Support Grows for Using “Funded Status” Rather Than “Probability of Success” as the Key Metric for Measuring Financial Health in Retirement

This post is a follow-up to our post of February 13, 2025, How to Improve Decumulation Planning. Subsequent to that post, we received our copy of Retirement Planning Guidebook, by the preeminent retirement researcher, Dr. Wade Pfau.

Social Security Financing—When You’re in a Hole, Stop Digging Part 2

This is a follow-up to our post of October 14, 2024.  In this follow-up post, we will estimate Social Security’s January 1, 2025 Funded Status based on 2024 valuation results and once again point out that now is probably a good time for our congressional representatives to be looking at ways to increase system revenues and/or decrease system benefits to improve the system’s Funded Status rather than looking at ways to increase system benefits and/or decrease system revenues.

How to Improve Decumulation Planning

We have never been big fans of Monte Carlo models for determining how much one can afford to spend in retirement from year to year. As actuaries, we believe that following the simple “3M” process described below is much more import than the model used in the process.

Actuarial Financial Planner FAQs

The Actuarial Financial Planner (AFP) workbooks (for single retirees and retired couples) are robust actuarial models integral to each of the three “M” steps outlined below in our recommended process for keeping your spending on track and consistent with your spending goals in retirement:

Actuarial Approach--Three Key Planning Steps

• Measure your Funded Status (Assets/Liabilities) at the beginning of each year
• Monitor your Funded Status from year to year, and
• Manage your spending, assets and risks in retirement as necessary 

We have received questions about the AFPs over the years. In this post we will once again attempt to briefly answer five of the most frequently asked questions.

Would Enacting the Hoyer/Primus Proposal “Fix” Social Security?

In early January, Social Security’s retiring Chief Actuary, Steve Goss, released an actuarial valuation of a proposal intended to improve the solvency of the Social Security trust funds based on 2024 valuation results and intermediate assumptions. The request for the proposal valuation was submitted by Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD) and economist Dr. Wendell Primus, and therefore is referred to in this post as the Hoyer/Primus proposal. The proposal includes a total of 17 provisions that would affect the system’s finances. Some of the more significant proposal provisions would increase system revenues while other significant proposal provisions would generally decrease system benefits.

This post will not analyze or comment on (with one exception) any of the specific proposed changes. Nor will we provide our thoughts on the likelihood of this proposal passing in the near future (unlikely). Instead, we will simply discuss whether enactment of the Hoyer/Primus proposal would fix the system. In brief, while the proposal would definitely improve Social Security’s solvency, it should not be considered as a “fix” for 75 years or any specific period.