HISTORY OF SOCIAL SECURITY

A major source of information for this research is the 2014 Social Security Trustees Report.[1] This report was published in July 2014 and uses data from 2013 as a baseline. Thus, unless otherwise stated, all future dollar figures are indexed for inflation to produce numbers that are consistent in terms of the years 2013/2014.

Whenever the word "projections" is used, this refers to projections made by the United States Social Security Administration. The process of making projections is not an exact science, and actual outcomes often differ from those predicted (see Accuracy of Projections). The Social Security Trustees Report contains high, low, and intermediate projections. Unless otherwise stated, the intermediate figures are cited because these "reflect the Trustees' best estimates of future experience."[2]