So these were two restrictions. So the buyers didn’t really like the product and the sellers didn’t like the 

product, either. 

I think the third point, and that comes back to what you said 

earlier about information, people pick up, I think, the second and 

the third pillar if they realize that the first pillar is going to be decreased. 

The CHAIRMAN. Yes. 

Mr. BOERSCH-SUPAN. In the case of Germany, the first pillar 

would shrink to about two-thirds of its current size. That is a large 

amount of shrinkage and that has to be communicated to the public and that is a real hard job. We do this in a little bit similar to 

the way you do it in the United States. Social Security sends out 

these little sort of statements. But these statements do not really 

communicate what will happen in 30 years. They don’t give the signal, well: ‘‘You get much less than the current generation does.’’

Very often, the numbers are actually expressed in nominal dollars 

or Euros. Well, people can’t handle these numbers. 

117

So it has got to be a quite clear message: ‘‘You won’t get what 

your parents currently do.’’ That is something no Social Security 

administration likes, neither in Germany nor in the United States. 

One of my toughest jobs as the Chairman of the German Reform 

Commission was to communicate these things and try to push 

those changes through, because it is obvious that if you force people to realize that Social Security won’t be as it was, that does not 

go well with your constituency. But you have to do it anyway because otherwise the uptake of the second and third pillar won’t 

work. So you are caught between two hard places here. 

Mr. TRUGLIA. Might I make—— The CHAIRMAN. Yes. 

Mr. TRUGLIA [continuing]. One observation about the various reforms that were discussed here, and I think it is important looking 

at them as to how they occurred. 

The CHAIRMAN. In answering this question, would you also put 

it in this context, not only what you plan to say, but you were here 

and listened to the representative of the Japanese Diet and the reforms they are making. Bring that into it, if you would, because I 

am a bit frustrated by the reforms they are talking about as it relates to where that country goes in debt structure and the other 

point that you made earlier about its very large debt and its ability 

to sustain. 

Mr. TRUGLIA. In the case of Chile, which I think has unique circumstances, one has to remind ourselves of 1981 and the nature of 

the government at the time. So it didn’t really need public support 

to institute a radically changed system. 

In the industrialized countries, when you take a look at when 

Australia made its changes and the U.K. made its changes and 

some of the Scandinavian countries made their changes, they were 

occurring at a period that was following a fiscal and/or balance of 

payments crisis. So there was a sense of crisis in the country. If 

you go to the Italian reforms of the mid–1990’s, it was a crisis that 

they had to deal with. 

Now you are seeing the West German, the Germans, the Italians, 

the French today. It has become a crisis because of Mastricht criteria. So all of a sudden, what were once modest deficits are now 

unacceptable deficits. So it is no longer a 30-year problem, which 

is always there. It has now become, we have to get our deficits 

down to meet the criteria over the next one to 2 years. What do 

you do there? So when you are fixing that, you have got the longerterm problem to fix. 

In the case of the Japanese, the Japanese people do not believe—

they fully understand their system cannot support them in terms 

of the present pension promises. So the real challenge for the Japanese government is that since no one trusts the system as it is, 

Japanese people are saving more. So the problem has been to get 

consumers once again believing that the future is going to be 

brighter. So all the growth we are seeing in Japan recently has 

been due to higher export earnings and higher capital spending related to the export sector. 

The consumers have been very reluctant because they understand the problem very well. So having now the Japanese Prime 

Minister even admitting that he didn’t pay for many years into the 

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system just sort of feeds into their distrust of the whole system. 

However, at the same time, what it does provide is that there is 

an ongoing fiscal crisis in Japan, is that they are probably freer to 

do what they want to do with the system. 

The difficulty is that they are in such an economic bind that anything they do risks putting the economy back into a potential deflationary spiral, and I would be really surprised if they wind up actually carrying out the present pension reform and not push it back 

a little when they suddenly realize that higher payroll taxes is not 

maybe what they want so soon. 

The CHAIRMAN. We are up against a time crunch here. We have 

just been joined by my colleague, Tom Carper, who may wish to 

ask a question, and Tom, I will let you do that and then we will 

allow you to adjourn the committee and I will go off to vote. 

I will say by your last observation, if you ask the average young 

worker in this country today if they should rely on a Social Security system in their retirement, most will say no. That is a growing 

attitude in our country today, that Social Security will not be there 

to sustain them as a retirement system and they have got to look 

at other methods and approaches. 

I think that it appears to be a growing dominant belief in our 

country today, so that is something we will have to wrestle with 

also as it relates to the willingness to participate in a future reform 

that will reward the recipient enough to want them to participate 

without it being such a negative mandatory. I think that will be 

a part of what we struggle with as we get into reform of Social Security. 

