WASHINGTON, Nov. 6, 2014 /PRNewswire- HISPANIC PR WIRE/ — The Social Security Advisory Board (SSAB) today announced the appointment of an expert panel to review the assumptions and methods used by the Social Security trustees in their annual report on the program’s financial status. “The nation relies on these projections for measuring the status of the nation’s most important social insurance program and for evaluating proposed reforms,” said Henry J. Aaron, chair of the SSAB. “It is vital that these projections embody the best possible data and methods.” This Technical Panel on Assumptions and Methods is the fifth the SSAB has commissioned since 1999.

To that end, the Panel, which consists of renowned economists, demographers, and actuaries, will meet over the next several months to analyze how economic and demographic trends will affect Social Security’s long-term solvency. The panel will first meet on November 21, 2014 at the Social Security Advisory Board offices at 400 Virginia Ave S.W., Suite 625, Washington, DC. The panel will issue a final report of its findings in the fall of 2015.

The 2015 Technical Panel on Assumptions and Methods will be chaired by Alicia Munnell, currently the Peter F. Drucker Professor of Management Sciences at Boston College’s Carroll School of Management and Director of the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. Professor Munnell is a former member of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers and vice-president and research director at the Boston Federal Reserve. The other members of the panel include:

• Dr. Katharine Abraham – Professor in the Joint Program in Survey Methodology at the Maryland Population Research Center and formerly Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics and member of the President’s Council of Economic Advisers
• Dr. David Autor – Professor and Associate Department Head of the MIT Department of Economics, formerly editor of The Journal of Economic Perspectives
• Dr. Jeff Brown –William G. Karnes Professor of Finance and Director of the Center for Business and Public Policy at the University of Illinois and formerly member of the Social Security Advisory Board
• Dr. Peter Diamond – Institute Professor (emeritus), Massachusetts Institute of Technology, recipient of the Economic Sciences prize in memory of Alfred Nobel, and formerly president of the American Economic Association
• Dr. Claudia Goldin – Henry Lee Professor of Economics at Harvard University, Director of the National Bureau of Economic Research’s Development of the American Economy program, formerly president of the American Economic Association and the Economic History Association
• Sam Gutterman – Retired as Director and Consulting Actuary at PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, and formerly president of the Society of Actuaries
• Dr. Ron Rindfuss – Research Professor of Sociology and Carolina Population Center Fellow at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, formerly president of the Population Association of America
• Michael Teitelbaum – Senior Research Associate in the Harvard Law School Labor and Worklife Program, formerly Vice President of the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and formerly vice-chair and acting chair of the U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform
• Joe Silvestri – Retirement Research Actuary at the Society of Actuaries, formerly vice-president, Aon Hewitt

Like its predecessors, the 2015 panel will help to assure the American public that the work of the trustees and actuaries has been examined by recognized experts and embodies the highest professional standards.

Congress charged the Social Security Advisory Board with advising the President, the Congress, and the Commissioner of Social Security on matters relating to the nation’s retirement and disability systems. Its mandates also include increasing public understanding of the Social Security system. Members of the Board are appointed on a bipartisan basis by the President, the Senate, and the House of Representatives.

For updates on the 2015 panel and other Board activity, follow the Board on Twitter: @ssabgov