Longevity and the Rising Costs of Social Security

Josh Barro had a good discussion of the impact of longer life expectancy on the finances of Social Security. The basic point is the program will cost more money. There are a couple of points that are worth a bit more discussion and one mistake that should be corrected.

Starting with the mistake, Barro ends his piece by saying that the last major overhaul to Social Security was carried through by a bipartisan commission in 1985. Actually, the recommendations of the Greenspan commission were ap...