host: thank you very much for being on the program. thank you. >> we want to tell you about what's coming up tomorrow on the "washington journal." we'll be talking with doug shone, democratic pollster and author of "hopelessly dwidded" will talk about his new book and what it means.

[captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> a look at what is coming up today on c-span. in a few moments, the unavailing of a new report laying out safety recommendations for u.s. food and drug reports. andy chief actuary -- and the spike in recent years in disability insurance. then the case for retirement security and the need for flexibility in created new

pension plans. >> tonight on c-span, a debate on civil liberties, including the head of the aclu and the former solicitor general. >> in those cases, you are talking about the most critical assertion of government power. the number of individuals directly affected may be several hundred, 150 at guantanamo. when you have the highest rank of government decide to hold individuals without charges of trial, to ship them off to black sites, to authorize torture, which was illegal, and then endeavored to obfuscate that from the press, lawyers, the public, you are talking about a high stakes game that can

literally change the course of american history. you are thinking about the civil rights of this individual who is preparing. >> anthony says before the missile strikes, he is having a conversion and he is equipped and other individuals have been equipped to kill other americans and that is already underway and is going on. now you have the rights of that individual to something and then because judicial process/ >> you are saying this should be decided by the generals? >> this is not an easy thing to answer. you put those civil rights against the people you are sworn to protect from acts of despicable terrorism.

you do not have a choice to do it the way everybody would like, which is to bring somebody to court and to have all of the witnesses -- all of those kinds of things. you do not have that choice. you allow that to happen until you can do the thing you cannot do, which is to bring about this judicial process, or you use a drone or some of the process of killing that individual. you can see >> the whole program at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span -- >> you can see the whole program at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. >> i got the chance to meet all of my senators. just to beat them and talk to them. -- meet them and talk to them. >> high-school students from

all but the states who participated in a week-long government and leadership program at at the nation's capital share their experiences as they interact with better -- members of congress and the members of the supreme court and the president. >> it makes me wonder if everybody is saying that, but it is not actually happening. is there a discrepancy between what they are saying and what they are actually doing. >> the u.s. senate youth program sunday night at 8:00 p.m. eastern on "q & a." >> a new report highlights the role government agency should take in ensuring the safety of food and medical drugs coming into the united states. the report offers 13

recommendations for addressing regulatory gaps and vulnerabilities from abroad. the group unveiled the report wednesday at the national press club. >> it is a pleasure to introduce to you professor jim riviere, a state -- a distinguished professor of pharmacology. he was elected to the iom in

2003 for his contributions to the medical modeling for his work in risk assessment and food safety. he directs the center for chemical toxicology research at the nc state college of veterinary medicine. he will review with you the conclusions and recommendations the committee made in this report. thank you very much and here is jim. >> thank you, gillian. and thank you for coming out to listen to what we have been doing for the last year-and-a- half. i would like to introduce this report. it is a complex report. why did we do it? fda has realized that the world has changed relative to the types of products it must

regulate. 80% of active ingredients are not produce in the united states. 40% of finished drugs come from abroad. 85% of seafood and 39% of fruits and nuts. if you look at medical devices, there has been a four-olds increased over the last decade coming from overseas. -- four-fold increase over the last decade coming from overseas. we have had some issues in the last few days and the last decade of specific aspects. they are tasked to look at 20 different import lines. even if you look at a product as innocent as a nutrition bar.

, there could be six or seven countries in which the ingredients that go into that product have been sourced in a different country. this is a huge task ahead. what was the committee and what did we do? we work tasked me things by the fda. to find the core of food and medical device systems in developing countries. what are the gaps in those systems? once we have identified the gaps, how can we address these gaps in the short term, which is three-five years, and the longer term. what did we do? we visited and went on four trips to brazil, south africa, china, and india. the meetings lasted anywhere

from two-four days each. we talked to people from one dozen countries. we talked to government regulators, other members of government agencies, we talk to a deregulated industry, multinational drug companies, domestic drug companies, non- governmental organizations and government organizations. we went in different been used -- venues and had opened public meetings and discuss what were the core elements and what was the status of these systems. i want to stress that our statistics that our task was not specifically look at a country -- our task was not to look specifically at a country, how the systems were structured

-- our task was not to look at a specific country. our task was to look at the systems and how they were structured. there is a lot of detail in this report. in two or three minutes, i want to look at them up basic core elements of the regulatory -- i want to look at four basic core elements of the regulatory system. it has to be responsive in being able to adapt to new problems and new types of regulate its products. what works 10 years ago may not work today. it has to be adaptable. we believe it has to be outcome oriented. we have to realize there are massive cultural and political differences between all of the countries.

systems need to be set up. processes need to be set up that thoseplemented aable in countries. if you reach a point where the product is safe, the product should be able to be exported. if the same type of process goes through with the same type of problem, it is going to get detected. it has to be independent. it has to be independent of all political control and micromanaging. it has to be independent of economic factors. it has to be able to be based on a system that looks at what is the risk and the safety. going into a little bit more detail in this line, you can see that one can look at a number of different approaches to what regulatory systems look at.

one thing we may be talking about its food. we are looking at is the food produced and is it safe? we are also looking at drug development. there are common elements between these. what is government standards testing authority. when standards are set, it is crucial they use science-based approaches and risk-based approaches to come up with these standards. they cannot be arbitrary. looking at different countries, most of these systems should participate in international cooperative evictees so that -- cooperative activities. these should be harmonized and people should be working toward the same goals. the system should be at the cult. when something of cars, that

information -- the system should be at the goal -- ethical. when something occurs, that information should be passed on. staff development and training for employees should occur. monitoring and evaluation for product quality laboratories, surveillance of products, risk assessment analysis and emergency response. we go into detail on those specifics and what a regulatory system encompasses. we identified and grouped together nine main gaps. the first falls into a classification of adherence to standards. in order for a system to function, there have to be some standards that allow exports from a country and imports from another country. those standards must be met. they can range from specific

tolerance of a chemical. they could relate to a drug at a specific clause -- a specific concentration in the product. also, controlling supply chains. that is when the food is initially produced to win it is as finished product and import it. it isduced twto when finished and imported. their work infrastructure deficits. in order to implement supply chain controlled in order to adhere to standards, there has to be a system in place. there has to be laboratories in place. there are an infrastructure deficits at various levels of the food and drug systems. there needs to be a legal

foundation for regulating drugs. attendees to be a legal foundation for imposing 60s -- there needs to be legal foundation for importing drugs. we noticed a number of different workforce problems and we go into detail in the report. what this relates to is that there is a lack of adequately trained individuals in regulatory science. there is lack of stability of those people are trained. in some countries there is rapid and continuous turnover. in order for fda to communicate with some of these individuals, they need to talk and speak in the same language. a lot of the regulatory systems are fragmented. they are housed in different

ministries. they are housed in health, and sometimes trade ministries. when you look at another regulatory system, you need to dissect where those components exist. many countries suffer from a poor surveillance system. that is not just be finished product being exported. but a lot of quality control points throughout the production of food and drugs. there needs to be a way of determining whether or not specific standards are being met. another gap we found this communication. the communication gap can be within a ministry or an agency from the top to the bottom where the work is handled, between different ministries and different regulatory systems, between the regulator and the

regulated industry and the consumers of that product, between different countries and globally. there are a lot of individuals who are not talking with one another and sharing specific information. finally, developing a system ensuring safe food products needs a political will to do this. we came up with several recommendations, which i will briefly go over. we cannot inspect our way out of this. we cannot demand that only safe products and food coming into the united states. we need to offer a series of carrots and sticks. we need to look at activities that hit a sweet spot in this diagram. we need to build the system

that, by improving product safety, exports from this country can occur and trade can go up in those countries. as we implement a product's safety, they should have a short-term impact on public -- product safety, they should have a short-term impact on public health and a long-term impact on public health. this should also impacts aspects of development. the best way to look at this is, if you are trying to assess that only state products come into the country and there are no systems in place to ensure that safe products can be produced and manufactured in the country, no matter how much inspection, you will find flodden -- flawed products.

we need to build a regulatory system and build systems that create safe products. by doing that, economic activity is in line with what the 60 points are. -- safety points are. if you are being judged on economic activity, product safety false to a lower level. -- falls to a lower level. first is the concept of enterprise risk management. we are using this as a broad based concept. fda needs to look at all its operations. it needs to assume that with 80%

of api's not being produced in the u.s., you cannot differentiate between domestic and international. you need to start thinking about how you regulate resources. it has to do with the budget and specific training dollars. where is the money being spent and -- being spent and how is it being split between the money -- between the training that is occurring? there was domestic production and domestic consumption. there have been a lot of changes. it has to be responsive to current problems. another aspect we realize in developing countries is professionalism and credential in. -- credentialing.

in point in those agencies are not addressed in training -- in points in those agencies are not specifically addressed in training programs. somebody joins a regulatory agency and they missed the first topic. there is no standing ability to actually communicate. there needs to be more venues where people can develop a common science. in some developing countries in certain areas in africa where representatives to standards setting bodies do not have the requisite training to actively participate in these bodies. we need to make sure that as those types of approaches become implemented, that those standards can be handled in those countries. supply chain security.

supply chain disability is an important goal. if we could snap our fingers and find out instantly what is occurring in a supply chain, we would all be happy. that is not going to happen instantly. the food modernization has an up and down approach. you can recreate what that supply chain looks like. accountability is important. we can control and reject products coming in. there has to be incentives to do this. we need to get other and -- other approaches and engage the private sector and the tried to improve the overall quality of the system. fraud prevention technology is a crucial problem. we need to get some of the systems that may be operative in

a large organization to be able to work on a smaller scale. some of these are not scalable. we need to get closer to the point of origin and eliminate the problem before it goes all the way through the system and its spread out through the system. -- gets spread out through the system. there needs to be some type of liability in the supply chain. specific recommendations. there are 13 recommendations. the first recommendation we break into domestic and international aspects. we feel it is crucial that regulatory infrastructure in developing countries be strengthened. it is impossible for one agency to do everything. the fda cannot guarantee food

safety around the world. in order to have trained personnel and develop surveillance systems, there needs to be infrastructure so that when development and health projects come forward, you are also looking to build the regulatory system so that there are longer-term effects. second recommendation in the emerging economies. national regulatory agencies need to engage in regular open dialogue. there needs to be communication. in some of the groups we worked with, some of the regulators had never met one another. they had never been in the same room together. communication from a national agency promulgating safety standards down to a provincial

or state level just by promulgating regulation does not mean that the people at the next level understand what the regulation is and how it can be implemented. same again with the communication to deregulated industry. there needs to be regional forms. -- sam again with the communication to the regulated industry. -- same again with the communication to the regulated industry. they need to communicate to ensure that a standard or technique that is implemented is and lamentable in the country you are looking at or the product you are looking at -- implementable in the country you are looking at our for the product you are looking at. -- or for the products you are

looking at. if you look at the number of lines coming in and the number of industries in some developing countries producing food and drugs and devices, there is no way possible, even by increasing inspectors, that you will be able to inspect all of these industries around the world. we need to start getting to an approach that a regulatory agency like the european union, the u.s., expects what industry and they share those inspections and let the resources of those countries be spread around to inspect other agencies. it does not help us by hattie by having view -- having the eu and the u.s. and

spent one inspector. industry associations should work out a way of sharing supply chain information. work out a way to find out the issues coming up, the problems coming up, what they should be looking at. i realize this is tricky. there are trade secrets. the group rx-360 has been working on this core pharmaceuticals. -- for pharmaceuticals. we are not prescribing what needs to be done. we strongly feel that we need to get private industry involved in how to do this on their own and shared those results. starting in the next five

years, agencies within usda need to start focusing on technical assistance and strengthening surveillance. regulatory agencies need to increase and get some and for structure and some training. but -- regulatory agencies need to increase and get some infrastructure and some training. this needs to happen in the country of origin rather than after the finished product is starting to work its way into the u.s. is the supply chain can be refined, we need to look at how that can be handled. domestic action. i talked about enterprise risk management. the agency has specific mandates. they have to follow specific approaches for approving drugs

and testing food safety. where are the problems? there needs to be an ability which in fda to determine where the resources best need to be put. we talked about a lot of aspects about keeping track of things. these problems are not going to disappear. if you look at the drug safety problems we have had. those are different supply chains. we need to keep track of what is happening in that line and we need more flexibility on allocation of those resources. the fda should facilitate training of regulators in developing countries. this needs to be focused on an ongoing basis to work with other regulatory agencies to provide msgoing standing curriculum'

so that individuals in a specific agency can start getting to know what the other regulators are doing and start getting to know what the end points should be and what pertains to that. we should be looking at economic development to build the economic -- build the regulatory agencies. as the ladies to be proactive to make sure food and drug -- the fda needs to be pro-active in making sure food and drug safety is accomplished. if you look at where we are in the 21st century, we have twitter, we have bull will, -- we have google.

