The University Record, June 19, 1995
Conference on Social Security is Thursday
“The Future of Social Security: Economic and Demographic Questions,” is the subject of a mini-conference, 1-5 p.m. Thursday (June 22) at Rackham Amphitheater.
The free, public event is the first in a series of conferences and seminars planned by the newly established Michigan Exploratory Center on the Demography of Aging (MECA).
“As the baby boom generation moves closer to retirement, the future of Social Security has become a major policy concern,” says Albert I. Hermalin, professor of sociology and co-director with Professor of Economics F. Thomas Juster of the National Institute on Aging Demography of Aging Center at the U-M.
“This mini-conference is designed to bring together members of the Quadrennial Advisory Council on Social Security with actuaries, economists and demographers from the U-M and elsewhere to consider the following questions, among others: Are policy-makers using the most reliable forecasts of mortality? Which subgroups of the population stand to gain or lose under the current system and under the various revised systems being proposed?”
Presentations are scheduled by Edward M. Gramlich, dean of the School of Public Policy Studies, who chairs the Quadrennial Advisory Council; Sheldon H. Danziger, professor of social work and of public policy; Howard Young, adjunct professor of mathematics; and Ronald Lee, demographer at the University of California, Berkeley. Juster and Robert Willis of the Institute for Social Research are also participating.
MECA is a joint project of the Population Studies Center and the Institute for Social Research designed to analyze and disseminate data on aging from several large surveys conducted at the U-M.
These include the Health and Retirement Survey co-directed by Juster and Willis; the Survey of Assets and Health Dynamics Among the Oldest Old, directed by Juster; the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, directed by Frank Stafford and Sandra Hofferth; the Migration and Redistribution of the U.S. Elderly project, directed by William Frey; the Rapid Demographic Change and the Welfare of the Elderly study, directed by Albert Hermalin; the Americans’ Changing Lives Study, directed by James House; and the Health, Labor Market Institutions and Labor Market Activity studies, directed by John Bound.
