Earlier this year, the Bank had projected that the U.S. economy would begin to slow, but the pullback we are seeing now is larger, and coming sooner, than we had expected.
Under the intermediate assumptions of the program's trustees, the number of beneficiaries will have roughly doubled by 2030, and the ratio of covered workers to beneficiaries will be down to about 2. The pressures on the budget from this dramatic demographic change will be exacerbated by those stemming from the anticipated steep upward trend in spending per Medicare beneficiary.