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- Blog Post
In a letter sent today to Congressman Paul Ryan, we described our analysis of the effects on prescription drug prices of certain provisions of the health legislation enacted in March.
- Blog Post
Social Security is the federal government’s largest single program; outlays in fiscal year 2010 totaled $706 billion, roughly one-fifth of the federal budget. About 54 million people currently receive Social Security benefits. Most are retired workers, their spouses, their children or their survivors, who receive payments through Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI). The remainder are disabled workers or their spouses and children, who receive Disability Insurance (DI) benefits.
- Blog Post
People born in other countries are a growing presence in the U.S. labor force. In 2009, more than 1 in 7 people in the U.S. labor force were born elsewhere; 15 years earlier, only 1 in 10 was foreign born. About 40 percent of the foreign-born labor force in 2009 was from Mexico and Central America, and more than 25 percent was from Asia.
- Blog Post
This morning CBO released a brief about the Social Security Disability Insurance (DI) program. The DI program pays cash benefits to nonelderly adults (those younger than age 66) who are judged to be unable to perform “substantial” work because of a disability but who have worked in the past; the program also pays benefits to some of those adults’ dependents.
- Blog Post
Social Security is the federal government’s largest single program, and as the U.S. population grows older in the coming decades, its cost is projected to increase more rapidly than its revenues. That trend, in combination with the rising cost of the government’s health care programs, will lead to sharp increases in government spending relative to the size of the economy, placing the federal budget on a path that is unsustainable over the long term.
- Blog Post
The federal government helps students finance higher education through two major loan programs—one that guarantees loans made by private lenders, and one that makes loans directly to borrowers. Between 2000 and 2009, the volume of outstanding federal student loans more than quadrupled, from about $149 billion to about $630 billion.
- Blog Post
This afternoon CBO responded to Senator Greggs requestfor estimates of the budgetary impact of the Presidents proposal to eliminate the federal program that provides guarantees for student loans and to replace those loans with direct loans made by the Department of Education.
- Blog Post
Federal laws try to protect taxpayers and recipients of government benefits from the effects of rising prices by specifying that dollar amounts in many parts of the tax code and in some programs be automatically adjustedor indexedfor inflation. Without such indexing, a rise in the general level of prices would alter the effects of federal policies even in the absence of action by lawmakers.