No more Social Security checks ?

[Jolie Rouge]

Don't wait for Social Security check in the mail
Mail drop: Social Security payments, other federal benefits, switching soon to direct deposit
By Stephen Ohlemacher, Associated Press – 7 hours ago



WASHINGTON (AP) -- Starting next year, the check will no longer be in the mail for millions of people who receive Social Security and other government benefits.

The federal government, which issues 73 million payments a month, is phasing out paper checks for all benefit programs, requiring people to get payments electronically, either through direct deposit or a debit card for those without a bank account.

The changes will affect people who get Social Security, veterans' benefits, railroad pensions and federal disability payments. Tax refunds are exempt, but the Internal Revenue Service encourages taxpayers to get refunds electronically by processing those refunds faster than paper checks.

About 90 percent of people who receive federal benefits already get their payments electronically, the Treasury Department says. New beneficiaries were required to get payments electronically starting last year, and with a few exceptions, the rest will have to make the switch by March 2013. "It's just that natural progression of moving to how people are used to receiving their funds," said Walt Henderson, director of the Treasury Department's electronic funds transfer division.

Henderson said electronic payments are safer and more efficient than paper checks; in 2010, more than 540,000 federal benefit checks were reported lost or stolen. The switch will save the government about $120 million a year. Social Security will save $1 billion over the next decade, according to the Treasury Department. "You think of that paper check floating out there in the delivery system, with personal information on it, it's much more susceptible to fraud versus an electronic payment," Henderson said.

Advocates for seniors say they understand the government's desire to cut costs and take advantage of technologies that most workers already use. The food stamp program switched from paper coupons to debit cards in 2004.

But they have raised concerns about requiring the switch for older retirees who may not be used to electronic payments. "This will affect some very frail elderly people who are living by themselves, many of them, and doing well, but usually within the context of that old paper check that they deposit in the bank," said Web Phillips, a senior policy advisor for the National Committee to Protect Social Security and Medicare. "The change has to be handled carefully and with a lot of sensitivity so that there aren't people who lose track of a payment or don't understand that they have a card that came in the mail that's the source of their payment," Phillips said. "That's our concern."

The switch is mandated by a Treasury rule issued in December 2010. Since then, the department has worked to educate the public. The government has created a website, www.GoDirect.org and a toll-free phone number, 1-800-333-1795, people can call for assistance. "Treasury acknowledges they have a lot of education to do for people about how these things work," said David Certner, legislative policy director for AARP. "We're a bit concerned about how easy it's going to be to provide education, particularly for some in this older population who are not familiar with debit cards and don't have bank accounts."

Certner said AARP wants the government to make it easier to get an exemption. Under the Treasury rule, current beneficiaries who are 90 and older won't be required to make the switch. People can get a waiver if using a debit card would impose a hardship, but the Treasury Department says those would be "extreme, rare circumstances."

These waivers are not well publicized on the government's website. "There are several million people who receive paper checks today," Certner said. "Some of them do it because they have worked out arrangements for them that work."

AARP also has concerns about fees associated with the debit cards. The Direct Express cards are issued by Comerica Bank, Treasury's financial agent. Each month, benefit payments are added to the cards, which can be used to make purchases or withdraw cash from ATMs.

There are no fees for using the debit card to make purchases. They can be used at any retailer that accepts MasterCard debit cards. If a card is lost or stolen, the beneficiary is protected from unauthorized use as long as the missing card is reported promptly.

Cardholders can make one free ATM withdrawal each time a payment is registered in the card. Subsequent withdrawals will cost 90 cents each, and all withdrawals may be subject to fees by the owner of the ATM.

The government's switch to electronic payments also comes with a side effect: less business for the U.S. Postal Service, an agency that is already facing big budget problems with the rise of email and electronic bill paying.

The private sector has been migrating to electronic payments for years, costing the Postal Service millions of customers, said Alan Robinson, editor of the Postal Journal, a trade publication. "Normally, these things happen one customer at a time," Robinson said. "In terms of payments, this is probably one of the largest."

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/dont-w...120033750.html

comments

I understand the governments need to save money as well as avoid fraud. But people who receive these benefits are on fixed incomes and barely make ends meet as it is. All fees should be waived for people on social security, or any other type of benefit, they can ill afford them.

