FINDINGS 1937 - 1997

Collected Social Securtity Taxes: 4 trillion, 880 billion dollars

Interest Earned In Trust Funds: 302 billion, 100 hundred million

Average Interest Yield for 60 years on funds: 5.460%

Payments received on taxed benefits - 1966-1997: 64 billion 828 million

Payments received or paid to the General Fund: 13 billion, 997 million dollars

Transferred to the Railroad Retirement Trusts: 64 billion, 693 million dollars

Adminstrative Expenses: 43 billion, 155 million

Benefits Paid: 4 trillion, 563 billion dollars

Trust Funds have been poorly managed.

If funds collected had earned an average rate of return of 7.00%
for the sixty years instead of the poor return of 5.460%.

( this could have been accomplished by investing in other securities, housing loans, stocks, etc.)

An additional 371 billion dollars would have been earned in interest income.

At these levels of earnings, this would have created an additional surplus of 100 billion per year, allowing for current collections and paying benefits with cost of living adjustments.

This would have brought the current amount in the funds to approximately:
1 trillion, 283 million dollars in ten years.

Interest Income on 1 trillion 283 billion dollars at 7.00% would be approximately:
66 billion 333 million dollars annually
instead of the poorly managed 40 billion per year that has been seen in 1997.

This interest income would account for 20.98% of the current benefits
paid at 1997 benefits paid of 316 billion, 257 million dollars.

Adding additional earnings that could have been made, with the surplus,
would have brought the funds in another ten years to:
1 trillion, 961 billion dollars in surplus.

Interest income on this surplus amount at 7.00% would amount to 137 billion, 280 million annually, or 43% of the benefits paid instead of present earnings of only 12.72% of benefits paid.

The interest earnings projected above at 7.00% is a low conversative amount of return. This return would have been much higher if the funds had been invested in a much diversified investment portfolio. A return of only 5.460% for sixty years is what the trust funds have actually earned which by any definition is not represented of the higher returns that have been seen in investment markets, the Dow, or other investment areas the last 60 years.

Write your Senators and Congressmen today to take the social security funds out of the General Fund, and that the funds need to be managed and invested more wisely