The Demographic Crisis Ain't What It's Cracked Up to Be: Thomas Edsall Edition

Thomas Edsall devotes his blogpost this week to Walter Russell Mead and a number of others who tell him that demographic change is going to wipe out the welfare state. The problem is that the projections don't support this story. The impact of projected future demographic change on the budget is actually fairly limited.

In 2001 Social Security cost 4.1 percent of GDP (Table F-5). It current costs 5.1 percent of GDP (Table 3-1). Over the next two decades the cost is projected to increase by ro...