
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, April 12, 1994                   TAG: 9404120144
SECTION: NATL/INTL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: WASHINGTON                                LENGTH: Short

BOOMERS WILL DRY UP FUND SOONER

Barring changes, the aging of the baby boom generation will exhaust Social Security's retirement trust fund by 2036, eight years sooner than was expected last year, a federal report said Monday.

The annual study also warned that Social Security's disability trust fund could go broke in 1995, while Medicare will be able to pay the hospital costs of the nation's elderly and disabled workers for only another seven years.

Congress, however, is expected to shore up the disability trust fund, which pays monthly cash benefits to 5.4 million ill and injured workers and their families, by changing the formula for dividing payroll taxes among the retirement and disability trust funds.

Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala argued Monday that passage of health-care reform would improve the longer-term fiscal health of Medicare by controlling the growth in spending.

The prediction that the retirement fund would be out of money eight years sooner than believed just a year ago marked the biggest departure from last year's report.

Together, Medicare and Social Security account for more than one-fourth of the federal budget. They pump $1 billion a day into the U.S. economy and support one in four households.

by CNB