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Hmmm so they want to require these poor old people to have a bank account or a debit card to claim their own money.... yet needing an ID to vote is a terrible idea?

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I'm a disabled vet with Direct Deposit and have had it for years. I'll be damned if I'll use BoA or any bank like them two bit thieves though. I pick my own bank and use that. As a vet I use USAA. No fees. Even my ATM fees are refunded each month and no minimum deposit either. Military, Vets, and kids of Vets. Check it out.

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So wait, after the first withdrawal each month the government's bank of choice is going to charge Seniors $0.90 for each ATM withdrawal thereafter? And the ATMs that carry their own $2-3 fees from their respective bank owners, those will be tacked on as well.... so every Senior better hope to God they can get their whole SS check out in that first withdrawal otherwise it's like they are being taxed for their money. I could see an elderly person using the card to get money like 10 times and being down $40 out of their account without ever spending a penny of it. Screw the banks. If they want that money to get into their accounts for even temporary interest gains from guaranteed government funding, they should make every use of that card FEE FREE and refund any fees charged by other banks' ATMs. For Christs' Sakes, these people were the generations that took care of us before... that saved us during WWII and subsequent military efforts. We're really going to treat these people this way?

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So,will the $120 million saved each year be put back into social sec???????? It would help cover what those thieves in D.C. has stole out of it over the years!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Plus it is easier for the government to track you if you are using a debit card.

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Let me see now, they want us citizens to be required to have a bank account and ID and ultimately mandated health insurance, but a non-citizen can get free health care, education, and welfare money without showing any ID. Go figure!

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[pepperpot]

It should be a choice of how they wish to receive their SS benefit. Paper check or paperless.

Where have all the savings gone to over the years? The savings from EZ pass, unmanned bridge/tunnel toll booths, computers replacing people, etc. They promised it would save money there too, where did that go? Where will this "savings" go?

Ahhhh...the savings went to pay for the government benefits for people who cannot make ends meet due to lack of jobs and an increased welfare based society.

[3lilpigs]

The switch will save the government about $120 million a year. Social Security will save $1 billion over the next decade, according to the Treasury Department.

And the US Postal Service just LOST $120 million a year!
Nice going, morons!!

"You think of that paper check floating out there in the delivery system, with personal information on it, it's much more susceptible to fraud versus an electronic payment," Henderson said.

How is that any different than credit card statements, mortgage payments, or any other bill coming in the mail??

[Jolie Rouge]

The switch will save the government about $120 million a year...

>snip<

The government's switch to electronic payments also comes with a side effect: less business for the U.S. Postal Service, an agency that is already facing big budget problems with the rise of email and electronic bill paying.

Senate works to avert Postal Service collapse
Senate tries to put wrangling aside to rescue Postal Service from insolvency
By Tom Curry, msnbc.com National Affairs Writer

The Senate struggled Thursday to push forward a bill to restructure the U.S. Postal Service, but still lacked accord on which amendments the senators would be allowed to offer. “We’re really very, very close to getting something done,” said Majority Leader Harry Reid Thursday afternoon. “Our main issue now is whether there will be a 50-vote hurdle or a 60-vote hurdle,” he said.

The Postal Service is headed for financial collapse and perhaps for a taxpayer bailout. Whether Congress can avert this outcome and save it is the question that the Senate has been debating this week as it considers a bipartisan agency restructuring bill. Reid warned on the Senate floor Thursday, “Those of you who are holding up the bill because you don’t like it, you may not like what the result of having no bill is.”

He also said, “If there is no bill, the post office will be drastically hit.”

Reid and his colleagues face a deadline: the Postal Service has agreed to a moratorium on closing any postal retail facilities until May 15, to allow Congress time to devise a way to resuscitate an enterprise that, if it were in the private sector, would be on the brink of bankruptcy or liquidation. If Congress does not act by that deadline, the postmaster general will close more than 200 mail processing plants and take other cost-cutting steps.

But there’s discord among senators over what “saving” the Postal Service would really mean, whether it’s worth saving, and whether small towns from Maine to Montana will lose the post offices that serve as their community anchors. “Its failure would deliver a crushing blow to our economy at a time when the economy is already fragile and it would be particularly harmful to people living and working in rural America,” said Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, the chief Republican co-sponsor of the restructuring bill.