it is a mobile and completely electronic system. in order to start increasing the speed of this information in five years, we need to start defining specific metrics. we need to make sure that as new agreements come into place between countries, that fda and other agencies demands that specific metrics be collected and those metrics be interchangeable between agencies. by doing that, we can start developing much more rapid information systems to get an idea of where the risks might be occurring. it is different relative to the structure of the different systems. we have to be realistic with 20 different import line coming in. we need to start using modern

technology, which is available now at relatively cost effective approaches to start implementing these types of systems. we need and we strongly suggest that the supply chain and drug manufacturers and device manufacturers start getting define and nailed down. apply the one up and won back approach for food would be -- applying bethe one up and one back approach would be a good start. we need to make sure fda develops the proper mix of incentives. some of those are market access. there is a pilot program currently in effect. fda needs to look at how this is working. if it is working well, they need

to push and expand it to other aspects that they handle. it cannot be a negative and a regulatory impact. final two items of domestic action is, the fda should encourage the cooperative development agreements and research funding to encourage businesses to develop a university for surveillance type tools. it can be relatively cheap to use, but can carry surveillance down to equal levels within the supply chain. large companies have this worked out. large companies' systems are not scalable -- company systems are not scalable down to smaller

systems. we have a number of discussions in the report about how that might actually work. fda cannot do this alone. globalization is not going to reverse to any great extent. with the rates of increase in product imports and products that have international components, we need to address this. we need to create a regulatory system that interfaces with partners of similar abilities and desires to work together and try to develop a larger regulatory system in terms of maintaining what is happening. it countries have well-developed regulatory systems, food safety and product safety can be increased to allow imports from

those countries. what we would like to see happening tin years from now, -- to see happening 10 years from now, the problem should become more manageable. training should become more knowledgeable. there are a lot of people that can help implement this. they have to be coordinated. it is crucial that the implementation, the emperor structure and the communication works together -- the infrastructure and the communication works together. i thank thee excellent committee and the members who are here to travel -- i would like to thank the xliv committee and the members who are here who

traveled around -- like to thank the excellent committee and the limit to our here who traveled around gathering information. -- thank the excellent committee and the members who are here and who traveled around gathering information. >> what role will congress have in terms ofesis directing the state department and other federal agencies to focus and make this a priority in terms of negotiating trade agreements? >> you provided exactly what needs to be done. as congress in iraq's and produces legislation that inner -- as congress interacts and produces legislation, this needs

to be high on the priority list. congress has to realize that regulate its products of fda cannot be broken down into domestic and international law. that worked 30 years ago. it does not work now. authorities have to be granted to fda to have flexibility in moving resources. they need resources. a lot of these agreements are unfunded mandates. we need to not just throw money at the problem. we need to get fda the flexibility to put the money in areas that may have an impact. it may not be important to throw more inspectors in a country. but they need to put training in place and increased surveillance in those countries. instead of expecting, you are helping build the system.

>> thomas bollyky, one of the committee members. a couple of other things they could do. they could grant fda the ability to share data on inspection reports with other regulators that will allow them to cooperate internationally. this is something fda has been pushing for for a long time. in this budgetary empire met, it is crucial for the fda to have this the best in this budgetary -- in this begetary environment, it is crucial for the fda to have -- >> domestic or international? >> they need to get information

from other countries so they can do the same period in the bill pending before congress, there is a provision for end to end supply chain disability. -- visibility. the fda has been starved for resources in its international resources program to engage in this type of regulatory activity in the past. you see a balkanization of what trade development and regulatory agencies do around food and drug safety. there needs to be integration of that. congress has a big role to play to ensure that what trade officials do is promoting high standard food and drugs.

what fda does should be cognizant of the development and trade for countries to adopt the standards as well. >> from outside. >> our first question will come from emily walker. >> one quick clarifying question and another question. is it true that a country like japan will inspect a food and drug facility and then the u.s. will send an inspector to is that that same facility. is that how it happens not? -- happens now? >> yes.

>> it is this report saying more inspections is not be answered? ? >> we are not saying cut back on inspections. all the inspections are important. resources have to be spent on integrating more and trying to change the nature and work with the regulatory infrastructure of other countries. >> we did also discuss sharing inspection reports. it is not just the u.s. ramping up inspections. they can rely on other well resources regulatory agencies. >> and to do sharing amongst themselves. if we can get high-quality products being generated throughout the whole system, the regulatory system may catch up to what it is trying to capture.

>> the big part is improving capacity. it is much more cost effective to improve the capacity of developing countries and not sent they problem down the supply chain. capacity building is really important. >> martha brumfield, also from the committee. i would like to add, we have to be mindful of the other side of the committee and what congress has to undertake. this is not a u.s. problem. this is a global problem. even simple things like sherry and inspection reports, there may be lost -- laws that prevent sharing. we need to make this a two way dialogue. >> our hope is to bring this to

be g-20 agenda and get everyone on the same page. -- the g-20 agenda and get everybody on the same page. >> trade and development on these issues operates internationally. it is not just about public health. it said operate domestically as well. hopefully, that allows the ability to bring together the necessary partners you need to bring to bear on this problem. >> thank you very much. if you would like to ask a question, priest -- please press star 1. >> yes? >> i am with the global health technology coalition. the soy curious about the second

set of recommendations -- i am curious about the second set of recommendations. they are not waiting for a report to communicate with each other. who do you see as a driving force for the other international recommendations? >> we are looking at bringing it to the g-20 agenda and getting other organizations like the world bank and other groups to put strengthening regulatory infrastructure as a priority in anything going forward. our tied in with the domestic regulations for the fda is to bring this forward. -- our tie in with the domestic

regulations for the fda is to bring this forward. >> we call for the g-20 to endorse this as an intersection of global health, trade, and investment. what we recommend doing next is that this be filtered down to the various international agencies that are dedicated to those issues. there is wto and its committees that worked on these issues. there are all of the regional development banks. supporting strong regulatory systems achieved global health. who has activities in this as well. we are looking for an endorsement, hopefully at the next meeting of the g-20, which will be in mexico. we will start to build down to

these specific international organizations. >> martha brumfield, if i could just add on to tom's point. the regulators we were interacting with in other countries were enthusiastic about is recommendations. it is not just for g-20 to push it. it is incredibly important. there can be other mechanisms, may be softer, one on what types of approaches where there will be receptivity from other countries. >> we recommend international standards to make it easier for them. we did a lot of field visits as part of this committee. we often found strong regulatory

assistance in the areas that support products for export that do not necessarily extend to the population at large. there is a lot we can do by doing more to support international standards and the participation of developing country agencies, and also internationally to make this easier for those countries to adopt internationally compatible high standards. >> ultimately, you would want spill over effects. you would be improving food safety in developing countries. there is a clear desire in developing countries. there is something they are interested in.

>> ok. any more questions? sure. >> congressional quarterly. you talk about your goal of having this adopted, this idea of having food and medical products and their safety as an integral part of the g-20 meeting. what other things are you looking gap in the next three, six, 12 months -- looking to have been -- happen in the next three, six, 12 months? >> to get an agreement from fda and its partner regulators that this is an important activity

for everyone involved. and to push food and drug groups to share resources and not a duplicate resources. the third one begins the training. the training and educational aspect could have an immediate impact within a year or two. domestic regulators could realize what is happening. to essentially share that information and spillover in every level. when individuals go back to their countries, even on food production on both sides, the quality of both should increase. >> one of the things we mentioned in the be ports that we think would be helpful and a short-term thing that the fda could do is the adoption of an fda version of the cdc

epidemiological intelligence service. it applies u.s. expertise on epidemiology to other countries to build capacity and an international community that works on international disease control. that can bring foreign regulators over here to work with fda to encourage that kind of information sharing and mutual understanding. but also to send a junior staff regulators abroad. we see this as a way of building a high-profile program and starting to filter out a common regulatory approach through the same persistent challenges.

these are challenges we face and other countries face. >> it is important that we start getting the baseline information so we can understand the impact. you are working with different cultures. you may not come they something that is certain. >> the only other topic i would add is that we do talk about the role of industry. they are certainty the entities closer to this problem and the ones with the shortest distance to controlling their supply chain and their products. we have a set of recommendations in this report about creating incentives for them through carrots and sticks to meet fda standards. we talked about having more

programs like the secure supply chain that the fda has. that is a good one and we hope it will be adopted. we are also looking at the issue of developing more appropriate sticks in this context. it can be difficult in a certain circumstances to hold up orders of certain food and drug products. it depends on where the action occurred, how far back in the supply chain. we talk about how you can improve the ability to hold those entities liable in the united states. >> question. >> i think the committee might want to make a final comment. >> make a final comment? >> i will start.

i will say that when we undertook this project, we realize how broad in scope it was. i feel honored to have been a part of this. we have learned a lot of information. i am walking away from this understanding that there are a few bad actors that seem to cause grief for all of us. for the regulators, for the patients, for consumers, and the industry. i believe most of the industry -- whether it is food, medical products, or devise -- are doing their best to -- or devices -- are doing their best to weed out the bad actors. it has to be a full commitment by all parties involved in this.

>> i would agree with that. as a committee, we unite around the idea that there is an alignment of incentives to addressing this problem to health, trade, and development. all of the partners want the right thing. there are things you can do to make it easier for them to have that alignment and to achieve the safe food and drugs that all consumers want whether they are in the u.s. or other countries. we hope the recommendations we put forward are undertaken so that can happen. >> i echoed those concerns. this is a long-term issue. this will not be corrected tomorrow. we need to develop the ability. someone asked the question

earlier this morning. if this report's recommendations were in place, would the avastin issue had happened? there will always be problems. we need to get rid of these food safety issues. how do you do it over large and complex situations? this needs to be a constant effort to improve what is happening so that 10 years from now, we have fewer of these problems occurring. thank you very much for listening to us. i encourage you to look at the entire report. thank you. [applause] >> coming up today on c-span in

the eighth few moments, the social security administration's -- in a few moments, the social security administration's chief actuary. and this afternoon, the national archives releases digitize records of the 1940's u.s. census. >> tonight on c-span, the president of planned parenthood talks about women's health care and politics in america. >> most of us believe health care should not be politicized. i just left arizona where i am proud. we just voted down the birth control bad in arizona. i literally just got it on my text -- the birth control ban in

arizona. it was started by barry goldwater's wife. we have thousands of republican supporters. we are republicans, independents, democrats. we believe health care does not come with a political label. >> you can see her at 9:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. >> on "book tv," talks about becoming the most lethal sniper in the u.s. military history. >> she said, when i get a raise at work, he is so proud of me. it is like we got a raise. i felt she had redefined

providing to include what her husband does and she had a lot of respect for what her husband was doing. >> the changing role of women as the breadwinners of the family. also, the director of pediatric your surgery at johns hopkins. he compares the decline of empires -- the director of pediatric surgery at johns hopkins. he compares the decline of empires. >> applications for social security disability insurance have dramatically increased in recent years with 3.4 million people applying for benefits last year. this week, the show so security chief actuary -- social security chief actuary talked about it and was joined by interest

groups representing the disabled. the national academy of social insurance hosted this events. -- event. i write about social security and medicare and other health insurance issues as well as pensions and personal finance. i would like to welcome everyone and thank you for joining us this morning for our forum on why are more people claiming disability insurance and which should be done about it?

a special welcome to our viewers joining us on c-span. our thanks to c-span for covering this issue. is that better? sorry about that. can you hear me? [laughter] i am not going to start over. the forum is sponsored by the national academy of social insurance, a nonprofit organization made up of the nation's leading experts on social insurance. our mission is to advance solutions to challenges facing the nation by increasing public understanding of how social insurance contributes to economic security. the social security disability insurance program currently provides income support to more than 9 million people with disabilities and their family members. a total of more than $9.5 billion in benefits monthly. and the number of people receiving benefits has increased significantly over the past several decades. 6.5 million people received benefits as recently as 2005.

in 1995, the number was 4.2 million. the disability insurance trust fund is projected to be exhausted in the near future as soon as 2016 according to cbo and 2018 according to the 2011 social security trustees report. the journalists, researchers, and congress have posted a lot of attention on the growth and number of ssdi and a fisheries. questions have been raised about the program. thus the growth reflects demographic trends and changes or is the growth due to ssdi programs? >> what is the role of the recession? is ssdi becoming the new unemployment insurance? is ssdi sound and sustainable in its current form or does it need changes to ensure its long-term viability. can these changes be small or does long-term solvency require

radical change? work?t ssdi discourage could more be done to encourage tuesday people at work -- to keep people at work? orchid beneficiaries return to work after receiving ssdi benefits. reforms have been proposed. some propose augmenting ssdi to provide more assistance aimed at keeping people at work or returning to work. others have suggested creating another public disability insurance program, which would be offered to people with a disability, but significant capacity to work. requiring employees to purchase private disability insurance is to keep workers implored -- employed is another idea. other proposals change the way that disability benefits are designed and provided. this form will explore why the number of people receiving ssdi has grown, whether that growth will continue, and the implications of the growth for program designed.

this will include discussion of some proposals and reactions from members of the disability community to the presentations and the proposals. first, we will hear from three outstanding speakers. steve goss, senior policy adviser at health and disability advocates, and dave stapleton, director of the center for studying disability policy at mathematical policy research. next, we will hear brief responses to the presentations from the director of the public policy office at the arc of the u.s. and from tony young, the public policy strategist at nash. the speakers are in your folders along with the power point on ssdi published in the journal policy analysis and management.

one side of that debate is argued by virginia and the other was taken by a an economist. he will also find a buie evaluation for in your packet and we would really appreciate it if he would fill that out and return it to a staff member before you leave today the. we also encourage you to pick up copies of the other resources, which are available at a table -- on a table outside the meeting room. to begin, i would like to turn to steve goss. . >> -- [applause] >> thank you. thank you for setting this up and allowing us to comment are to you about a social security disability program. i assume everybody in that room knows that social security is a broad -- the social security disability program serves almost 9 million people and another

couple million who are dependent of those workers. it is a big program that serves a lot of people. what i can really speak to, probably most affected with commendable easily, is the first of the deed of questions that are raised today. why more people are climbing are applying for social security benefits. let me address that in the context of the projections that we have made it working for or board of trustees at -- in the administration and you're working with our revisory board and their technical panel and developing assumptions in projections into the future of what the cost of social security, the retirement system, and its ability system, will be looking like. -- in the disability system will be looking like. there are two boys we can address the question of having the runoff in claims and people applying for disability.

