WASHINGTON, Sept. 10, 2014 /PRNewswire-HISPANIC PR WIRE/ — Yesterday, on September 8, 2014, the U.S. Senate confirmed the three outstanding Presidential appointments to the Social Security Advisory Board.  The new Board members include: Henry Aaron of the Brookings Institution who will now serve as Chair of the Board, Lanhee Chen of the Hoover Institution and Stanford University, and Alan Cohen of the Center for American Progress.  The Board now has full membership for the first time since 2008.

Henry Aaron is the Bruce and Virginia MacLaury Senior Fellow in the Brookings Institution Economic Studies Program, which he directed from 1990 through 1996.  He is a member and vice-chair of the District of Columbia Health Benefits Exchange.  He chaired the 1979 Advisory Council on Social Security and was a founding member, vice-president, and board chair of the National Academy of Social Insurance. He has been vice-president and member of the executive committee of the American Economic Association, was president of the Association of Public Policy and Management, and has been a member of the boards of directors of the College Retirement Equity Fund and Georgetown University.

Lanhee Chen is the David and Diane Steffy Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution, Director of Domestic Policy Studies and Lecturer in the Public Policy Program at Stanford University, and Lecturer in Law at Stanford Law School.  He is also a columnist for Bloomberg View.  Previously, he was the Policy Director for the Romney-Ryan presidential campaign, Governor Romney’s chief policy adviser, and a senior strategist on the campaign.  He also served as a senior appointee at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services during the George W. Bush Administration.

Alan Cohen recently became a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress working on Social Security issues. Formerly, he served as the Senior Budget Advisor and Chief Counselor for Social Security for the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance from 2001 to 2012. From 1993 to 2001, he served as Senior Advisor for Budget and Economics to the Secretary of the Treasury. During this period, from 1999 to 2000, he was detailed to be a Budget Advisor in the Domestic Policy Office in the Office of the Vice President. Prior to this position, he served as the Budget Economist for the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance in 1992 and was Assistant Director of Budget Priorities for the Senate Budget Committee from 1983 to 1992.

The Social Security Advisory Board is an entity established by statute to advise 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.

The Board looks forward to continuing to advise the President, the Congress, and the Commissioner of Social Security on Social Security and Supplemental Security Income policy.