Some surprising new polling results underscore the unpopularity – and long-term destructiveness – of Congress’ ongoing attacks on the Social Security system.
via Huffington Post.
Related reading: The Social Security “Crisis” Created by Congress.
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As the baby boom generation ages into its peak years for retirement and disability, the demands on the Social Security Administration (SSA) are reaching all-time highs. Yet Congress has cut SSA’s core operating budget by 10 percent since 2010, after adjusting for inflation.
These cuts hurt SSA’s service to the public in every state. The agency has been forced to shutter field offices and shrink its staff, leading to longer waits for service and a record-high disability appeals backlog. While the overall effect is a decline in service nationwide, the effects of the cuts vary considerably by state.
via CBPP.
Related Reading:
In a rare victory for seniors, the passage of the FY 2018 Omnibus Appropriations bill in Congress increases funding for several programs that assist the elderly – and gives a much-needed boost to the beleaguered Social Security Administration (SSA). SSA gets an increase of $480 million over the previous fiscal year, including $100 million for reducing the backlog in Social Security Disability Insurance hearings – which some 10,000 Americans died waiting for in 2017. The funding bump – which the National Committee has long advocated – should also alleviate some of the excessively long wait times for customer service on SSA’s toll-free phone line and in-person at SSA field offices.
The Omnibus bill also includes $59 million more for Older Americans Act Senior Nutrition programs and an increase of $250 million for the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP), while the State Health Insurance Program (SHIP) receives a modest increase in funding. The spending plan also gives a $414 million boost to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) for Alzheimer’s and dementia research.
Read more from our press release by clicking here.
![Earlier this week, Members of Congress and allies met to discuss Social Security and the GOP Congress’ manufactured crisis.
““Seniors, I stand with you all the way [on Social Security].”
- Rep. Jan Schakowsky
“We are in a crisis right now. A...](https://64.media.tumblr.com/93d9258801da499ce7712598d0be22b4/tumblr_njo11hjqsI1qd3gmvo1_1280.jpg)
Earlier this week, Members of Congress and allies met to discuss Social Security and the GOP Congress’ manufactured crisis.
“Seniors, I stand with you all the way [on Social Security].”
- Rep. Jan Schakowsky“We are in a crisis right now. A retirement crisis. Not a Social Security crisis.” - Rep. Jan Schakowsky
“Stop manufacturing a crisis with the Social Security disability trust fund.”
- Senator Bernie Sanders“This week anyone earning a million dollars a year will have paid 100% of their payroll taxes for 2015.”
- Max Richtman
![“The enemies of Social Security in Congress are making a very bad situation even worse [by proposing cuts to SSA’s operating budget.] They want to make it impossible to effectively administer the program, and ultimately want to destroy Social...](https://64.media.tumblr.com/1c78ed79e5e7168a42078f7b6d551a8c/tumblr_p2z1kt6Dqa1qd3gmvo1_1280.jpg)
“The enemies of Social Security in Congress are making a very bad situation even worse [by proposing cuts to SSA’s operating budget.] They want to make it impossible to effectively administer the program, and ultimately want to destroy Social Security.”
-Senator Bernie Sanders
More about the Fully Fund Social Security Administration event can be found here.
The full House and the Senate Appropriations Committee have passed woefully inadequate funding plans for operating the Social Security Administration (SSA), which would substantially weaken customer service, hurting seniors and people with disabilities and hampering SSA’s ability to pay benefits promptly and accurately, as our updated report shows. SSA needs adequate resources to serve the public — and it’s very unlikely to receive them unless the White House and Congress reach a bipartisan agreement to reduce sequestration cuts, as they’ve done every year since 2014.
via CBPP.
Related Reading:
- Social Security’s 82nd anniversary — why doesn’t this agency still have an adequate budget?
- Today, Social Security provides basic financial security for some 61 million Americans. Two out of three seniors rely on Social Security for most of their income, and one-third of seniors depend on it for at least 90 percent of their income. It is one of the most efficient federal programs. Less than 1 percent of Social Security’s revenue goes to administrative costs — the rest, to beneficiaries.
- In fact, the SSA’s core operating budget has shrunk by 10 percent since 2010…
- These cuts resulted in an SSA hiring freeze, the closure of more than 60 field offices across the country, and lengthy delays in processing Disability Insurance (DI) applications appeals. (Some 1 million applicants are awaiting much-delayed hearings.)
Seniors have earned their benefits and many don’t have much else to live on. For more than one-third of retirement beneficiaries, Social Security constitutes at least 90 percent of income. Half of people aged 65 to 74 have no retirement savings. Without Social Security, almost half of the elderly would live in poverty.
Closing Social Security field offices can cause undue hardship for claimants, yet the Social Security Administration (SSA) has shuttered 67 of them since 2010. Seniors advocates have recently intensified their efforts to push back against field office closures. Those efforts may finally gain some teeth with the introduction of a bill by Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wisc.). Her ‘Maintain Access to Vital Social Security Services Act of 2018’ (H.R. 7160) would make it harder for the SSA to summarily close field offices.
Congresswoman Moore represents a district that includes the city of Milwaukee, where SSA closed a field office serving poor and mostly Hispanic residents last Spring – forcing them to seek assistance at an alternate location that’s hard to reach by public transportation.
Read more from this op-ed by clicking here.
Let’s take quick stock of what this lame duck Congressional session has meant for middle-class Americans, especially seniors and their families:
1. Legislation that reversed 40 years of federal law protecting retirees’ pensions was tucked quietly into the massive spending bill. The change will allow benefit cuts for more than 1.5 million workers; many of them part of a shrinking middle-class workforce in businesses such as construction and trucking.
Read more here.
As the baby boom generation ages and a record number of Americans retire, it’s hard to imagine why Congress has chosen this time in history to continue slashing the administrative budget for the Social Security Administration.
via Entitled to Know.
National Committee President Max Richtman joined advocates and elected representatives on Capitol Hill today to demand that Congress adequately fund the Social Security Administration (SSA). Richtman, Senators Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and Bob Casey (D-PA) railed against Republican plans to cut nearly $500 million from the Social Security Administration’s operating budget in the upcoming government funding bill.
The agency has been woefully underfunded since 2011 and Social Security claimants have been paying the price in the form of reduced service and long wait times. Social Security’s core operating budget shrank by 11 percent from 2010 to 2017 in inflation-adjusted terms. This occurred even as 10,000 baby boomers a day reach retirement age. Congress has the ability to solve this problem, but has not signaled a willingness to do so.