The legislation’s other chief sponsor, Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, said, “This bill will keep the Postal Service alive and I think it will keep it well and put it on the path to surviving forever – but in a different way …” Noting that the Postal Service still delivers 563 million pieces of mail each day, Lieberman said it was “unthinkable” that it could cease operation, calling it “not just a relic of the 18th century but a pivotal part of the 21st century.”

The Lieberman-Collins bill would use an $11 billion refund from Federal Employee Retirement system to offer buyouts of up to $25,000 to postal workers. Half of the Postal Service workforce of 557,000 employees is eligible for full or early retirement, Lieberman said. If 100,000 were to retire, the Postal Service would save $8 billion a year.

The bill also relaxes the tight schedule for Postal Service payments into a fund for retiree health care, easing its cash flow problem. And for at least two years, it would halt the end of Saturday mail delivery, as other cost-cutting measures were implemented. Action on the bill was temporarily derailed when Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., tried on Tuesday to get a vote on an amendment to the postal bill aimed at cutting off U.S. aid to Egypt unless Cairo ends prosecution of American citizens pursuing pro-democracy action in the African nation.

Leaders of each party were working to reach a deal to allow votes on a limited number of amendments to the legislation. If there’s no deal on amendments, there will be a vote to move ahead on the bill Thursday morning and Republicans might block it if they can’t get the chance to vote on amendments they want. Although Cairo, Egypt is long way from Cairo, Kentucky, Paul defended his effort to get a floor vote on his amendment. “I was never preventing any action (on the postal bill). I just want a 15-minute vote,” he told reporters on Wednesday. The Postal Service, he said “is losing $4 billion a year and I think the American people would like to know why we’re sending money to Egypt when we can’t fund our own enterprises in this country.”

According to a report issued Tuesday by the Government Accountability Office, Congress’s fiscal watchdog, transactions at postal retail facilities have decreased by 18 percent over the past five years, while mail volume has declined by more than 20 percent. In fiscal year 2011, the Postal Service had a $5.1 billion loss and did not make its $5.5 billion retiree health benefits payment to the federal government. “Approximately 80 percent of its retail facilities do not generate sufficient revenue to cover their costs,” the GAO reported, yet “the number of USPS-operated retail facilities, about 32,000, has remained largely unchanged” over the past five years.

An opponent of the Lieberman-Collins bill, Sen. John McCain, R- Ariz., said, “It is very clear that Congress and the Postal Service cannot make decisions.” The only solution, he said, would be an independent commission (akin to the Base Realignment and Closure Commission which closed military bases) to shut down redundant or money-losing facilities.

Mocking the Lieberman-Collins bill’s two-year study of cost control measures before eliminating Saturday mail delivery, McCain said sarcastically during Tuesday’s floor debate, “Now isn’t that marvelous! Two years to study! It’s delaying what is absolutely necessary and that is to have five-day-a-week delivery.”

Illustrating the home-state concerns felt by almost all senators on closing postal facilities, Collins passionately defended a mail processing center in Hampden, a town in northern Maine. Closing it would mean that a letter sent from one town in northern Maine to another town just ten miles away would take a 600-mile roundtrip, she said. “That (Hampden) plant could be downsized, but it should never be closed” she insisted.

NBCPolitics.com asked Collins Wednesday whether her die-hard defense of Hampden didn’t precisely illustrate the problem – few senators or House members are willing to allow a facility in his or her state or district to be closed -- so few are ever shuttered. The problem is there are (under current law) not (legal) standards when a center or a post office should be closed,” she explained. The Lieberman-Collins bill would set such standards. “Our bill does not say that not a single post office or processing plant can be closed. Nor do we dictate that certain numbers should be closed.” Instead the bill sets what Collins called “logical standards” to determine which ones should be shut.

Under the 1970 Postal Reorganization Act, the Postal Service was supposed to be financially self-sufficient, covering its costs through postal rates and fees. But in its previous reform efforts, Congress has shown that it manages and sometimes micromanages the Postal Service, even as it advocates self-sustainability.

This week’s GAO report blamed Congress itself for making it impossible for the Postal Service to operate as a profitable private-sector firm would. The GAO said, “On one hand, USPS is supposed to ‘act like a business’ and be self-financing, but on the other hand, it is restricted by law from making decisions that businesses would commonly make, such as closing unprofitable units.” For example, under federal law, no small post office can be closed solely for operating at a deficit.

