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Since 1999 and every fours years since, the Social Security Advisory Board (SSAB) has appointed an independent, expert panel comprised of prominent economists, actuaries and demographers to review the assumptions and methods used to develop the annual report of the Social Security Trustees on the financial status of the Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance trust funds. Policymakers and the public rely on the financial projections made by the Office of the Chief Actuary and published in the Trustees Report to understand the financial soundness of Social Security’s vital programs. The Panels provide an independent assessment of the information used by the Trustees, the Chief Actuary, and program administrators to evaluate the program’s financial status and analyze how economic and demographic trends affect Social Security’s long-term solvency. Each panel makes recommendations to improve the basis for assumptions, methods and the presentation of results. The views expressed in the Technical Panel reports are exclusively those of the Panel’s themselves. In 2017, between the 2015 and 2019 four-year cycles, the Board also appointed a Panel to examine a single subject: labor force participation.