the first relates to the fact that we have had a recent pretty significant recession. as you all know. the recession resulted in a lot of people becoming unemployed. we went up to 10%. when people become unemployed, they seek a way to have income. people who qualify for disabled worker benefits go and a pie. -- one apply. we had an increasing number of people starting to receive disability benefits. we express this and something called a disabled worker incidence rate. that is what you see on this chart. it is the number of people getting disabled benefits the by the number of people who are insured and could get the benefits if they qualify. at the time of the recession, there is a run-up in the number of people getting benefits. this is a temporary phenomenon from a cyclical economic downturn. we are projecting that the number of new disability claims

to become beneficiaries went up. it will be coming back down. you can see the red line on here and that is showing what we were projecting for the number of people starting to get disability benefits. there was a recession and that changes everything. we had a big increase in the number of people coming out that exceed what we had. number of these people will be people who might not have never filed for disability benefits. they might have been able to retain employment status. other people are people who might have started to get benefits two or three years later as their personal medical impairment deteriorated further. this is the first effect we might talk about in terms of an increase in the number of people claiming disability. this is a cyclical effect. a longer-term affect, if we will really -- if we will, speaks to what mark mentioned. the solvency of the program. the longer-term effect for that

the solvency depends on this classic relationship between the numbers of beneficiaries and the number of people staying in with the tax rates are. solvency for the social security from -- we have two different trust funds. the survivors insurance and we have the disability insurance trust fund. that latter one is the one we're talking about today. and this chart, we are showing what the trust fund ratios are. that is a ratio of the amount of money we have in reserves/the annual cost of the program. it is how many years could we pay out of just the reserves that are retained and of course, we do not have to pay our benefits out of that because we have income coming in all the time. you on this projections that for the old age and survivors insurance program and the 2011 trustees' report, we are looking to be good until 2838. if we with the funds together,

we would be good until about 2036. also, the disability insurance trust fund, which is a separate legal entity so we have to pay attention to that, is projected in our 2011 report to become exhausted in 2018. now, up marc mentioned the correctional budget office and the president's budget are projecting earlier date. you should understand that since the time of our development of the assumptions and projections for the 2011 trustees' report, which was is you last may 13, the something's happened here we had a run-up in inflation early in 2011. we ended up having a cost-of- living adjustment of 3.6% instead of 0.7% that we had been estimating. the price of gasoline went up. we all know what that does to the price level everything. we had almost a 3% higher boost for 2012 and that will persist for years into the future because that's stays with

people. at the same time, by the way, and 2011, the level of average taxable earnings subject to our payroll taxes grew by about 1.5% less than we had been projecting. the combination of a bigger benefit level at a lower earnings level resulted in some negative affects for the trust funds. you can anticipate our upcoming trustees' report will probably have a little bit sooner date for trust fund exhaustion for disabilities than the 2018. the bottom line is that 2018, 2016, cbo, they're both dates that are soon. people who do a lot of work in this building and the next two buildings are paying a lot of attention to this and will make changes coming in the not too distant future. the one thing you might notice on this graph on the blue line, which is the trust fund ratio for the disability insurance program in particular, there was a time back in 1994 when it was

heading down quite sharply, -- it was heading down quite sharply. it bounces after then answered heading back up. what actually happened at that time was that the congress simply in and did something that we have referred to as a payroll tax reallocation. they took the total payroll tax, which at that time was 12.4%. employers and employees each pay 6.2. that split. there reallocated more of that from the oasi fun do the di fund and that equalized the funds and close to the di to start going back up again. right after that was enacted in 1994, our next trustees' report projected that trust running- gen would be in the year 2016. it turned out that was a pretty good guess.

this -- this speaks to the solvency for these programs. the reason we describe this as the solvency, because solvency in the context of social security really just means the ability to pay for schedule benefits in full and and timely fashion. in order to do that, we have to have money. the social security trust funds do not have the ability to borrow if it does not have the cash reserves to pay for things, it may be can borrow. they cannot do that by law. when we see the numbers dropping, as you do towards 2036 or even earlier before the di trust fund, that is a problem congress has to address. we should mention that for that di fund as of 2018, assuming nothing were done and we reached exhaustion, we would still have enough continuing in, coming in

from taxes that are scheduled in a lot to pay for 86% of the schedule benefits. it is not as if the trust fund goes out of business and we do not have any more benefit payments. we would be 14% short of the funds necessary to pay the full benefits in a timely manner. if we go to the next slide, this gives a little bit different look. rather than looking at the trust funds and seeing how they look a relative to solvency, this next life gives you a look at what the cost of the oesi and di loks terms do gdp, all the goods and services we produce. that will represent the ultimate basis for providing everything that we all consumed from day to day. including everything that our beneficiaries consume and receive in the form of their benefits. you, when you look at this, the alliance for the esi -- oesi fund and the combined, the

percentage of gdp in has been pretty constant for the combined programs. 4.3% of gdp since 1975. over the next 20 years, it will go up. it will shift to a higher level. the reason has been much discussed. the fact that we had to drop the birthrate, the baby boomers will retire -- we have a fundamental shift in the age distribution of our population. while this will be happening over the next 20 years, for our retirement program, you can see in a subtle way on this, the disability insurance program has are the happen. as we go to the next slide, you get a better look at it. this slide shows you the fact

that the cost of disability insurance has 30 risen from 1975 until 2010. you the cost of the program, which is the blue line, has been rising pretty dramatically. you the above rider on where we are right now. that is because of the recession. there has been a general rise in the cost of the program as a percentage of gdp. we project that will be stabilizing, maybe even declining going into the future. the question of course for us when we're making projections is, why has this happened? what should we believe will be happening in the future? we look at addressing this issue and what the drivers of social security disability costs really are. in regard to that, we look at it and one of the first things that comes up is the number of workers we have for each

beneficiary. back when the baby boomers were in the prime working age is, we had a lot of workers for every beneficiary and that made the cost as a percentage of gdp relatively low. you how we are now moving across time into a position of having a much lower ratio of workers per beneficiary. this is happening and has happened precisely as the baby boomers have moved from where they were 20 years ago, ages 25 to 44, there is not a lot of visibility, but people work. to ages 45 to 64, which is where the baby boomers are essentially now. those are ages which are prime ages for people receiving disability benefits. so, let me flip to refer to as our first costs. and beyond those demographic

factors. the first one of these drivers is just being in short. being a person of an age where you can receive disability benefits is not enough to get benefits. you have to actually be insured. there are certain work requirements. you the president of the population, male and female, that has disability insurance. it has been constant for men. 75%. we projected to stay there. nevertheless 20 years, the president -- the percentage of women has risen quite dramatically. the reason for that is there are certain work requirements and there is a recent see requirements. if you have had to work out of the last five or 10 years. in the past, women did not satisfy the work requirement. we have moved over the last 25 years to a point where women are essentially at parity with men in terms of satisfying the work requirement. we have moved up towards women being as much injured and we

project that will continue. -- insured and we will protect that will continue. the other thing is giving you are ensured, what is the probability will come disabled -- become disabled and get the benefits? we can see the blue line is males and that bounces a round lot for lots of reasons. he is staying in there a little bit over 5 per 1000. females, however, if we go back to the 1990's time. , that has been driving -- the u.s., however, if we go back to the 1990's, that has been driven lower. -- higher. they are at a parity with men. it both of these factors are ones where women have moved up to parity. we do not expect a crossover.

this change has occurred. we do not expect further changes. this is an interesting slide you might want to look like later. this is essentially a slide show and the ups and downs of our disability costs. some of the reasons for it, also . recessions have a lot to do with this. there have been a number of changes in the nature of how we define disability. going a little bit further on these drivers. the effect of these drivers has resulted in our having disability prevalence rates, which is the percentage of people who are in short -- ensured that are actually receiving benefits. our prevalence rates have been rising for males and females over the last 20 years and he will not be surprised to see we are projecting them to be flat in the future. the drivers we have been talking of, the aging of the baby brunn, is increasing incidence rates for females, have all really

happened. already. you, for the males, where most of these have not been operating the, the male prevalence rates have been rising, too. that brings us to one more driver that i would like to put up here to show you. one other thing that has been happening in our disability program is there has been a shift in our disability incidents towards a higher extent of visibility incidents at younger ages. it is used to be mainly people 50 and over. we had sun -- we had an increase in the number of people in younger ages. back in 1980, for men and women, the disability incident rate was only about one-fifth. 20% as large for people ages 25 to 44. as compared to the incidence rate for people ages 45 to 64. by 2010 come out and we project it will bottom out, that ratio has changed.

the shift toward more of our people coming out of the disability rolls at younger ages means that they will tend to be receiving benefits for a longer amount of time. assuming they do not recover. let me just like to one last slide. i will skip over a couple. the one i would like to to show you is the history and what our projections are for once people start to receive disability benefits, they stop receiving disability benefits if they reach retirement age. our disabled workers have a chance of dying. they also have a chance of recovering. the recovery rate has been around 1% of people in our disability rolls. we project it will stay at that level. since i am out of time, i will just completely conclude with repeating one side you a card -- was like you have are easing, showing you what our projections

are. -- one side you have already seen, showing you what our projections are. we believe that the components of that increase have basically completed themselves and the cost will be pretty stable into the future. the extent to which changes are necessary, we think, should be looked at in that light. i will stop there and pass the torch. >> thank you. next, we will hear from lisa. >> good morning. thank you for the great presentation. i am going to start by talking a little bit about the importance of the social security disability insurance program to people with disabilities. it is vitally important. it provides critical income support for many people -- if

lives many people out of poverty. almost half of ssdi beneficiaries rely on these benefits for more than 90% of their total income. it is the one thing that keeps many people with disabilities from leading lives as abject poverty and homelessness. i want to share stories of some people who receive social security insurance benefits where in both cases, it did actually prevent them from being homeless. the first is a man named henry antti was in -- henry, and he was in his 50's. he had cardiac problems. he paid into the social security system and urged his disability benefits. until the point at which his heart condition made it no longer held before him to work. he applied for benefits -- he stopped working and did not apply for benefits right away. he tried to make a go of it without them.

when through his 401k, all of this savings became homeless -- all of his savings, became homeless, and live his life in his car. after being quickly approved for benefits, he got an apartment and his ssdi benefits allowed him to continue to have a home after that. another story is a woman named angela and she had type 1 diabetes that she developed as a teenager. she works for -- she worked for many years and eventually to, she became ill with diabetes- related complications. she continued to work which you probably should have stopped. she ended up being hospitalized. while she was in hospital, she applied for social security disability benefits. she was approved for them. in the meantime, she did not have the kind of savings to rely on that henry did. she had to get help from a charity to help her keep her apartment. they paid her rent for her for a couple of months. i teller benefits that approved

and then she was able to use our social security disability insurance benefits to help pay for rent. the importance of these benefits to people with disabilities cannot be overstated. while i have the of -- steve did a great job of playing this out by one to go over a little bit of a recap for you. more women qualify for benefits and has led to a big increase. the baby boomers entering their high-visibility years, the increase in the normal retirement age is something that steve did not actually mentioned, but as you all know, the retirement age is going up to age 66. for people born after 1960, it will be 67. the way that benefits for is you get them until you reach retirement age. for every month that the retirement age goes up, that is another month that benefits cannot of the disability trust

fund and head of the retirement trust fund. -- instead of the retirement fund. that does also contribute to the increase in cost and the growth in the numbers of people receiving disability benefits. as was said, we really hit the top of the increase. it will level off and then it will go down. there are other factors that do contribute, as well. as steve also mentioned, the economy is one of them. we expect applications and beneficiaries to increase during times of economic downturns and steve should do that charred and you can track when there are recessions. we see an increase in the number of applications than people who get approved. employers are less likely to hire people and fire people in terms of a weak economy when

there are a surplus of workers applying for every job -- in terms of a weak economy. when there is a surplus of workers applying, there are concerns over productivity. all of the data shows that people with disabilities are no less productive than their non- disabled conference. there remains a perception among some employers. when times are tough, it is even less likely that people will get hired. if they have to let them go, some of the perceptions around the productivity of people with disabilities can lead them to be the first let go. it is hard to find a job if you are laid off of your right person with a disability and that is especially true if you are an older worker. now you have two potential things that an employer might consider when they're looking at a huge pool of applicants to place in the job. they might be-, even though there are not any real concerns.

employers make different choices because of the perceptions. there are a couple of other reasons i want to highlight why go rolls have grown in the past couple of decades. in the past decade, we have seen a decline in the number of people with health insurance coverage. a decline in employers offering health insurance coverage to workers. if you are a person with a disability, having health insurance coverage is not an option. is life or death. you need to be able to get your treatments, a four-door prescription medication. if you cannot get health insurance through a job, people get health insurance through applying fors. -- applying for ssdi. my choice is debt or applying for ssdi, i am going to apply for benefits. there is a less forgiving workplace. the emphasis on global competition and being competitive and again, the productivity concerns that i

discussed a few months ago make the workplace less forgiving and people -- it is harder for people who are receiving ssdi benefits to compete in not less forgiving workplace. most of what i said is based on misperceptions. whether the perception is true or not, if it means you are not going to get hired, you are not going to get a job. the americans with disabilities act has done a fantastic job in helping people with disabilities get reasonable accommodations they need and be able to sue when they are fired. it is also available for discrimination in hiring. unfortunately, it is extremely hard to prove, in terms of discrimination and hiring. especially if you have 1000 applications for a particular job. it is hard to prove that. there is still discrimination in hiring and that has not been limited by the americans with

disabilities act. and, to a much lesser extent, but still to some extent, there are other programs that require people to apply for social security disability benefits. there are a handful of workers compensation programs that require you to apply for ssdi and then they all said your workers' compensation and benefit amount based on the receipt of disability benefits. the same is true for private disability insurance. many policies will require someone receiving private disability insurance benefits to also apply for ssdi. many have the same kind of offset. what is this increase me for the future? as steve mentioned, is leveling off. it is not expected to continue into the future. it does not mean that the program is not affordable or not sustainable. sustainability and affordability are both a matter of priorities.