Now let me turn to my colleague, Senator Carper, and I will, 

Tom, allow you to rap the gavel when you are through. Thank you. 

Senator CARPER [presiding]. Mr. Chairman, it has been a while 

since I got to rap the gavel and I look forward to doing that, maybe 

several times. [Laughter.] 

Mr. Truglia, you mentioned the Japanese Prime Minister. I remember a conversation I had on a trade mission I led as Governor 

to Japan and at the time, they were struggling with their economy 

and were talking about what they might do to stimulate it. I was 

kidding with him and I said, ‘‘In our country, we can cut taxes by 

one dollar and we will go out and spend two. In your country, if 

you cut taxes by one yen, your people go out and save two yen. 

That is part of their strength and part of their problem. 

In the information provided us by our staff in anticipation of the 

hearing, one doctor in here says that some 30 nations, including 

the U.K. and Australia, Sweden, Mexico, and Chile, have chosen in 

whole or in part to increase the rate of return on assets by enacting 

prefunded personal retirement accounts. I don’t know if you can 

share with us today whether there are some countries that we 

might look to as a model who have gone from the kind of Social 

Security system that we have to one that also includes prefunded 

personal retirement accounts and how they have made that transition in a way that enables them to fully meet the commitment to 

those who are retiring under the old system. 

Part of the problem, as you know, here is that if those people in 

my generation or my children stop paying into the fund the full 

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amount, my mother and her generation aren’t going to have 

enough money for the benefits that were promised to them. 

Among those 30 nations, there is probably somebody who has figured out a reasonable way to do this that is fiscally responsible. If 

there is a model out there for us, just share it with us, please. 

Mr. BOERSCH-SUPAN. I think the approach should actually start 

at the first pillar, at Social Security as it is right now, because that 

is the dominant income source for most people. So the art is to 

slowly decrease the benefits, and here is where actually productivity comes in. 

Aging is slow but steady. It does take away——

Senator CARPER. I have noticed that. [Laughter.] 

Mr. BOERSCH-SUPAN. It leaves enough room, as a matter of fact, 

even in the European countries to have still in nominal terms increasing pensions, and I think that is very important in communicating. Pensions will still increase, but they will increase somewhat slower than wages. Decoupling pensions from wages, I think 

is the important step which gives you the ability to sell the entire 

thing politically. Then automatically, people will pick up second 

and third pillar pensions, occupational pensions, 401(k)s, IRAs. 

But the trick is to sell the benefit cuts, and that is the difficulty. 

That is quite difficult as a relative decline, not an absolute decline. 

If it were an absolute decline, it would be a disaster because that 

really means poverty for some of the people. But it is only a relative decline. 

So in terms of numbers, if I may come back to my country, which 

ages faster than the United States, we take away out of, 1.5 percent wage growth for the next 30 years, we take away two-tenths 

of a percentage point. So pensions will grow 1.3 percent, wages will 

grow 1.5 percent. That little gap accumulates over the next 30 

years and allows financing Social Security on a solvent basis without doing too much damage. 

Senator CARPER. Thanks very much. What is your country? 

Mr. BOERSCH-SUPAN. It is Germany. 

Senator CARPER. OK. Let me just ask for the record, we have a 

15-minute vote that started 12 minutes ago and I need to get over 

and vote. Otherwise, I miss my opportunity. Anybody else, just real 

quickly? My question was, as you may recall, is there a country out 

there that can serve as an example, and it may be Germany, it 

may be another one. But if you have a thought quickly. If not, just 

maybe submit something for the record. 

Mr. HARRIS. Just a quick comment, Senator. I think there is no 

one particular country that identifies a magic bullet or a complete 

answer. It is a blend, if you like, a blending. I think countries like 

Switzerland, how Switzerland has achieved 122 percent of their 

GDP in pension assets, they moved to fundamentally a compulsory 

system and that is what it largely comes down to. Do you have an 

incentive-based tax system or do you move toward compulsion, as 

in my country in Australia, or the country I now reside in, in the 

U.K., where they are still grappling with the issue of incentives, a 

tough issue. 

The fundamental tenet I would leave you with the Generation X, 

which I am part of and a little bit behind, is that education and 

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communication is critical. It can be sold and politicians can be reelected on the basis of pension reform. 

Senator CARPER. All right. Going, going, gone. Now I get to take 

this gavel. Just think of all the legislation I could bring up for 

votes and for enactment and everything in the absence of the chairman of the committee, but I won’t do that. Otherwise, he will never 

let me have this gavel again. 

Let me conclude by thanking you all for joining us today and 

helping us to address what I think we will all agree is a ticklish 

and challenging issue. Thank you very much. 

[Whereupon, at 11:52 a.m., the committee was adjourned.] 

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