Paul seems to see the Postal Service as a lost cause, calling the Lieberman-Collins effort was “too little, too late. I always ask people would you like to buy the Postal Service? If we could just sell it to somebody,” he mused and then pondered another idea: “Declaring bankruptcy – I don’t know if you could do it technically – but there’s been some discussion of that.” Declaring bankruptcy would allow the Postal Service to abrogate contracts with its labor unions “and start all over” with new contracts, he said.

But the Kentucky freshman senator acknowledged, “People are emotional” about closing post offices. “People come to me … Republicans who say, ‘I supported you (in the 2010 election), I’m part of the Tea Party, but don’t close my post office.’”

http://nbcpolitics.msnbc.msn.com/_ne...nsolvency?lite

[pepperpot]

“Those of you who are holding up the bill because you don’t like it, you may not like what the result of having no bill is.”

I'm having scary flashbacks of the Obamacare health bill, "we don't have to read it nor know what's in it, we just need to pass it"......look at that result.

[Jolie Rouge]

SOCIAL SECURITY NOW CALLED 'FEDERAL BENEFIT PAYMENT'/ENTITLEMENT!

Have you noticed, your Social Security check is now referred to as a "Federal Benefit Payment"?

I'll be part of the one percent to forward this.

I am forwarding it because it touches a nerve in me, and I hope it will in you. Please keep passing it on until everyone in our country has read it. The government is now referring to our Social Security checks as a “Federal Benefit Payment.”

This isn’t a benefit – its earned income!

Not only did we all contribute to Social Security but our employers did too. It totaled 15% of our income before taxes. If you averaged $30K per year over your working life, that's close to $180,000 invested in Social Security. If you calculate the future value of your monthly investment in social security ($375/month, including both your and your employer’s contributions) at a meager 1% interest rate compounded monthly, after 40 years of working you'd have more than $1.3+ million dollars saved! This is your personal investment.

Upon retirement, if you took out only 3% per year, you'd receive $39,318 per year, or $3,277 per month. That’s almost three times more than today’s average Social Security benefit of $1,230 per month, according to the Social Security Administration (Google it - it’s a fact). And your retirement fund would last more than 33 years (until you're 98 if you retire at age 65)!

I can only imagine how much better most average-income people could live in retirement if our government had just invested our money in low-risk interest-earning accounts. Instead, the folks in Washington pulled off a bigger Ponzi scheme than Bernie Madoff ever did. They took our money and used it elsewhere. They “forgot” that it was OUR money they were taking. They didn’t have a referendum to ask us if we wanted to lend the money to them. And they didn’t pay interest on the debt they assumed. And recently, they’ve told us that the money won’t support us for very much longer. But is it our fault they misused our investments?

And now, to add insult to injury, they’re calling it a “benefit,” as if we never worked to earn every penny of it. Just because they “borrowed” the money, doesn't mean that our investments were a charity!

Let’s take a stand. We have earned our right to Social Security and Medicare. Demand that our legislators bring some sense into our government – Find a way to keep Social Security and Medicare going, for the sake of that 92% of our population who need it.

Here’s a novel idea: Reduce the military budget to support our own population. Get out of the countries who don’t want us there. Bring our soldiers home and invest some of the $700B+ in giving them new careers building roads and parks, teaching our children, creating new technologies, discovering cures for illness. Then take the rest and begin to pay back Social Security, and call it what it is:

Our Earned Retirement Income.


....


I received this as an email .... but I did run it by Snopes ....http://www.snopes.com/politics/taxes/benefit.asp

[Jolie Rouge]

January 06, 2013
Social Security Crisis Arrives At The NY Times

The NY Times Sunday Review features an extraordinary data-dive into the workings of the Social Security Trust Fund life-span estimation process. Their conclusion - the Social Security actuaries are using outmoded technoques; contemporary analytical tools suggest that Americans will live longer and deplete the Social Security Trust Fund faster than currently forecast. Properly adjusted forecasts would show Social Security spending an additional $800 billion (cumulatively) by 2031, which is roughly $40 billion per year. http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/06/op...ml?ref=opinion

And the authors discover a real howler - apparently the Mayans have found a toehold in the Social Security office: http://justoneminute.typepad.com/.a/...dfa2970d-800wi



So fifteen years from now everyone aged 55-59 will die? This has to be a blow to current 40-44 year olds. Geez, all those folks walking around reassuring themselves that life begins at 40 now find it will end in the late 50's. I'd say don't blame me, I voted for Romney, but I am sure this is a bipartisan methodlogical whoopsie.

