All new and current account holders to Social Security’s online portal, my Social Security, will now be required to have a text-enabled cell phone to access their account online.
via Entitled to Know.
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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.
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.
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via twitter.
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Letter to Senate Aging Committee on SSA Field
Office Closures.
- I believe that the availability of conveniently located and adequately staffed Social Security field offices is crucial to providing good service to America’s seniors and to maintaining the public’s support for Social Security, Medicare, and other programs that SSA administers.
President Roosevelt’s vision has most certainly endured. Today, Social Security provides some 61 million Americans and their families with basic financial security upon retirement or disability. For older Americans, Social Security can mean the difference between financial well-being and poverty. 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% of their income. Public polling consistently shows that Social Security enjoys overwhelming support from majorities of Americans across party lines.
Over the years, Social Security has been modified (with bipartisan support) to expand benefits and keep the system financially sound. This year, Social Security has come under new threat from budget hawks in the Trump administration and on Capitol Hill. But as generations of Roosevelts have
shown us, Social Security is worth fighting for. On this, Social Security’s 82nd anniversary, we at the National Committee recommit ourselves to preserving this landmark program for current and future generations of Americans.
Read more from our blog post here marking this anniversary by clicking here.
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.
Read more about this event by clicking 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.
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- 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.)
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.
President Trump’s proposed fiscal 2019 Social Security Administration (SSA) budget would cut staffing, a recipe for long waits in agency offices and on the telephone for those trying to navigate the often-difficult world of old-age, disability, survivor and Medicare benefits. Retirement and survivor benefits would not be hit…
…The advocacy group, National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, provides these stats to illustrate the problem: About 10,000 baby boomers hit retirement age every day. The increase in workloads coupled with a decrease in staffing led to a 627-day wait for disability applicants’ hearings in 2017. The three-minute telephone wait that callers had for SSA’s 800 number in 2010 was six times longer last year. Despite SSA attempts to direct traffic to its website, there were 2 million more field office visits in 2016 than 2015. “More than 16,000 visitors were forced to wait more than hour for service each day in August 2017,” the committee said.
Promising to become “more efficient and effective” for the 71 million people who receive monthly benefits, Social Security Administration statements say Trump’s budget “will allow us to support our front line operations, such as our field offices, processing centers, and National 800 Number, by providing some critical hires and expanding our additional service delivery channels and online service options.”
via Washington Post.
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The Social Security Administration Needs the Funding to Provide the American People the Service They Deserve.
- 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. When workloads increase and staff is reduced due to inadequate funding, service deteriorates.
- The media has focused on the unprecedented delays disability applicants face when waiting for a hearing on their case – the wait in August 2017 was 627 days – but service in other areas has deteriorated as well.
It only took President Trump a scant 16 months to nominate someone to head the Social Security Administration (SSA), which oversees the Social Security program and Supplemental Security Income for some 67 million Americans. Trump’s nominee, Andrew M. Saul, is a New York businessman, Republican donor, and former chairman of the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board, which administers the retirement plan for U.S. government employees.
Though he served on the Federal Retirement Thrift Investment Board for nine years, Andrew Saul has no real public record – good or bad – when it comes to Social Security. But his alignment with Republican politics (he was a top fundraiser for George W. Bush, who famously tried to privatize Social Security) and his membership on the board of a right-wing think tank, The Manhattan Institute, is not encouraging.
We need look no further than the Manhattan Institute’s website to glean the organization’s position on Social Security. In an article entitled, The Social Security Façade, the Institute propagates rightist myths that the program is going bankrupt and will no longer be able to pay benefits when today’s young people retire. In other words, it employs the time-worn tactic of dividing the generations to undermine Social Security:
“Young Americans are stuck paying into programs that, absent reform, will only partially be there for their retirements – if they’re around at all.” – Manhattan Institute website
Read more about this issue by clicking here.
But they also call for switching COLAs to the Consumer Price Index for the Elderly or CPI-E, designed by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The CPI-E would boost Social Security payments without worsening the system’s deficit.
via The Social Security Fix That Could Help the Poorest Retirees.
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Why Seniors Need a CPI-E.
But if the CPI-E determined the Social Security COLA, the expected average COLA would increase about 0.2 percentage points per year.