american say that they would rather see their taxes for social security go up than to see any benefit cuts and is up for doing that. as steve also mentioned, we can solve this by just reallocating some of the current taxes in the retirement trust fund into the disability fund as we have done in the past. obviously, the political situation today is a little different than in 1994, but that is a matter of political will. i want to go over the if you beneficiary characteristics. people who receive benefits are very diverse. you the list of different types of disabilities that people have. some are terminal, as we have discussed. some have very debilitating disabilities. when we think about reforming

social security disability, we have to keep in mind that this is not a homogeneous group. what works for one person will not work for a another. every individual is different and their situation is different. their condition is different. the track their condition will take is different. it is an individual situation and we have to keep that in mind. some beneficiaries are terminally ill. one and five males and one and seven females die within five years of receiving benefits. they tend to be older. in 2010, the average age was 53. seven in 10 beneficiaries are over 50. 3 and 10 are over 60. many have low educational achievement. two-thirds have a high school diploma or less. almost one-third did not complete high school. when we think about trying to find work for folks in this changing economy, we have to

keep in mind what the characteristics of people receiving benefits are. a significant percentage work and become self exporting -- self supporting. ssdi beneficiary should be given every sort of support to go to work. as i have just gone through a lot of the reasons why, it is unlikely that a large percentage of -- have the capacity for ongoing work at a significant level. ssdi does not present a disincentive to work. the benefits are modest. it is an average of $1,110 per month. in january of 2012, that is more than 10% less than a person working full-time at minimum wage. it is a modest benefit. ssdi is functioning as it should. it is providing vital wage replacement of millions of people with disabilities and their families who need it. more must be that to help people

with disabilities stay at work if they acquire a disability is and more should be done to some pride -- to supply services to maintain employment. that is not the role of an income support program in is not the role of a ssdi. we should do everything to help people with disabilities. the employment situation is not good and we should do more, but that is not the role of an income support program that people pay into and turn a benefit through. i want to end with some principles for reform. if you think about reform, we ought to really think about these as we evaluate, from the perspective of people with disabilities, as we evaluate their proposals. any should preserve the structure of ssdi program, including the definition of disability. it is appropriate. it is a wage replacement program for people who do not have the work capacity. the definition of disability and

the structure of the program are for real for that function. the efforts to increase opportunities should not be achieved through tightening eligibility criteria. narrowing health care benefits, removing the entitlement to benefits, or devolving responsibility to the states will not work. ssdi benefit riz she said that -- receive should not be a time limited. we cannot predict the course of disability. that is what government weather and not a person can work. with their health conditions. there is no time limit on that we cannot predict it. which should not try to put limits on it. work activities and work preparation activity should be voluntary for ssdi beneficiaries. a person is in the best position to decide whether or not this is a healthy thing to do for a person with a disability, not any other arbitrary work climate

or work requirement that we would set for them. we should give the social security administration resources to perform all of the program integrity functions before we begin reform. we should allow them to have enough resources to complete disability determinations in a timely manner cup. -- a timely manner. we should continue to ensure that people are entitled to benefits and we should provide them with adequate resources to prevent over payments to people who do try to work. that is a huge disincentive to people. i have a couple more slides, talking about the specific reforms. i encourage you to take a look at them. i have run out of time. i just want to close by reiterating how important the ssdi program is to people with disabilities. as we think about any type are reform, we have to remember that

these benefits represent the difference between being poor and homeless and being able to live independently in the community for millions of people with disabilities and their families. thank you. >> thank you. [applause] next, we turn to dave stapleton. cracks in thank you. thanks to -- thanks for setting this up. i am glad to see a great crowd here. about the financing in the history of the ssdi, which is the issue that is bringing us here. things look a little bit better in the future than they have in the past. i agree with that. we also heard that the ssdi is extremely important for beneficiaries. i have fundamental

disagreements with lisa on the issue of structure of the program. it is not just a the ssdi program along, but it needs to be seen in the context of the larger disability policy picture. i am not where to focus on ssdi. i'm going to talk about the disability policy and why is telling people and taxpayers. i am going to pressure over a number of ideas for reform. there is night time 2 -- enough time to look at all of them. we're not ready for reform and we need to do things in a measured way to move the ball forward. a lot of my remarks are based on it -- day -- based on a paper that i wrote.

there is a paper on the table there. the research was sponsored by the national institute for disability research. i have to give them credit, but you cannot give them blame. current policies are failing people with disabilities. exhibit number one is this chart, which has been around and keeps getting updated. it looks at the relative employment rate for people with disabilities relative to those without disabilities. it appears -- it goes back to 1981. the first year we had data. there has been this day decline in the inclement rates -- in the employment rates. it peaked at about 38% in 1998. now it is down to 22% in 2010. a long with that decline has been the decline in the relative

household incomes for people with disabilities. hear, the situation is a little bit better. income support plays a big poured in y -- a big part in why that is better. there has been a decline from 64% to about 52%. the other really important set of information about how current policies are killing people with disabilities concerns poverty rates for people with disabilities. there was a recent study looking at the people who are in long-term policy. people is house of incomes are below the federal poverty line for a least three years in a row of -- out of four. they found that 65% of those people who were in long-term poverty have a significant visibility of some sort. we have also done work using social security surveys that we

-- that we use for the beneficiary population. from to dozen 5, we found a -- 2005, we found that 50% of a ssdi all recipients live in households whose incomes were below the poverty line. if we just looked at ssdi only, it is more like 30%. that is high priority. -- poverty. there has been researched about the hardships that people with disabilities who live impoverished households experience. they experience not going out without food it, not being able to get medicine and that sort of thing. much more frequently with the people without disabilities who live in poverty.

and this is another reason to consider disability policy broadly and whether it needs restructuring. the thing that is driving interest in disability policy is not these factors, which i think should be. they have been around for a long time and we have known about them for a long time. it is the fiscal situation. it is the perception that current policies are failing taxpayers. now, we will look at the ssdi program. these numbers will be consistent with what steve told you earlier. this charge just showed you the number of beneficiaries on but road in ssdi. i want to focus attention on 1980 and the time after 1980. 1980 and 81 was the last time the congress and the administration were so concerned about expenditures to this program. that there was significant cuts in eligibility. you that after 1980, there was a

significant drop in the number of people. this happened during the worst recession that we had had since the great depression up until that point. it is still the worst except for the -- 1. -- the recent one. there was such a backlash that congress did not want to -- congress enacted amendments to the social security act, wi which it reversed what happened earlier. some people would say if more than reversed it. it is difficult to determine. the growth in the roles of security modern and -- we had a strong economy and on 1990. starting in 1990, there was this generation of growth in the number of people and that has continued pretty steadily ever since then. for the last three decades. of course, as he explained, a lot of the growth has to deal with a number of people who are injured, especially among women.

it has to do with the aging of the baby boom in population. my generation. we are more prone to disabilities than we were when we were younger. unfortunately. we did some calculations to show you what the effects of those factors are. that is what this red line is showing you. we angered the red line in 1980. what it shows you is how the number of people would have grown is the prevalence rates for those with disability insurance -- the prevalence for them on the program within the age category stayed the same as they were in 1980. what you isre -- is there would have been obvious growth, but not nearly as much as we have seen since the early 1990's. the difference between the values in 2010 is 28%.

if we roll back the clock to the prevalence rates from 1980, we would have to point to fewer -- 2.2 million fewer people. that is $50 billion in benefits if you count both the ssdi and the medicare benefits. that is a big number. it turns out that medicare benefits and the ssdi benefits received by ssdi beneficiaries is less than half of what the federal government has done -- spent for people with disabilities currently. of these numbers are from a paper that i did that was published last year. we tried to do an accounting of all the money that the federal government spends to support the working age population with disabilities. i will not go into that. the bottom line for fiscal year

20 -- 2008, the last year we have complete data, was $357 billion. that was the growth after inflation adjusted of 30.6%. we did the exercise for fiscal year 28 -- 2002. the total amount to 12 -- the total amounts to 12% of all federal outlays. ssdi and medicare is only 5%. along with those programs, we have veterans benefits of being a growing number. there are also lots of other little programs that contribute to these totals. i think that the fiscal issues, the overall fiscal issue with the federal budget is going to drive attention to these programs because they are a large share of federal outlays.

it will be difficult to protect these programs. that will drive more than the issues that are already out there, the policy debate about what we should do with disability policy. we have tried a lot of incremental things to improve disability policy. prove employment specifically with this ability -- with disabled people. there was the ada in 1990 and every have act. - the rehab act. in 1999, but the work incentives improvement act had ssdi provision specifically had and ssi to increase employment. you look at the numbers and they have not paid off in the way that we expected -- hoped they would. some expected it would. why is that the case? there are lots of very specific reasons. i think there are a couple of

fundamental problems. we are laying complexity on -- laboring complexity on top of complexity. we worked on the ticket to work evaluation and, you know, the ticket concept is very simple. when you overlay and over these programs, it becomes very difficult for social security administration to administer it. we are still stuck with what we call it benefits first work later approached. in order to get most benefits supported, you have to get on ssdi first. that drives everybody towards those as the programs to support when they run into trouble. such as in the recent recession. there have been many proposals for reform spirit a number of them concern early intervention for workers. this slide -- the social security advisory board in 1996 wrote a report about pursuing

these ideas. this more specific proposal, the work insurance program that is, being american -- that is called being american is a public program. it ensures that people can stay at work. very recently, a couple of people for the -- proposed short-term privacy disability insurance paid for by individuals and insurance companies. it would be required. the idea is to give employers any individuals more assistant -- more chance to stay in the work force. most social insurances our experience-based. not medicare. but certainly workers' compensation. we have talked more about more

fundamental reforms. i think there are a lot of people who would say this early approaches are interesting and probably should be looked at more, but they are not going to be enough to really reverse the trends that we have seen for the well-being of people with disabilities. we have looked at some of these, addressing work disincentives more comprehensively. one idea is to replace the inability to work criteria with a work capacity program that determines eligibility. you work at the capacity of individuals and it is only once it is clear that you cannot tap into that that you give them the long term benefits. the idea of changing the compensation principles from wage replacement to the extra cost of disability is one that has some place in europe already. we have never done that in the u.s., but it is interesting. there has been a lot of interest from the general government

accountability office and we have picked up this concerning consolidation of programs. one of the fundamental problems is the fact that programs are so fragmented. there is also the idea of devolving more responsibility to states or localities. there are a lot of people who are worried about that because they do not trust state governments to do the right thing and they think of the pre- ssdi days. we have taken a look at this and we think is important to consider other options. it seems incredibly important sense of local people will be delivering services to people with disabilities. they need responsibility to administer benefits. and also have a strong oversight capacity. i think one thing we can agree on is all of the changes

proposed are not ready to go. we cannot rule them out the way they are. it would be irresponsible to do that. they could end up costing more than our current programs. more problematical, they could really harm people with disabilities. we do not know about what we are doing. we need a long-term program, at least 10 years, to start pursuing some of these ideas, try to build the evidence based on the political consensus and develop policy reforms. that requires an enormous amount of work and research. it will be collaborative. there are many agencies that have to be involved. as well as state and local agencies and private organizations. in order to do that, you really need legislation that promotes that. just to close, it seems to me that we really have two viable options. one, we can continue with the current programs the way they are or given the countries fiscal situation, i think that

means trimming benefits in the decades moving forward. how incredibly mean small efficiency gains out of the individual program. -- we can probably ease small efficiency gains out of the program. the alternative is launching a long-term structural reform process where we do the groundwork to build the evidence base so we can move forward. maybe that will buy us time to preserve the existing programs. thank you. [applause] >> thank you. we will hear two brief responses to the presentations. following that, we move into question and answer. we have structured the morning to have plenty of time for your questions and our conversations with the panel . be thinking about questions. our first response comes from the director of the public policy office at the arc of the united states. >> thank you.

