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Even as millions of baby boomers approach retirement, the Social Security Administration has been closing dozens of field offices, forcing more and more seniors to seek help online instead of in person, according to a congressional report being released Wednesday. The agency blames budget constraints. As a result, seniors seeking information and help from the agency are facing increasingly long waits, in person and on the phone, the report said. Social Security has closed 64 field offices since 2010, the largest number of closures in a five-year period in the agency’s history, according to a report by the bipartisan staff...

For years, the Social Security Administration has warned lawmakers that unless they do something soon, the entitlement program for disabled workers will run out of cash by 2016. Still, as the program’s funds dry up and its insolvency hovers less than two years away, Congress remains quiet on the issue.

The funny thing about third rails in politics is that there are many of them. Senator Marco Rubio seized two important ones on Tuesday. If the quality of his ideas this week are any indication, we believe he’ll live to do so again. His comprehensive speech addressed how the federal government ought to support the elderly, laying out a plan to shore up Social Security and explaining and endorsing Paul Ryan’s approach to Medicare reform. The two key planks to Rubio’s Social Security proposal are a gradual increase in the retirement age, tied to increases in American life expectancy,...

No English? No problem! A little known Social Security policy considers a person’s ability to learn English when determining disability eligibility. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) sent a letter to Acting Commissioner of the Social Security Administration Carolyn Colvin last week to express concerns about a disability policy that may fast-track Americans who can’t speak English. The policy allows people to qualify for benefits more quickly if “they are incapable of communicating in English.” […] Disability applications have gone up 230 percent in the last decade, according to a report. …

Full Title: Harrington Discusses Story on Non-English Speakers Getting Fast-Tracked for Disability Approval Washington Free Beacon reporter Elizabeth Harrington appeared on Fox and Friends Saturday to discuss her story on non-English speakers being fast-tracked for federal disability approval. Harrington reported: Ranking Member of the Senate Budget Committee Jeff Sessions (R., Ala.) sent a letter obtained exclusively by the Free Beacon to Acting Commissioner of the Social Security Administration Carolyn Colvin on Thursday, raising concerns regarding revelations that individuals who cannot speak English are fast-tracked for disability approval. “I write to express my concerns about the expanding number of individuals now...

Dear Carrie: Several of my friends and I (all in our early 60s) are understandably thinking about Social Security. Everyone seems to have different ideas -- and different information -- about when to apply for benefits, how to apply, and how much we can expect to get. Can you give us a straightforward answer on what we should know? -- A ReaderDear Reader: Since Social Security plays such a big part in people's lives, you'd think we'd have a better idea about how it all works. But on the contrary, a lot of folks don't fully understand their benefits or,...

If you simultaneously accept estimates published by the Census Bureau and the Chief Actuary of Social Security, then illegal aliens who misused Social Security numbers to work illegally in the United States in 2010 earned more on average than American women did. The Office of the Chief Actuary published an analysis in April 2013 entitled, "Effects of Unauthorized Immigration on the Actuarial Status of the Social Security Trust Funds." It included this question and answer: "Question: Of the unauthorized workers paying OASDI (Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance) taxes, what is the average level of earnings upon which the taxes are...

"Some think Social Security is going bankrupt, but since the program uses taxes from current workers to pay current retirees, it is impossible for it to go bankrupt. The program also doesn’t contribute to the national debt or the deficit as some have suggested. All taxes and spending for the program happen independently of the federal budget." "Social Security took in more money than it paid out in benefits until 2010, which created an enormous trust fund, but since 2010, the program has paid out more in benefits than it has received in taxes. Should this trend continue, the trust...

A former U.S. Postal Service employee in Anchorage was arraigned Friday on charges he accepted at least $334,000 in disability and worker's comp payments while he spent his summers fishing. The U.S. attorney's office says in a Friday release that 56-year-old Amacio Zamora Agcaoili Jr. was indicted by a federal grand jury on 18 counts, including theft of government funds. Assistant U.S. Attorney Yvonne Lamoureux also claims Agcaoli lied about not working when he was paid for preparing tax returns and immigration paperwork. Authorities also claim he failed to tell the Social Security Administration about his worker's comp payments, to...

The Social Security Administration announced Monday it is suspending a controversial program that goes after adult children of deceased taxpayers who the government claims were recipients of overpayments more than a decade ago. Acting Social Security Commissioner Carolyn W. Colvin said she has directed an immediate halt to the three-year-old program while the agency does a review. The controversial program seized tax refunds in an effort to recoup the funds. The move to stop the program came after many of the recipients and members of Congress complained to the federal agency.

