The Life-Expectancy Warm Body

In re: Paul Krugman, The Life Expectancy Zombie, The New York Times, Mar. 5, 2013.

In his recent debate with Joe Scarborough on Charlie Rose, Paul Krugman at the end of the debate reacted involuntarily with a ridiculing "wow" when Scarborough suggested that Social Security was something of a scam at the time it was created because the retirement age was higher than the average life expectancy. In a blog post the next day, supra, Krugman explained his guffaw, quoting a webpage from the Social Security Administration ("SSA") discussing the subject.

On the webpage, the SSA talks about how life expectancy at the time Social Security was created was "low due mainly to high infant mortality, and someone who died as a child would never have worked and paid into Social Security" and wouldn't have gotten scammed by paying in without getting anything back. "A more appropriate measure," the SSA continues, "is probably life expectancy after attainment of adulthood." So far, so good. Now, we need to look at the numbers to flesh out Krugman's objection, but as we see, the numbers didn't give Krugman an opportunity to ridicule.

The SSA goes on to refer to a table and to say that "the majority of Americans who made it to adulthood could expect to live to 65, and those who did live to 65 could look forward to collecting benefits for many years into the future." Yes, it was a majority, but not a large one. According to the table, only about 54% of men and 60% of women could expect to live past 65 and collect Social Security retirement when the program was started. Assuming a ratio of one man to one woman, that leaves about 43% of all men and women who never got anything out of Social Security, even though they had worked and paid into it. Yes, the numbers got better as the years went on, but the relevant time period was, as quoted in Krugman's post, "when Social Security started," and at that time, a whole lot of people were getting a raw deal.

True, Scarborough was wrong on some points and nonresponsive to some questions, but the numbers on this point here don't bear out Krugman's ridicule. To the contrary, they offer only an opportunity for sober analysis, and, at the end of that analysis, the numbers work against Krugman just as much as they do for him, if at all.