The full research is here http://gking.harvard.edu/gking/publi...ocial-security http://gking.harvard.edu/files/ssc_0_0.pdf and I haven't delved into that cause of death yet. But this is their key conclusion from the Times:

For the first time in more than a quarter-century, Social Security ran a deficit in 2010: It spent $49 billion dollars more in benefits than it received in revenues, and drew from its trust funds to cover the shortfall. Those funds — a $2.7 trillion buffer built in anticipation of retiring baby boomers — will be exhausted by 2033, the government currently projects.

Those facts are widely known. What’s not is that the Social Security Administration underestimates how long Americans will live and how much the trust funds will need to pay out — to the tune of $800 billion by 2031, more than the current annual defense budget — and that the trust funds will run out, if nothing is done, two years earlier than the government has predicted

So over the next twenty years Social Security forecasts are short by (very roughly) $40 billion per year. OK, that is not a trivial number even by contemporary budgeting standards in Washington. http://justoneminute.typepad.com/mai...denialism.html

This totally conflicts with the liberal progressive catechism of Social Security Denialism but I am sure the reality-based community will embrace this new reality.

ANOTHER QUESTION I CAN'T ANSWER: The authors show their revised life expectancies for different age cohorts as of 2030. One of the cohorts is the 55-59 year old group. But didn't a lot of that group die in 2028?

Obviously, if all the 55-59 year old die in 2028 there will still be some people around to populate the 55-59 year old group two years later (namely the folks who were 53 or 54 in 2028). Still one wonders how the actuaries could overlook that sort of a gap, where a particular age range is just gone.

http://justoneminute.typepad.com/mai...-ny-times.html

The truly misleading bit is this:

Those funds — a $2.7 trillion buffer built in anticipation of retiring baby boomers — will be exhausted by 2033, the government currently projects.

A more open assessment would look something like this:

Those funds — a $2.7 trillion buffer built in anticipation of retiring baby boomers — were spent on pet projects by shortsighted politicians and replaced by IOUs. Hence future taxpayers will have to make up that amount as well as the other obligations in the program.

And even FactCheck won't support the various Democrats (esp. Harry Reid and Richard Durbin) who continue to lie about it. http://www.factcheck.org/2011/02/dem...ritys-red-ink/

..

This, Matt Taibbi's article on what a crony deal the bank bailout was that is in the current Rolling Stone---
almost makes you think these folks deliberately held these back until after the election---


Nah, only a crazy conspiracy theory believing Tea Partier would think that.

[Jolie Rouge]

THINK THIS LADY IS PISSED?

Alan Simpson, the Senator from Wyoming calls senior citizens the Greediest Generation as he compared "Social Security " to a Milk Cow with 310 million teats. Here's a response in a letter from PATTY MYERS in Montana ... I think she is a little ticked off! She also tells it like it is!

"Hey ...Alan, let's get a few things straight!!!

1. As a career politician, you have been on the public dole (teat) for FIFTY YEARS.

2. I have been paying Social Security taxes for 48 YEARS (since I was 15 years old. I am now 63).

3. My Social Security payments, and those of millions of other Americans, were safely tucked away in an interest bearing account for decades until you political pukes decided to raid the account and give OUR money to a bunch of zero losers in return for votes, thus bankrupting the system and turning Social Security into a Ponzi scheme that would make Bernie Madoff proud.

4. Recently, just like Lucy & Charlie Brown, you and "your ilk" pulled the proverbial football away from millions of American seniors nearing retirement and moved the goalposts for full retirement from age 65 to age, 67. NOW, you and your "shill commission" are proposing to move the goalposts YET AGAIN.

5. I, and millions of other Americans, have been paying into Medicare from Day One, and now "you morons" propose to change the rules of the game. Why? Because "you idiots" mismanaged other parts of the economy to such an extent that you need to steal our money from Medicare to pay the bills.

