The heads of the federal bank regulatory agencies are designated members of this task force; and as supervisors of financial institutions, I believe we can offer a unique perspective on this issue. As you have probably noticed, cyber attacks and security breaches involving nonpublic customer information appear in the headlines almost every week.
But unless productivity growth far outstrips that embodied in current budget forecasts, it is unlikely to represent more than part of the answer. Higher productivity does, of course, buoy revenues. But because initial Social Security benefits are influenced heavily by economywide wages, faster productivity growth, with a lag, also raises benefits under current law.