i am pleased to be here today. i will move quickly because i know we have certain amount of time. i sound steve's information very helpful in describing exactly what is happening in the program. i want to say that i agree with lisa's principles on reform. i thought they were very useful and absolutely on target. i did want to comment a little bit on david's proposal. i want to go into a little bit of what was not covered in the slides, but in more detail in his written proposal. david has actually proposed that there be a program that includes a disability allowance. as i read it, it would be less than what is currently under current law. since the benefits are already

so low, why in the world are beneficiaries intended to live on? how will they cover their income needs for food and shelter? serving more people in the same program -- i have very serious concerns about what this means. the proposal does not seem to guarantee health insurance, except for people in one category out of three categories. it is very unclear where the money would come from for the other folks to purchase their own insurance on the open market. when you are talking about people who are already very financially vulnerable and there are questions of affordability, i think that is a big issue. one of the proposals is that there would be a group of people

who are deemed to be -- to have low work capacity. from my perspective, i think this would be limiting and labeling people in a way that is not productive. i think many people do try to work and i think the ssdi programs shows us that even with limited work history and what many people might think of as low worked capacity, people do attempt to work and they are successful at it. in supplementing their benefits. i would not want to see something that would discourage that or in some prevent people from trying to improve the situation that they are in. frankly, i do not see the advantages of creating three new categories. what i do see in terms of evaluating people, putting them in three categories, is a whole new administration process. i can see all of the appeals that are associated with that. if you do not like the category you were put into in the

administrative costs that go with that. those are my reactions to the deeper and of that proposal. i want to take the opportunity to make a few comments of my own. i think it is important to remember that the basic purpose of ssdia d ssi -- and ssi is income support for those limited due to disability. the intention is to replace income to provide food and shelter. it may be temporary or permanent. the programs have evolved over time. people who depend on these programs are in a very financially vulnerable situation. they need the cash support. they need health care. they cannot necessarily handle

major swings in policy decisions or in cash flow or health-care eligibility. on the other hand, attempts to improve the program, congress has been faced with issues of cost estimates. this is a huge program. every time there is a great idea, the changes have had to be incremental because the costs to addressing any of the pieces of the program are so big. unintended consequences are that things just cannot be done in a big way. often, we end up with what you're complexity. i do agree with you that there are layered complexity is in the program. we did attempt, when the section 1619 program was made permanent in the ssi program how we attempted to have that added to the title of two program.

we were not able to do it then. in the days of working on the early part of the senator jeffords bill there were provisions to do that. permanent medicare eligibility was part of >> that would include some of the elements of continued attachment to medicare and simplification and removal of penalties. it would join up with the offer currently being tested.

these things have worked in the ssi program. we know they work. they are incremental. people with disabilities have been asking for them. decades. i believe it is time to see these things put into operation. thank you. [applause] >> now we will hear from the senior public policy strategist at nish doing advocacy on behalf of disabled individuals. tony? >> good morning.

thank you for the opportunity to speak. [no audio] for some people, [unintelligible] for other people, it means just getting by, managing complaints, medical conditions, keeping your family together, keeping a roof

over your head. daily activities of that sort. even the gao has found people with disabilities face multiple barriers to employment, including a lack of skills, training barriers at the workplace, no reasonable accommodations, and of course discrimination. i want to give two quick examples of how this works. you have a person with servile policy that has a speech impairment, uses a wheelchair and a speech boarc.

they have an advanced degree in economics. if that person were to blose the wheelchair or speech board or did not have the opportunity to get the advanced degree, they would not be able to work. the second person with quadriplegia 4 level uses a power wheelchair that probably costs in the neighborhood of $25,000, uses and adapted van, uses personal services at the workplace and at home that will be another $20,000 or so annually into the cost. you can see if any of those

tools or supports are withdrawn, the person is not going to be able to work. they are going to be on the disability rolls until that can be rectified. there are major structural reforms proposed, comprehended disincentive reforms, program consolidation, and more state control. i will concede the point that the system must be improved to facilitate the work. i want to put out two basic principles of my own. i think they are widely shared by the disability community. the first principle is that reform begins with "do no harm.

" we do not want anyone to be more disadvantaged after reforms than they were before the reforms started. secondly, the disability community point of view is that it is not too easy to get on ssdi, it is too hard to exit ssdi. the disability community has been active in trying to make changes to help people go to work, give them the support they need, the training, the education. the question is, which problem are we trying to solve right now? we see conflicting conclusions can be drawn from the data. i was not able to definitively

tell if the rolls are growing or if they will be stable in the future. that is an important question. should our incremental ideas that were not adopted be tried again? should it be expected that systemic change succeeds now when it did not succeed before? is it possible to impose new taxes on employers to fund some of the ideas being floated? these ideas, especially the ones addressed at disincentives reform, are the way to go. incremental, i believe, is the way to go.

we will not be able to convince the congress that vast changes are appropriate at this time. if the economy turns around, that will help. without these incremental changes, especially to the work incentives, the problem is not going to be resolved. thank you very much. [applause] >> thank you, tony. we are going to open the floor for q&a. the session is live on c-span and being recorded. it is going to be poor and you find a way to a microphone so we can capture your questions. please introduce yourself before asking a question. do as i say and not as i did when i forgot to turn the microphone at the beginning of

the session. i will kick it off with the first question to steve and anyone else who might want to touch on this. one effect of the recession has been a dramatic increase in older americans without health insurance that are too young for medicare. 9 million people aged 50 to 64 are uninsured. that is a figure that is up from 5.3 million as recently as 2002. is it possible to find the link and cause and effect relationship in the rise in general in the lack of health insurance coverage and the rise in disability applications? can one quantify that or not? the follow-up is with the

affordable care act up in the air, that is one of the most important things the aca will do in getting those people covered again. i wondered what the relationship looks like on health insurance for older americans. >> that is a really good question. it is a complicated one. we do have -- if someone has health insurance in their employment, they can get a 24- month continuation where they can continue to buy it, but they have to pay the whole bill. when people have lost their job, it is difficult to do. the social secured disability insurance program is even a five-month waiting period before your benefits start, you have 24 months beyond that before the

medicare benefits start to come in. it contributes to the lack of insured status. many people have looked at improving the prospects for the cost and improve the prospects for people who have impairment that make it difficult to work, to try to find better ways to help people have greater work opportunities, but also to provide additional assistance to people before they start receiving disability benefits in terms of having access to preventive care. the affordable care act would have -- will have big effects. the affordable care act will provide people with the adequate. much more generally than we have now. that may result in fewer people

filing for disability benefits if they maintain their health status in better condition. on the other hand, it would remove the disincentive we have now of having to wait 24 additional months to get medicare because people would have greateser access to health care benefits. which way that will play out is not clear. >> i would say i do not know if you can track it. we do know anecdotally that people do delay getting help care because they do not have the funds to go to the doctor or get health coverage when they need it. the health conditions exacerbate to the point where they are more costly when they finally show up at a physician's office or the emergency room of a hospital. even when the four will care act

goes into effect, -- in -- even when the affordable health care act goes into effect, people will have to be able to pay for their plans if they are not on medicaid. it is still an issue being able to have the funding to pay for it. the issue of the two-yr plus five months waiting period is a big issue and will hopefully be addressed so people may not even need to consider medicare. that would be a tremendous step ahead. there are still issues. health care is not going to be totally eliminated for people to not have to consider their pocketbooks. >> the expansion of medicaid is dramatic. the rest would be the exchanges with various levels of subsidies for premiums.

let's turn to the floor. do we have anybody with a microphone yet? >> i could add to what marty said. importance of health care for people with disabilities cannot be understated -- cannot be overstated. when a ticket to work legislation was passed, congress created an option for states to enact a medicaid by in program -- buy-in program that will allow people with disabilities to get affordable health care that provides the services they need to continue working. most states have taken up that option. they allow for different levels of earnings. some have strict resource tests. as a country, if we want to address the health care situation for working people with disabilities, we should support the national medicaid

by and -- buy-in that would allow people with disabilities to work, to save, to be independent in the community, and never risk losing their attachment to the vital health care and support that allow them to live in the community in the first place. they occur at the state-by- state level. some have generous income limits and resource limits. some have strict income and resource limits. regardless of how much you earn or save, a person with a disability cannot self-finance services and support they need to live independently in the community. the best way to ensure it happens is to create a program that allows people to buy medicaid regardless of their income or resources to allow them to have an uninterrupted access to services and support

they need. >> let's go to the floor for questions. we will start right here. please introduce yourself. >> i am working at the government institute. the topic of the event was why the number of people on ssdi has increased and what we can do about that. people talked a lot about reforms. i think what was missing in the debate was the notion that because we have this increase we need reforms. we see this huge increase in people. is this good or bad? in one sense, is good because you can ensure more people. the poverty rates are high. you provide important income benefits to them.

the counterpoint is that this is sad. the program is expanding. we need to shrink it. it may not be related. we have to think about reforms independent of the size of the program. thank you. >> this gets back to the beginning of my talk. it seems the real reasons to consider reform are not the fiscal issues and number of people on the rolls. it is the economic status, the climate of employment. it is harder for people with disabilities to be self- sufficient as time goes on. that is what the statistics show. many live in poverty. it seems that is the fundamental reason to consider reforms.

>> i think i said during my presentation but i completely agree the employment situation for people with disabilities is not good. we need to do more as a country to assist people with disabilities to go to work when they are able and up to their capacity, whatever that is for the individual. if you go back to one of the slides, one area where we have cut spending and seen a change is on employment, training, and education services. if we are serious about helping people with disabilities go to work, we should start with the vital income support program. we need to look at how we can improve special education, the outcomes of people in schools, improved job training programs,

and how we can improve the support programs. my answer to the second question is, there is a lot that should be done, but it does not have anything to do with the social security disability insurance program that provides income support. that is what it does. that is what it should do. we should do more to help people get jobs, keep jobs, and not have to apply for benefits in the first place. >> one of the problems i see is even if a person gets a job, there are these extraordinary expenses people with significant disabilities have to cover such as rent, mortgage, food, basic transportation. with the personal assistant at home and work, the cost of the vehicle, the cost of the

wheelchair, the communication device. these are valuable tools, but they are way outside the protocol of many people with disabilities to purchase. there are some thoughts about turning disability insurance cash flow into the supplemental income stream to help pay for some of these things. that would take a radical departure from where we are today. either through the tax code or additional support, we are going to have to find a way to help people with disabilities pay for these devices and services. >> when we talk about reforming a program, there are two ways to

do that. we're projecting the cost will be more than the scheduled taxes coming in. one way is to find a way to pull down the costs. the other way is to come up with more revenue to pay for the costs. the definition of disability for the insurance program is a strict definition applied strictly. there have been changes over time, but it continues to be a strict definition of disability. at retirement age, we have only about 10% to 15% of the population insured receiving those benefits. going forward, that has to be something we consider. are we going to pay for what we have or find ways to pull back on the cost? the numbers we put up our in consonance. dave had the chart that showed

the number of disabled worker beneficiaries is 28% higher than the age-specific prevalence rates. the likelihood of being disabled has stayed the same over 20 years. the difference is because women have had increased incidence relative to men. they have moved to parity. both men and women have had a shift towards younger ages. in my office, we have fantastic people. we're understanding more of why there has been the shift toward disability at younger ages. it would be a real shift in the right direction to understand that the costs we have. >> if you look at a general job market and the lack we have, with joblessness and the slack

in the market, the challenge on the discrimination side seems to be a tall hill to climb. you have rampant discrimination in the workplace based on age. disability was mentioned. we have a lot of workplace discrimination against people who have been out of jobs for a while. if you look at the marketplace congests since -- at the marketplace conditions, it suggests is a big challenge. >> i am from the hiv medicine association. i have a question about the health care reform. 40% of people who have hiv and are receiving care are paid for through medicaid programs. most of those people only receive the benefit after becoming disabled due to their illness. i am wondering to what extent are people who have a preventable disease or a treatable disease who have

lacked health care are driving disability costs, whether that is a factor, whether health care reform will address that. i am wondering how big of a piece of the pie is. is it large or small? >> it is hard to put a number on it. i think it is important. the example you are alluding to is just one example. i indicated we get things backwards. we get them into benefits. a couple of years later, we get them into medicare. in college, we did a paper on beneficiaries into ssdi and medicare and how many did not have insurance. this was data from the 1990's. about 15% did not have any coverage at all. some died before they became

eligible for medicare. what you are saying is an example of how we have things backwards. we do not figure out what people need so they can continue to work and be productive. we let them get into the programs and then we start giving them services such as health insurance. >> i want to respond to that a bit. i do not disagree we ought to provide better services ahead of time, but i will reiterate that does not mean we have to change ssdi. it means we have to change the other programs that make someone go apply for ssdi before they can get access to health care or employment, as opposed to changing the vital income support program that people with disabilities rely on to keep a roof over their head. >> we will take another question. >> i want to follow-up on that.

i was surprised by the two charts on current policies failing taxpayers. essentially too many people are on ssdi. i do not think that is failing taxpayers. i think that is a good thing. i am glad people are getting ssdi. without it, i do not know what would be happening to them. i assume you are saying that they're not too many people getting ssdi, but there should be other things for them in the workplace. i hope that is what you mean and you do not mean we should take 2.2 million people and throw them on the streets. in terms of the workplace, i would like to know how you think we get employers to provide not

just jobs for people with disabilities, but the jobs for people with disabilities that provide the benefits and the supports they need. in these political times, no one seems to want to be required to do anything in the employment sector. do we require the provide adequate health coverage? do we require the provide support -- they provide support? how do we do this? >> i did not mean we should throw 2.2 million people off of the rolls. i agreed largely with lisa. the issue is not reforming the ssdi program. it does provide important benefits. there are larger reforms we could make. because ssdi is the program

available to workers when they have a program -- problem, we have made changes to ssdi to make it more attractive for them to work on it. we would not have to do it if we had something in front of ssdi so that so many people did not get on the program in the first place. as far as getting employers to be more interested in hiring people with disabilities, that is tough to do. this gets back to one of marty's comments and the paper we wrote. we would assume it would be implemented and the basic thing for everybody. we probably should have consulted with the supreme court first. it is incredibly important.