6. I, and millions of other Americans, have been paying income taxes our entire lives, and now you propose to increase our taxes yet again. Why? Because you "incompetent bastards" spent our money so profligately that you just kept on spending even after you ran out of money. Now, you come to the American taxpayers and say you need more to pay off YOUR debt.

To add insult to injury, you label us "greedy" for calling "bullsh!t" to your incompetence.

Well, Captain Bullsh!t, I have a few questions for YOU:

1. How much money have you earned from the American taxpayers during your pathetic 50-year political career?

2. At what age did you retire from your pathetic political career, and how much are you receiving in annual retirement benefits from the American taxpayers?

3. How much do you pay for YOUR government provided health insurance?

4. What cuts in YOUR retirement and healthcare benefits are you proposing in your disgusting deficit reduction proposal, or as usual, have you exempted yourself and your political cronies?

It is you, Captain Bullsh*t, and your political co-conspirators called Congress who are the "greedy" ones. It is you and your fellow nutcase thieves who have bankrupted America and stolen the American dream from millions of loyal, patriotic taxpayers.

And for what? Votes and your job and retirement security at our expense, you lunk-headed, leech. That's right, sir. You and yours have bankrupted America for the sole purpose of advancing your pathetic, political careers. You know it, we know it, and you know that we know it. And you can take that to the bank, you miserable son of a b*tch.

P.S. And stop calling Social Security benefits "entitlements". WHAT AN INSULT!!!!

I have been paying in to the SS system for 45 years. It's my money - give it back to me the way the system was designed and stop patting yourself on the back like you are being generous by doling out these monthly checks .

[Jolie Rouge]

HISTORY LESSON ON YOUR SOCIAL SECURITY CARD

Just in case some of you young whippersnappers (& some older ones) didn’t know this. It’s easy to check out, if you don’t believe it. Be sure and show it to your family and friends. They need a little history lesson on what’s what and it doesn’t matter whether you are Democrat or Republican. Facts are Facts.

Social Security Cards up until the 1980s expressly stated the number and card were not to be used for identification purposes.

Since nearly everyone in the United States now has a number, it became convenient to use it anyway and the NOT FOR IDENTIFICATION message was removed.

Franklin Roosevelt, a Democrat, introduced the Social Security (FICA) Program. His promises are in black, with updates in red.

1.) That participation in the Program would be Completely voluntary [No longer voluntary],

2.) That the participants would only have to pay 1% of the first $1,400 of their annual Incomes into the Program [Now 7.65% on the first $90,000, and 15% on the first $90,000 if you’re self-employed],

3.) That the money the participants elected to put into the Program would be deductible from their income for tax purposes each year [No longer tax deductible],

4.) That the money the participants put into the independent ‘Trust Fund’ rather than into the general operating fund, and therefore, would only be used to fund the Social Security Retirement Program, and no other Government program [Under Johnson the money was moved to the General Fund and Spent], and

5.) That the annuity payments to the retirees would never be taxed as income [Under Clinton & Gore up to 85% of your Social Security can be Taxed].

Since many of us have paid into FICA for years and are now receiving a Social Security check every month — and then finding that we are getting taxed on 85% of the money we paid to the Federal government to ‘put away’ — you may be interested in the following:

Q: Which Political Party took Social Security from the independent ‘Trust Fund’ and put it into the general fund so that Congress could spend it?

A: It was Lyndon Johnson and the democratically controlled House and Senate.

Q: Which Political Party eliminated the income tax deduction for Social Security (FICA) withholding?

A: The Democratic Party.

Q: Which Political Party started taxing Social Security annuities?

A: The Democratic Party, with Al Gore casting the ‘tie-breaking’ deciding vote as President of the Senate, while he was Vice President of the US

AND MY FAVORITE:

Q: Which Political Party decided to start giving annuity payments to immigrants?

A: That’s right! Jimmy Carter and the Democratic Party. Immigrants moved into this country, and at age 65, began to receive Social Security payments! The Democratic Party gave these payments to them, even though they never paid a dime into it!

Now, after violating the original contract (FICA), the Democrats turn around and tell you that the Republicans want to take your Social Security away!

And the worst part about it is uninformed citizens believe it! If enough people receive this, maybe a seed of awareness will be planted and maybe changes will evolve. Maybe not, though. Some Democrats are awfully sure of what isn’t so — but it’s worth a try. How many people can YOU send this to?