When I say “debts,” I don’t mean loans that the parents willingly sought from SSA. It would be bad enough to hold a kid responsible for that (since when are children responsible for their parents’ obligations?), but at least it would have been voluntarily incurred by mom/dad. The “debts” here are overpayments of Social Security benefits, the product of SSA’s own errors. The parents who received them might not have even realized they were getting money they weren’t supposed to have. And now, somehow, it’s junior’s problem. But wait. It gets worse. When [Mary] Grice was 4, back in 1960,...

The Social Security Disability Insurance program is in big trouble. In 2016, the program's trust fund is expected to run out of money. When that happens, there will be "large across-the-board cuts for all beneficiaries," warn James Lankford, the Republican chairman of the House subcommittee that oversees entitlements, and Jackie Speier, the subcommittee's ranking Democrat. Those cuts will be painful for the "truly disabled," whom the system originally was designed to serve. Washington has a choice to make: provide for the truly disabled or the newly disabled. The definition of disability was expanded to include mental disorders, such as anxiety...

The Washington Post reports that hundreds of thousands of taxpayers who are expecting refunds this month are instead getting letters informing them that because of a debt they never knew about — often a debt incurred by their parents — the government has confiscated their check. http://m.washingtonpost.com/politics/social-security-treasury-target-hundreds-of-thousands-of-taxpayers-for-parents-old-debts/2014/04/10/74ac8eae-bf4d-11e3-bcec-b71ee10e9bc3_story.html?tid=HP_more

When I say “debts,” I don’t mean loans that the parents willingly sought from SSA. It would be bad enough to hold a kid responsible for that (since when are children responsible for their parents’ obligations?), but at least it would have been voluntarily incurred by mom/dad. The “debts” here are overpayments of Social Security benefits, the product of SSA’s own errors. The parents who received them might not have even realized they were getting money they weren’t supposed to have. And now, somehow, it’s junior’s problem.But wait. It gets worse. When [Mary] Grice was 4, back in 1960, her...

After years of lefty rhetoric about how even the smallest ID requirement at the polls is some sort of pogrom against minority voters and the poor, I … did not see this coming.But maybe I should have. Per some polls, support for voter ID reaches 80+ percent. Maybe Bill’s already thinking about purple states in 2016. With 34 states now requiring some form of identification at the polls, former president Bill Clinton and civil rights leader Andrew Young on Wednesday endorsed the idea of adding photos to Social Security cards as a way to prevent voter suppression…Clinton and Young, a...

Their golden years aren’t looking so golden. A mere 6 percent of the so-called millennial generation think they will receive the same level of Social Security benefits as current retirees, according to a study recently released by the Pew Research Center. It is hard to decide the appropriate reaction to this finding. On one hand, I am relieved that the vast majority of this generation understands that there is little hope Social Security will be around for their retirement — regardless of how much they pay in taxes. On the other hand, I am incredulous that 6 percent of this...

The Republican Party is currently trying to sort out an internal battle between its dwindling stock of moderates who are occasionally willing to work with Democrats, and its hard-right base, which views compromise with Democrats in general, and President Obama in particular, as heresy. But in a speech Monday, Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD), the second-ranking Democrat in the House showed that there are significant fissures in the Democratic Party as well. Hoyer, though nominally Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s second-in-command, is starkly different from Pelosi and many others on the party’s left wing when it comes to economic and fiscal issues....

The critics are right, however, that some people will choose to work less because they qualify for a tax-credit based subsidy. If not for this government program, they would have to work harder and employment numbers would be higher. So might total output or gross domestic product. This aspect of the Affordable Care Act distorts economic efficiency. But don't kid yourself that this is anything new. Social Security has the same effect. About 41 million people currently get Social Security retirement benefits. Many still do work, at least part-time. But most do not. If not for their monthly checks, which...

If you lend yourself money, should you charge interest on the loan? It would depend on how badly you need the interest income, wouldn't it? If you were desperate for cash, you'd pay yourself a hefty interest rate. After all, you need the money, right? If you fail to see the absurdity in those questions, you might be a member of Congress. But what may be even more absurd than those questions is federal finance. You see, the federal government "lends" itself money and pays interest on those "loans." The prime example of this practice is the surpluses generated by...

President Obama is facing a deepening dilemma about whether to abandon cuts to Social Security in his next fiscal blueprint, which is due out in March. Obama touched the third rail of American politics last year when he proposed a new formula for Social Security and other entitlements that would result in benefits being cut over time. Now congressional Democrats and unions are ramping up their pressure on Obama to drop the proposal, which many fear could become an albatross for the party in the midterm elections. “We want the president to make very clear that he is going to...