i do not think forcing employers to provide health insurance is the best way to do it. that imposes costs on employers. if they are having to foot the costs for employee health care and the employee has to have a lot of health care, why would they want to keep employing that person? it is difficult to find options that would encourage employers to hire people with disabilities, but we have to look at those more carefully whether their tax incentives or other things. people have suggested reducing the payroll tax if you hire somebody with a disability at a level where they would otherwise qualify for a ssdi. that is an example. >> in a broader context, one possibility is what we have

talked about in the context of aging and encouraging people to work longer. provide tax incentives for people to work at lager ages. i would suggest the best of worlds is something in a broader context, sort of a rising tide that floats all boats. we need more economic opportunity, more jobs in general. we have an unemployment rate over 8%. looking forward, it is a series question of competitiveness, and job opportunities in this country. folks with impairment will be at a slight disadvantage, but if we have more jobs available, that will be to the benefit of all of us. we will have more taxable payroll, more money coming in. that is at the root of solving the problems for programs like this.

beyond disability, enhancing job opportunities in general would go a long way. >> to add to that a little, one thing we could do is have a national medicaid buy-in. if employers knew the health care costs would not affect them, that could remove some of the fear. we can encourage the federal government to comply with the executive order on hiring people with disabilities in the federal government. one of the biggest ways we can encourage employers to hire people with disabilities is to show them what good workers people with disabilities are. they have lower absenteeism. they generally have at least as high productivity as their peers. the way to do that is to lead by example. if the federal government were

to become a model employer of people with disabilities, it would do a lot to educate employers about the truth of workers with disabilities. if we could have their health care taken care of, it would remove a lot of the fear and anxiety around hiring people with disabilities. >> let's go to a question on this side of the room. >> i am with america's health insurance plans. i have enjoyed the interesting discussion this morning. i have a question for mr. goss about the rise in the disability population in recent years and the outlook for the future. you mentioned the great recession. both you and dave mentioned the changing participation of women. are you able to offer an opinion on whether some of the rise is a success story in dealing with certain disabling conditions like cancer and hiv?

we have progressed to a point where a survivorship is strikingly higher. perhaps there is a way to progress further to the point where work capacity can be maintained. >> that is an extremely important question. in one sense, what you are saying is exactly right. we have had a success story in many areas with disabling conditions of maintaining people to survive and live a good life, even if they are not able to recover to the point of being able to go back to work. that has contributed to people come on the disability rolls and stay on the rolls surviving longer. that increases the percentage of our population receiving disability benefits. there is no question is a success story.

when people reach 65, if they live longer, that will increase the cost of the retirement program. hopefully, we would agree is a success story if people live longer after the age of 65. >> my name is glenn sure with the u.s. department of labor. i wonder about the substitution effects. some people talk about the rise in the retirement age with health insurance going away for some people being a reason. i wonder if anyone has investigated the evolution of other social insurance programs like workers' compensation and other things where state reductions in benefits may be causing increases in ssdi costs. >> i will mention a couple of

things. one is welfare reform. it was passed in 1996, i believe. there has been a lot of research on the effects of welfare reform on middle income parents obtaining disability benefits, initially ssdi. to the extent they have work experience -- for young people, it does not make a -- take a lot of work experience to qualify for ssdi. part of the rise for women and younger people could be explained by welfare reform. it may be a fairly small amount. workers' compensation has an interesting controversy about research in that area. a couple papers of been published. one finds the tightening of workers' compensation

eligibility and reduction of benefits has increased the number of people on ssdi. another paper finds no relationship. it is difficult to tell which is correct, but it is an important thing to think about. people will have studied changes in other countries see a ripple effect in other social insurance systems. there was a tightening of eligibility in austria in the early 2000's for older workers. they have something equivalent to our vocational factors. they increased the age. they found more people worked at that age level, but they found an income insurance or other types of benefits from the government. >> we have one that operates in

the social security program. when we raised the normal retirement age -- we have done it once and will go up another. the benefits available at 62 -- 80% down to 70%. if you start to receive disability benefits, you get the full benefit without the reduction. shifting it down provides an incentive for people to be more inclined to apply for disability benefits if they may qualify. we take into account in our projections into the future and see that has happened so far. >> i want to point out it is not going to be a complete transfer of people from one program to another. the social security test is very

difficult. it is a very high standard to meet. you have to be aband able to perform activity for one year or that will result in death. not everybody on the other programs is going to be able to meet that high a standard to qualify for social security. it is not a one to one transfer from other programs into social security or ssdi. >> i do not see any more people at microphones, but i do have one more question for steve. in the broader context of social security reforms and the retirement program, when we hear proposals for further changes, we hear about the idea of another retirement age. what would be the impact of that

on the disability program? how do they interact? do you make meaningful gains by a reform like that insofar as what in my due to disability? >> a really good question. usually when we look at reforming or changing the overall social security program, we look at them on a combined basis. when we raise the normal retirement age, one major thing happens. instead of only paying people out of that fund up to 65, we're now paying them out of that fund up to 66. the extra year of benefits paid out of the disability trust fund is one year less paid out of the survivors fund. it is a trade-off. it does not make a huge difference. what does make a difference is the substitution idea we were talking about. when you raise the normal

retirement age by a year, if people decide to take it at the same age they would have otherwise, it lowers the benefit by about 6.5%. they can delayed starting to benefit by one year and get the same monthly allowance for one year less. raising the retirement age clearly does save money overall, but there is an offset on the disability side by virtue of the fact that ages 60 to up to the normal retirement age, disability benefit becomes more attractive financially as opposed to taking the retirement benefit. the net effect of raising the retirement age is clearly a significant savings. >> is administered a cost an issue -- is administrative cost an issue? >> there is that.

the administrative costs for disability benefits are higher than for retirement benefits because of the work that has to be done in making a determination. there are some costs in that regard. >> if i could add a couple of things to that. there are also discussions about not just increasing the retirement age but also the eligibility age which is currently 62. there has been a lot of concern about that because of people with disabilities. not so much that they're going to end up on ssdi. some have suggested we need to make it easier for people to get on ssdi if that were to happen. but many people experience medical problems in their 50's, early 60's. they find it hard to continue to work. they're using early retirement benefits because they are having a hard time continuing to work.

some of those people would get into ssdi, but some would not. one important issue for people with disabilities is there is a retirement policy reform, is what you do about those individuals. we suggested an increase in the earned income tax, some kind of help benefit -- health benefit. there are various things you could do it would be important in the context of retirement policy reform. >> and with the national academy of social insurance. a question for anybody. has there been a marked change in the ratio of mental health related disabilities to physical disabilities? is anyone tracking that in terms of relationship to economic conditions and the

absence of programs to help people not be on ssdi? anybody? >> there were a couple of colorful slides earlier that we did not have time to get into. this question has arisen before. we looked at it carefully. if you look at people who start to receive disability benefits at any given age, younger people coming on the rolls, there's a greater proportion of them that, on our roles with a primary diagnosis of mental illness as opposed to more physical determinants of disability. we found if you look at people aged 25 to 34, the percentage of them coming on the rolls for mental and other reasons has been stable over the last 25 years. that is true for the higher age is also. there's a greater proportion of musculoskeletal impairment.

the distribution of reasons for disability have been stable across the ages. where things have changed are that we've had a relative shift at the average age where disability occurs. we have had more people coming on the rolls at younger ages because they tend to have a higher likelihood of a mental impairment. when people come on at younger ages, they have the prospect of staying on the rolls a long time, until they reach age 66. we have had an increase in the share of our disability population with mental impairment. >> i think we're going to wrap up. i want to thank this terrific panel for their comments. thank you for attending. thank you to c-span for covering the event. fill out the evaluation forms and turn them in before you

leave the room. check the resource table. you can find presentations and other resources about today's event at the website sometime this week. nasi.org. thanks to everybody. [applause] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] >> the hud secretary talks about the obama administration's handling of the housing market. he talks about what is ahead for fannie mae and freddie mac. "newsmakers" airs at 10:00 a.m. and 6:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. the head of the pension benefit corporation talk about traditional plans and the need for more flexibility in

structuring the plans to enhance retirement security. his remarks followed an announcement last month by american airlines to change its pension plans after filing for bankruptcy. the directors spoke of the national press club in washington. -- the director spoke at the national press club in washington. >> good morning. i served on the newsmaker committee here at the national press club. on behalf of the committee and the officers of the national press club, i want to thank all of you for coming out today. i also want to thank the reporters who are joining us on the phone as well as the audience joining us live this morning on c-span. our speaker this morning, josh gotbaum, will speak for tenor 15 minutes, and after that we will take questions. the press club invited him today because we live in airtime of retirement insecurity.

for many, the golden years are not so golden. 10,000 people will retire every day for nearly the next two decades, but what kind of then, will they have in their -- income will they have in their retirement years? many baby boomers are without traditional pension plans. an economic downturn and a drop in housing prices has wiped out assets. those lucky enough to have defined benefit pension plans find them under pressure. our speaker today will discuss how we can improve retirement savings for millions of americans, and also the aggressive actions he has been taking at pbgc to preserve pensions for millions of americans fortunate enough to have pension savings.

jos was appointed director by president obama in 2010. he has help manage and buys -- and bias -- advise public, private, nonprofit institutions. for more than a decade of that time, it was an investment banker in new york and london, where he advised businesses, unions, and governments on a diverse range of mergers, acquisitions, and restructurings in steel, transportation, and other industries. during the clinton administration, he held positions at omb, treasurer, and defense. he worked on the white house staff during the carter administration. while he was appointed by the president and confirmed by the senate, pbgc is not funded by general tax revenues. it collects insurance premiums from employers that sponsore

insurance premium plants and ours money from investments and receives funds from pension plans that taken over. i am not going to talk anymore about what's pbgc does, i will let you do that. without any further ado, let me turn it over to josh. exxon wants to start by thanking -- >> i want to start by thanking jamie in the club for inviting me to talk this morning about what it takes and what we can do to have a secure retirement. this is not news that americans are concerned about retirement. most people know they're not doing enough to prepare. they fear they wouldn't have enough to live like they want to live. -- when they retire. but that can be changed, if we act. what does that mean we should do?

individuals, people need to save more. businesses can help their employees by providing plans and by contributing to them. at pbgc and within government, we can do what we always done, to work to strengthen retirement security and provide a safety net. pbgc's job is to encourage and preserve retirement plans barker american companies. when companies can afford their when companies cannot afford their plans, we are a safety net. right now, we are responsible for benefits for almost 1.5 million people. we do it without a dime in tax dollars. we are funded by premiums from pension plans we ensure. but first, we try to reserve plans. people always feel more secure if their plans are intact.

our mandate, however, is broader than that. under the law, we are charged with encouraging voluntary private pension plans. that, frankly, is why i am here today. each and every day, some 10,000 baby boomers reach 65. that used to be thought of as the normal retirement age. but many of them are not retiring, because they cannot. the basis of this challenge is good news. we are living longer, healthier lives. when jfk was president, the average retiree did not live to see their 80th birthday. today, the average retiree will live well into their 80s, and a quarter will reach their 90's. so people are living longer, but that means the retirement will cost more, too.

some folks say all it takes this for people to work longer, for people not to retire so soon. well, people already are working longer. from the mid-1990s to about five years ago, the average retirement age went up by two years. and that was before the market crash. so the fact is, people are working longer, but even though they are working longer, they are living longer still. that means that in the future, retirement is going to cost more, not less. pensions that were enough in the past will not be in the future. half of the people working today don't have an employer provided pension at all. most of those who do have a 401k type plan.

those plans have some very real benefits. they move with you from job to job, and people feel comfortable knowing that have their own savings plan, that it is theirs. as millions of learned in the last few years, those plans are not guaranteed. if the market drops when you are planning to retire, you are not going to retire when you want, or have a life in retirement that you hope for. there are other issues. with a 401k plan, each of us has to figure out how much to set aside, and to guess how much we will need in retirement. it turns out that employees do not do that as well as employers do. people guessed wrong, they don't find out until well after they have retired. there is not a lot they can do about it. that is why we work to preserve traditional defined benefit

pension plans. with traditional pension plans, employees don't have to guess about how much to say. -- save. employers figure that out. because traditional pensions offer lifetime in come, steady payments for as long as you live, people don't have to worry about whether they will have an up or whether they will outlive their savings. furthermore, as a person who used to spend some time in finance, i should also point out that traditional pension funds also fund much of our nation's bencher and other -- venture aned entrepreneurial capital. we think traditional pensions are imported. -- important. it also turns out there are plenty of -- almost 40 million active workers, and in the corporate plans that we ensure,

the vast majority of plans are still operating. they are not frozen. more than three-quarters of the people in them are still earning benefits. that brings me to american airlines. american airlines is an example of what we do every day. what we are trying to do, working with american airlines, is to preserve both the jobs for 80,000 people who are working and pensions for 130,000 who depend on them. the first priority has to be for american, for the 80,000 people work there and for the millions who are passengers, to succeed. that is the first priority. but plenty of businesses, including other airlines, have managed to reorganize without also terminating their pension plans.

american already has lower pension costs and some of its competitors. pbgc has worked as an active creditor within the bankruptcy process to see whether those plans can be preserved. part of the reason pbgc can do so is that it is a very unusual government agency. speaking as a person who spent most of my life and business, one of the terrific things is that the staff back fully -- staff actually understands business. they can analyze financial statements. and understand business plans, and they work with businesses to see what is possible. sometimes it is clear that companies cannot afford their plans, and in that case, pbgc steps in and pays benefits. other times, we find that companies can restructure

successfully and keep their pensions intact. that is what we found at american airlines. it is now clear that american can do both. it can restructure -- it can still keep its pensions and pay pensions in the future. american is not alone. there are plenty of other examples. the grocery chain a&p just came out of bankruptcy and kept its pension benefit. so did a former are parts -- auto parts business of four. -- ford. last year ,pbgc worked with 19 companies that preserve benefits for more than 74,000 people. that is what we are doing. we think that is important. but the fact is that government does not require pensions. government cannot in short --

insure retirement security. everyone has to do their part. as individuals, each of us is going to have to save more. if retirement lasts longer, if you have an active, healthy life, you have got to save more. most of us cannot just rely on social security and a traditional pension. we've got to say. -- save. a good target, if you don't have a traditional pension, is to set aside 10% of income each year. that is easier to say than to do. it is perfectly natural when retirement seems years away, or when times are tough, to put it off and say i will do it next year. it is perfectly natural, but it is mistake. the way to have a life you want tomorrow is to save today.