Actions speak louder than bumper stickers.

[Jolie Rouge]

At a time when seniors have heard Democrats screaming for a $15.00 per hour living wage, double the current level, and President Obama raised the annual minimum wage for federal contractors to just over 21,000 dollars a year, once again you are about to get shafted. That’s right, for just the third time in 40 years, all under the reign of Obama, millions of Social Security recipients, disabled veterans and federal retirees will see no increase in benefits next year. A sort of “no one needs you, go die” from the administration to about 1/5th of the nation’s population.

On this coming Thursday, the government will announce that there is not increase coming your way. The reason they say is because the price of gasoline has fallen so much it has offset increases in other items. The COLA is set by a government formula that determines the amount of inflation on a group of specific items, of which gasoline is one. Forget that bread is now over $2.00 a loaf, eggs have almost tripled to $5.00 for a dozen and a half, and that thanks to Obama, your insurance payments, co-pays and drug costs have all gone through the roof. You see, those things are not in the COLA calculation. As for that Big Mac and Fries that has gone up because of the increase in the minimum wage, well it isn’t in there either.

I know what you’re going to say, “you just be hating on Obama, he don’t control that stuff, it has been figured the same way for years.” Well you’re right on both counts. But while he does not have any control over the prices charged in the grocery basket used in the calculation, his people are the ones that decide what goes in that basket. What most people don’t know, is that shortly after taking office, Mr. Obama issued orders that the shopping Cart be re-configured for the first time in 38 years. These changes by his administration have resulted in some of the lowest cost of living increases in ever, not to mention no increase in either 2010, 2011, or this year, 2015.

Congress enacted automatic increases for Social Security beneficiaries in 1975, when inflation was high and there was a lot of pressure to regularly raise benefits. Since then, increases have averaged 4 percent a year. But not this year. Currently about 70 million Americans receive payments that are affected by the COLA adjustments.

That’s 60 million retirees, disabled workers, spouses and children who get Social Security benefits. The average of which is a monthly payment of $1,224.00 or an annual payment of $14688.00. That amount is less than half of that $15.00 living minimum wage, and over $5,000.00 dollars less than Obama’s new minimum wage for Federal Contractors. Are you feeling unwanted by the Democrats yet?

The COLA also affects benefits for about 4 million disabled veterans, 2.5 million federal retirees and their survivors, and more than 8 million people who get Supplemental Security Income, the disability program for the poor. Many people who get SSI also receive Social Security.

Ready for even more bad news? Since there will be no COLA, you probably are going to face even higher health care costs. Why? Most people have their Medicare Part B premiums for outpatient care deducted directly from their Social Security payments, and the annual cost-of-living increase is usually enough to cover any rise in premiums. When that doesn’t happen, a long-standing federal “hold harmless” law protects the majority of beneficiaries from having their Social Security payments reduced.

But that leaves about 30 percent of Medicare beneficiaries on the hook for a premium increase that otherwise would be spread among all. Those who would pay the higher premiums include 2.8 million new beneficiaries, 1.6 million whose premiums aren’t deducted from their Social Security payments and 3.1 million people with higher incomes. Their premiums could jump by about $54 a month; more for those with higher incomes.

All beneficiaries would see their Part B annual deductible for outpatient care jump by $76, to an estimated $223. The deductible is the annual amount patients pay before Medicare kicks in. “This would affect all beneficiaries,” said Tricia Neuman of the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation. “This kind of an increase is unprecedented.”

Elderly advocates argue that the government’s measure of inflation doesn’t accurately reflect price increases in the goods and services that older Americans use. “The COLA is determined by the buying power of younger working adults,” said Mary Johnson of The Senior Citizens League.

Many advocates for seniors want Congress to adopt an experimental price index that seeks to capture the inflation experienced by Americans 62 and older. The Social Security Administration estimates it would increase the annual COLA by an average of 0.2 percentage points.

Lee Marshall of Greenville, California, said the current inflation index isn’t good enough. “They have a formula that they use that doesn’t reflect the actual cost of living,” said Marshall, 68, a retired laborer and casino dealer. “Just because the price of gas is going down, that doesn’t mean anything.”

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[I]comments

Social security belongs to all of us who paid into it most of our lives. It doesn't belong to the government although they steal from it all the time.