SOCIAL SECURITY RECONSIDERED

Social Security is currently much in the news because it faces a projected funding gap, because of overall budget deficits, and because of doubts in some quarters about its design. Minor adjustments are sufficient to close the funding gap. Benefit cuts, even ([considered desirable, would not help close the overall budget gap in a timely way. Some adjustments in Social Security benefits and financing are desirable, but large scale changes would be disruptive and would not well serve the program's basic purposes - to provide assured, basic income to retirees, the disabled, and survivors - unless they more or less replicated the current program.