but people don't do that alone. businesses are critical, too. because businesses set up the plans that make it easier for employees to save, and the vast majority of employers contribute to those plans. that set them up and help fund them. in some cases, those are traditional plans. the employer provides the funds, handles the administration, worries about the investments, guarantees the benefits. in more cases, there are 401k type plans were they both share the cost, and where employees take the risk if there is enough there. one of the things i think is important is that a lot of employers, dissatisfied with either option, are looking for

better models. some are looking for 401k type plans that provide a minimum benefit or a lifetime annuity benefit, or they are looking for a hybrid type, traditional defined benefit plan where the investment risk is shared with the employee. all of these efforts are important. . businesses are better able than individuals to figure out retirement plans. i have worked in finance for more than a decade. i have a variety of certifications from the national association of securities dealers, but i don't pretend that i have the time or the expertise to set up for retirement plan. employers do that, and that is why it matters that they do. every time a business says you are on your own, fewer people

get a secure retirement. fortunately, most businesses to offer retirement plans. two-thirds of american workers today have access to some sort of an employer provided plan. not to hit a point to hart, american airlines is an example here, too. american is a company that is working both to succeed and to provide retirement security for 130,000 americans and their families. what does government do? government does not require retirement plans, but it does encourage them. it sets minimum standards. if a business promises of pension, it should deliver on that commitment. if a business gets tax benefits for its pension, it should help all employees, not just senior management. governments that sent to make

sure those things happen. government encourages both existing plants and new approaches. it provides tax incentives for employers to offer plans that set them up, and i think this is important, government is making changes to take into account the fact that people are living longer. so that the standards that are applied to pension plans recognize the reality that people are living longer. similarly, government can and is making changes to ensure that employers have options, that they have options within the traditional model and options within at the 401k model. and of course, i should mention that government does plan rejigger by safety net it plans fail.

i started talking about baby boomers today, partly because i am one, but retirement security is not only a concern of baby boomers. last year, the gallup asked people age 30-50, people who are decades away from retirement, about whether they were concerned, whether they were worried about retirement. more than three-quarters of them are. i am a baby boomer and also a singer. in my youth, i saw the who perform, and one of the iconic songs is "my generation." there is a line that says "i hope i die before i get old."

a few years ago, the rapper will.i.am, who is not a baby boomer, rewrote the words for a commercial. he said "i don't want to die, i want to get old." i don't think there is a generational divide on this. i think we all care about having a decent life when we can no longer work. and can have it, if we as individuals save more. if business continues to provide both lands and funding, and we in the government continue to provide support, standards, and a safety net for those needs. thank you. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012]

>> will now open it up to questions. if i could ask you to identify yourself, your name and your news organization, please. >> what exactly is pbgc doing to promote pension plans or hybrid plans? is there some kind of program or a dramatic effort to do that? >> i am not sure everybody could hear that question. if you could basically summarize the question, too. >> the question is what is pbgc doing to encourage pension plans? one thing i should be clear on is, the agency's mandate from

the day it was created is to encourage voluntary private pension plans. we take our job as trying to do several things. one is to preserve the plans that are already there. that is why we work with companies like american and others to see if plans can be preserved. two is to try to make sure that we don't accidentally, or that government does not accidentally make it harder for employers to offer pension plans. this requires thinking through how do you regulate, how do you set your standards? we do that. third, to clear the air that

there is general goodwill and a desire on the part of everyone to have good retirement plan. so one of the things that happens when you are in an agency that focuses on plans when companies get in trouble is, you tend to think, well, is everyone trying to stop their pension plan? the answer is no. i think that is really important. the vast majority of companies in america are offering pension plans to their employees. the vast majority of companies are contributing to those plants. we think is so important to recognize that and to encourage that. any other questions in the room?

>> i would like you to talk a little bit more about the impact of defined benefit plans on the capital market and what the government can do to support that. >> as i mentioned, one of the roles of traditional pension plans that is not widely trumpeted, but is important, is that pension plans, in addition to being a professional about setting up benefits and figuring out how to pay people, pension plans are also professional investors. that means that pension plans were among the first people when a new class of folks, call them venture capitalist, went looking around for funds.

pynchon funds were the place where there were sophisticated enough investors to say we will provide capital so you can create a venture capital industry. the same is true with what became the private equity industry. it did not start as a private equity industry. so the way i look at it is, because pension-fund create a group of professional, serious investors, create and knowledgeable group that can, in fact, innovate investments. some of those innovations in not work. that is what the capital markets are about. but what i think is important is that pension funds provide, and equally important, is that because pension funds are

sophisticated, they can watch their investments. that can provide oversight that i know you worry about. from my perspective, an entirely separate benefit to us as a society is that in traditional pension plans, we have a group of knowledgeable concerned, smart folks to participate in the capital markets in a way that is not random and is not fly by night. >> i want to also remind reporters that might be listing on the phone, please feel free to follow the instructions and ask a question. >> [unintelligible] to what extent are you -- what does it have to do with longevity risk?

interest rates will surely come up at some point. are you factoring in longevity risk? >> the question is, when we think about what the right premiums ought to be among should we take longevity, the fact that people are living longer, into account? the answer is, of course we should. our view of the role of pbgc, which is how the law created it, is that it is intended to be an organization that provides a safety net without using taxpayer dollars. that means that the premiums we charge have to cover the benefits we pay. historically, those premiums are set by law, and frankly

that have lagged what they need to be. from time to time, the congress of the united states has recognized this and acted and raised those premiums. we have gone to the congress and said rather than waiting until you do pension legislation, and rather than doing it in away that everybody pays the same, why don't we do it on a more businesslike basis and figure out which rates apply to which people? the way our system works right now is that there is a fundamental unfairness in it. let's put aside pensions and talk about auto insurance. you are required to have auto insurance, and you get a rate based on what your record and your situation is. suppose you got a note from

your insurance company, because your neighbor had three accidents last month, your rates are going up. it would be ticked. that is the way our premiums are set. right now, the people who pay your premiums know that their rates were raised because of the actions of other companies, not themselves. we are trying to change that. we have started the discussion with congress. i hope that when there is pension legislation the future, they will take that into account. we think the result will be a better, more fair system. >> i want to use the discretion of the chair to ask a question myself. you alluded to american airlines, and you have been in the headlines a lot for a very aggressive stance that you have taken. is this typical of what you do with companies, or is american a special case?

they certainly reacted like they were a special case, when you put liens on their foreign properties and took other actions. can you explain how american fits into the picture, enforcement and actions you take against companies? >> sure, happy to do it. the fact is that what pbgc did at american is what we have done for decades. when a company is in bankruptcy, the job of the pbgc is to engage. it has done so for decades as a creditor. one of the things i like and admire about the agency is that the people in it, the financial analyst, the lawyers, the actuaries are terrific and professional, and they are experienced. what happened when american filed is that pbgc used the talented staff that has come

late use the tools that the log at 37 years ago to protect pensions. that is why we are there. we are there to make sure obviously that the company survives, but also that if at all possible, the pension can as well. as i mentioned, there are plenty of other cases where we do that, and we conclude that companies cannot afford their plans. if we were in different economic times, perhaps, and certainly when there were differing economic times, we came to a different conclusion. in that case, we took the plan. but my view of this is that we are doing the process, protecting the pensions, we hope providing peace of mind to

130,000 people, in a way that preserves the jobs. that is something pbgc has done for decades, perhaps unnoticed. >> thank you so much for being so optimistic. i wish i could say the same. back in 1985, there were over 25,000 plants. -- 125,000 plans. 10,000. they have been saying that in recent years, interest rates are the culprit for the death of these pension plans. now that we have seen attacks in california, new york, in

about 20 states, there is legislation either actively or under consideration to convert the plants into some kind of defined contribution plan. what are you doing to encourage them to look beyond the insured corporate and private pension plan to create some kind of public-private partnership that will encourage more retirement security for the vast majority of americans? >> what we are doing is trying

first to preserve the plans we have, and i will talk about that in a second, but also to try to encourage options so that employers and employees can work out plans that work for them. let me first talk about preserving the plans we have, because i have been at the pbgc for a year-and-a-half, and i am always reminded of mark twain's remark about "the rumors of my death have been exaggerated." is absolutely true that the number of plans offered of the traditional defined benefit kind has declined in the last 30 years. it is also true that the number of people covered by those plans has increased, not decrease. there are more people covered by defined benefit plans today than there were 30 years ago. does that mean that a lot of

folks are not using other ways to provide retirement security? no, but from my perspective, it is important to preserve the plans we have. we think that traditional pension plans for people better, and we are doing that. this is where i think it is important to recognize the realities. it is also important to offer alternatives, so that as circumstances change, as companies change, as lifestyles change, we still have those kinds of plants. i have mentioned that before, but i will say it again because i think it is quite important. most people know that there is the traditional pension model and there is what has now become the traditional 401k plan. the traditional penchant model

is the employer does everything, takes care of everything, and pays for everything. the traditional 401k model is the employer writes a check and then you are on your own. not just government, not just employees, but employers recognize that is not satisfactory. so there have been efforts that government has tried to facilitate to modify and offer options on both models to serve people better. for example, i colleagues within the administration have worked very hard to make it possible within what i used to call the traditional defined contribution model to offer people a chance to have real lifetime income, so that the

employer makes a contribution but the employee can, with a contribution, get something that offers lifetime income. that is happening now. i think it is very important. i think it will, by offering new possibilities, it will give people new possibilities for retirement. i will mention one more. a lot of employers, when they first began to worry about the fact that they were taking responsibility for everything, tried to, within a traditional framework, pass a risk to the employees in the form of what are called a hybrid plants. there were lots of difficulties. there were questions about whether they were fair or unlawful, etc. but what has happened is we are now realizing, and congress

passed a law six years ago saying hybrids ought to be allowed. we are working to set up a set of rules that are clear enough so businesses can decide whether or not to use these options. i do think it is important. we are not going to enhance retirement security by just sticking to the old models. what we need to do is provide options so that, case by case, employer and employee, they have choices. that is what we are doing. i think that is an important part of the future. >> that might be a good note to end on. i am sorry that all of the

reporters we have on the phone are too shy to speak up. before we go, i went to give a plug for a couple of other events going on. this friday at 10:00, we will have another newsmaker and it will be a panel discussion on nuclear security. for today, i want to thank you for joining us and thank all of you for coming. for those watching, thank you as well. [applause] >> thanks very much. >> tonight on c-span, the president of planned parenthood talks about women's health care and politics in america. >> i think most of us believe

health care should not be politicized in this country. i just left arizona where i am very proud -- actually, we just voted down the birth control ban in arizona not too long ago. good things can happen. but arizona -- planned parenthood was started. we have hundreds of thousands of republican supporters. planned parenthood is the ultimate -- we are republicans, independents, and democrats because we believe women's health care does not come with a political label. >> you can hear her remarks tonight on c-span. >> this year's student cam competition asked students which part of the constitution was their favorite and why.

>> i am a christian. >> i am an atheist. >> i am jewish. >> i am a mormon. >> no matter who we are, where we come from, or what faith we have, we are americans. >> the establishment and exercise clauses make it to the religious liberty clauses. >> we shall make no prohibiting the exercise thereof. >> but what does it really mean? >> the establishment clause is basically about no establishment. we would not set up an official state religion. and the free exercise clause is about individual being able to freely exercise their beliefs. >> the establishing clauses there to protect division of government, and government from religion. >> is religion from state, but

not religion from politics and public life. it keeps the government from taking sides on religion. it is meant to be neutral on religions and non religion. >> this keeps government neutral to all religions. it is meant to protect the rights of religious and non- religious people. >> religious individuals and groups, like non-religious individuals and groups, have the right to debate in all issues that are important in political and civil life. >> people have the right to practice their faith, to follow their conscience, and engage in public life and bring their fate into public life if they so choose. the united states is very fortunate to have this arrangement because i think that gets the most credit for

keeping us from being a place where people kill each other over the constitution. >> it keeps people contend in their religious life. >> if you just allow for everybody to have freedom in the concept of their personal religious life, a rebound -- everyone would get along better, to. >> it is a fundamental inalienable right of all people, religious and non- religious. >> the freedom of conscience is a freedom that cannot be taken away. it is a freedom for all people, religious or not. >> people benefit because this is the best arrangement for allowing religion to thrive and non-religion people benefit

because they can live in a society where they do not have to be coerced into being a religious or being involved in religion. >> each provision protects people's religious practices. but how do they affect the younger generation? >> i am a christian. without the religious liberty clause, i would appeal to go to church every sunday. i would not able to read the bible in the security of my home. and i would not be able to go out to regular people on the street and be able to say that i am a christian. >> being an atheist, i have the right not to be forced into a religion that i do not want to practice or that i do not believe in. >> i think that different religions make you more unique than just having one religion. >> i am mormon and a member of the church of jesus christ of latter-day saints. with the mormon people live in illinois, there were told to get out by the governor.

they had to go in the middle of winter and leave from illinois. if they did not, there would be killed. it affects my religion because it failed to remember our religion. instead of protecting it, they did not. >> under the religious liberty causes, the government cannot have control over your religion. but how would you feel if all this were to change? >> i kinda would feel betrayed. this country is supposed to be about freedom. and we came here to be free of a certain religion. >> ag would feel like they were infringing on my religious freedoms and rights. and that is not right or fair for anyone. >> i would feel like they were denying our freedom and our rights. it would be like the jews in

the holocaust, having secret meetings for our religion. >> if someone wanted to -- it would be like making the united states one religion and making someone else change their religion. >> i would not feel like i would be important to the government and would feel like all my right for taken away. >> we americans are unsure about all of these different religions and whether they really think they should have the freedoms their religion and joyce. -- enjoys. without the establishment clause, the united states would not be the country it is today. >> we have articles of faith in different ways.

but they are our articles of peace. and now more than in any time in our history, it is imperative that we live and model these articles of peace in our life together as citizens, one nation with many faiths, with many cultures, with many people's. >> go to studentcam.org to view all the videos. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> this year, we asked students to create a video telling us what part of the constitution was most important to them. today, we are going to knock still to talk to tessa williams, an eighth grader from farragut middle school. did you choose to focus on the

first amendment? >> we thought it was the very general. we decided to look at the individual parts of the first amendment. we chose the religious liberty clause is because we thought it was something we could personally relate to because we each had our own little point of view on religion. we also thought it was something that other people in our community and nation could relate to as well. >> thank you interviewed two experts. how did they help you understand the free exercise clause? >> they opened our eyes to how it impacts a small group of people and a whole nation. is always in effect because it is not case by case. everyone is always practicing their religion and they have their own personal connections. >> how does this topic affect your community? >> everyone has their own

religion so these clauses are predicting them by giving them the freedom to practice their religion and express it without being persecuted. it allows us to go to school and work and have a job and vote without being accused -- without being judged by our face and our religion. >> how did your research affect your position? >> i have always been a strong supporter of religious equality. it has really opened my eyes to how important this is and how important these clauses are and how they are always affecting us. >> what was your favorite part in creating the documentary? >> my favorite part was the editing because i love making videos as a hobby. by creating the documentary, i got more of a professional, hands on experience. >> what would you like others to

learn about your documentary? >> i would like others to watch our documentary and feel the way that we felt about how important the clauses are and how they are always impacting us and giving us the freedom to practice your religion without being persecuted. >> thanks for talking with us today. >> thank you. >> congratulations. >> "a religiously diverse nation." >> no matter who we are and where we come from, we are americans. ♪ ♪ >> the establishment and exercise clauses that make up the religious liberty clauses. >> no prohibiting the free exercise thereof. >> what do they really mean? >> and the establishment clause is basically about no

establishment. we are not going to set up an official state religion. >> the establishment clause is there to protect religion from government and government from religion. >> it separates church from state but not religion from politics or public life. it keeps the government from taking sides in religion. the government is required to be neutral on religions. >> you can see this entire video and all of the other documentary's at studentcam.org. [captioning performed by national captioning institute] [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2012] >> sunday, the hud secretary joins us to talk about the handling of the housing market by the administration. he is interviewed by "the wall

street journal" and reuters'. >> this weekend marks the anniversary of the bloodiest battle to be fought during the civil war up to that point. with almost 24,000 casualties. we will tour the battlefield with a park ranger at 6:00 p.m. eastern. and the founder of the red cross operating the missing soldiers office until 1868. join us as we rediscover the third floor office as it is prepared for renovations. this weekend on c-span3. >> this sunday, the u.s. senate youth program. >> i got the opportunity to meet both of my senators. does being able to meet them and

talk to them. >> leon panetta talks about how important is to be financially sound. devoting money to national defence is not going to be worth it if we are not financially sound. >> high school students participated in a week-long program at the nation's capital shared their observations as they interacted with members of congress, the supreme court, and president. >> there is a lot of partisanship going on. everybody we have met here from congress -- it makes me wonder if everybody is saying that but it is not actually happening, if there is a discrepancy between what they are saying and doing. >> the u.s. senate youth program sunday night at 8:00 p.m. eastern >> last week, the national

archives made public a digitized record of the 1940 u.s. census, giving a more detailed plans in the years following the great depression. the database includes the individual information of more than 15 million americans who filled out a 1940 census. the unveiling of the 1940 records was marked by a ceremony at the national archives in washington. >> great job, connie. good morning. i am david ferriero. this is a very special day for us. i am pleased to welcome you all to the national archives to officially launch the 1940 census. these pages have been sealed. it is almost like christmas. the anticipation grows as the

date approaches. the census schedule has become more fascinating and a valuable the more we use them which is a good thing because we have to wait 10 years. in the past, we have flown open research doors, throngs of research is taking their places eager to get their first glimpse of the list of names. some of our original archives held at midnight madness openings to offer an early as possible look. this year, we are doing things a little bit differently. we are releasing the 1940 population census digitally. in a few minutes, anyone will be able to view the pages online. it is the largest single series of records that the national archives has released online.

3.9 million pages. getting it ready today was the responsibility of a dedicated staff. more than 70 staff members have worked to make the 1940 census available to the public. i would like to express special thanks to the chair of the 1940 census committee, the staff of our digitation service unit to create the 3.9 million pages, connie and diane from our research service, staff and our open government division overseeing the opening of the 1940 census and the building of the website. especially mike, tom, and lisa.

our strategy and communications office has been helping us spread the word about the 1940 census through social media. our partner archives.com has worked with us to build the website. when the digital files are opened, we will have the tools to form a more detailed picture of the united states during the great depression. several questions asked about migration, employment, and education. on the individual scale, many of us will be discovering relatives and older family members that we did not know we had. picking up on threads of information we thought we had lost. we now have access to a street- level view of the country in the grips of a depression and on the brink of global war. we will need to do in the work at first to find those family members.

the 1940 census does not come with an index. the minute the forms are released, the work to create one begins. more than 300 volunteers will take part in a project to create a name searchable index. three organizations will coordinate these efforts. we all look forward to use an invaluable resource. i encourage you to join the effort so we can index all of that sooner. i invite you to come back to our annual fair on the 18th and 19th. i said earlier that the national archives releases a set of census records every 10 years but we held those records only because the u.s. census bureau performs the task of every 10

years to collect those millions of pages of data. we are honored to have the director with us on this occasion. he has been the director since 2009. he is an author of seven books and scores of scientific articles. he is a fellow at the american statistical association. national association of the national academies, national research council, former president of the american association of public opinion research, and former chair of the survey research method section. with did you have time to do any work? please welcome to director of the senses, robert groves. -- of the census, robert groves. [applause]

>> i am delighted to be here. this is a great day for all of us. we treasure this partnership with the national archives. in a real way, every census gives a gift to the country twice. the first gift occurs right after it is done. it is part of the process envisioned by the founding fathers to have a lower house of the legislature that is proportional to the number of people in states. then 72 years later, another gift arrives. this is the day of that gift. this is a very audit date. -- odd day. we focus all of our attention on all other days of every year on keeping data confidential.

that is our job. we take this as a sacred oath and we have laws to protect the answers you give. it is on this day, once every 10 years, that we release these records. it is a reflection of the time that the census was taken. the 1940 census had an unusually large number of questions on the socio-economic concerns. this was a great concern to the country at the time. the data on unemployment showed that 15% of the adult population was unemployed at the time and it showed there was 8% of the population that had a bachelor's degree. times have changed and the census reflects those changes. one key innovation that all of

us will see is that one in 20 persons got an extra set of questions. we are going to learn that you have a one in 20 chance of learning a whole lot about your relatives. we estimate that about 21 million of us now living, of the 312 million or so who are living right now, will be able to find their own personal records in the census. this is a relatively new event as we all live longer given modern society. most of us, however, will look for relatives. so, i am glad to see you here. i am glad that you are a part of this second gift of the 1940 census. i wish you good hunting in these records. it is wonderful to be here. thank you. [applause]

>> my name is john spottiswood. archives.com, partnering with the u.s. census bureau on this project. i am thrilled to be here today and thrilled that we have had this opportunity to develop the 1940 census web site in conjunction with the u.s. census bureau. during this time of limited government resources, it is excited to see a startup work hand-in-hand with a couple of government agencies to deliver what i think it is a great user experience. the 1940 census website is going to be enjoyed by millions of historians and researchers around the world. we just hope not all in the next 30 minutes. [laughter]

i would like to really think our partners especially our chief archivist and rebecca, the project manager, both for supporting us very well throughout the project and for having the confidence in us to choose us as a partner for such an important project. it is unfortunate when celebrating a software release that all of the people working on it cannot be here. on that note, i would really like to thank the chief technologist on this project from archives.com as well as our project manager who in conjunction with rebecca really helped of the project come off smoothly. also a group of amazing and dedicated engineers including john, tristan, rob, james, among many others at archives.

we believe they went above and beyond both our expectations and the specific requirements in incorporating additional features like the one-step tools as well as an integrated 1930 search experience which we believe will make the overall experience fun and enjoyable for everybody. this team feels fortunate to have had the opportunity to work on such a project. we would like to give a quick things to the support team at amazon web services which is the platform that we built the web site on. they have been helpful and responsive in the preparation of this launch. we are proud to be working alongside archives.com and the national archives on a community index and project of over

100,000 volunteers that will be creating an index for the 1940 census that will be coming out later this year and available for free. we will encourage all of you to join us in that effort. i hope that the 1940 census website is the first of many caliber to projects between archives.com and the national archives. our mission at archives.com is to make researching your family history sample and accessible for everyone. we can think of no other partner than the national archives in that effort. thank you. [applause] >> good morning. my name is david sicilia, a professor of history at the university of maryland college park. i want to say a few words about the really monumental significance of the release of

these records for historians. up until now, we have had an outline of the 132 or so million americans from 1940, but now this allows us to really look at all of the individual tiles in the mosaic. to explain why this matters so much, i need to say a few words about the titanic shift and historical methodology that occurred in the 1960's and 1970's. the u.s. was constructed by at least the best educated, the wealthiest, the political powerful papers and memoirs and inspired biographies. with powerful new technology, the computer, and inspired by

social movements, thousands of historians in the '60s and '70s began to investigate seriously the lived experiences of the so- called ordinary americans. whereas before it would have taken several lifetimes to compile and analyze the micro population movements of every resident of a medium or large- sized u.s. city. individuals could be key punched into databases. for the first time, the majority of the american mosaic began to came into focus. historians it turned to many sources about individuals such as probate records, but the richest of all were the manuscript records of the u.s. census. many of the findings of this kind of research was quite

astounding. i will give you two examples about mobility. we used to be able to look at the aggregate data and say the population of a large city and compare the two points with the census of 1910 or 1920 and a population of that city perhaps increasing 10%. when we are able to look at the data and track the actual individuals, it turned out the population of that city might have turned over by about 80% during that 10 years as massive numbers of people moved out and others move in. americans were on the move much more than anyone realized. we can look at occupational and trace patterns of the upward mobility in american history. the federal census holds of the

richest information for historians because the census takers of the 1940's asked new types of questions. federal officials were interested in employment and housing in a nation battered by depression for most of the decade. the answers to many of the 81 questions asked in the 1940 census will help us understand as never before how the great depression affected work and residence as well as how the rollout of new programs affected the lives of americans. 9 of the questions are about social security. we can now see property values, the size and frequency of mortgage payments, and what kind of lending institutions held those mortgages. which holmes had radios or flushing toilets. what kind of fuel used for

heating and cooking. exterior construction materials and what kinds of americans are rented furniture. race, gender, economics, business, and policy -- the historians have been given a new set of spectacles. the list goes on. some of the most intriguing insights come from the cross- linking of data from these categories. we can ask, for instance, what percentage of african americans owned radios in the 1940's and what percentage of them were veterans. how many possible questions can reformulate out of the 81 types of data collected by the census takers? i thought of a chess board which only has 64 squares and allows

us the possibility of placing billions of different kinds of chess games. i hope many of you will join me in plunging in. let's rediscover some of these lives that left behind fragments of information. let's explore some myths about the 1940's. let's work with the facts and learn from our heritage. let's also tip our hat not only to the army of census takers but to those at the bureau today who worked hard toward this model. in the current era of the great recession, better understanding of our forbearers and how they experience the great depression can only make us a little wiser. thank you. [applause] >> we will invite connie and

michael to come on stage if you have any questions for them. >> why don't you take my seat over here? she is not mic'ed. [laughter] >> ok. questions? >> if you have a question, we have microphones in the aisles. >> am i going to have to ask a question? >> there is a question over here. >> what is the issue? >> probably, the way that the cloud infrastructure scales up is we started with a set amount of servers.

there is a little bit of a delayed opening up enough instances to support the incoming traffic. it should expand to cover. you should see the speed increase over the course of the morning. >> it is an indirect measure of how important this day is. [laughter] >> two technical questions. surveys used to be stored on public use database. public technology has progressed. how is the data presently stored? number two, the data that we have now -- is their software developed to enable the researcher to extract data and to analysis on the information? >> these are images -- as you

just saw, that is what you will see for some time. soon, we will all have indexes which will be a great advance. richard at the university of minnesota is producing really for researcher use a digital data set like those that you just described. i am not sure what the dates are. soon, researchers can do aggregate statistical analysis on this in a way that they cannot now. >> it is projected to be ready in about six months to nine months. >> i know i already grilled you >> i know i already grilled you