Free Republic

Aging population is boosting the costs of Social Security and Medicare as growth projections ease The Social Security program’s costs will exceed its income this year for the first time since 1982, forcing the program to dip into its nearly $3 trillion trust fund to cover benefits. This is three years sooner than expected a year ago, partly due to lower economic growth projections, according to the latest annual report the trustees of Social Security and Medicare released Tuesday. The program’s income comes from tax revenue and interest from its trust fund. The trust fund will be depleted in 2034...

Newbie retirees may need to lower their expectations when it comes to their Social Security checks. According to a new survey released by the National Retirement Institute, more than a quarter (27%) of new retirees say their monthly checks are less than they expected. What’s more, nearly two in three of soon-to-be retirees (63%) admit that they are not confident in their overall knowledge of how Social Security works. That number is alarming because nearly one in four (26%) future retirees believe they can live comfortably on Social Security alone. “It’s problematic that so many people are planning to rely...

The AK-47. And liberals want to ban it.

The Social Security Administration says that one-third of retirees receive nearly all their income from Social Security. The true figure is only around one-third that amount. How much do Americans really rely on Social Security to get by in retirement. You can hear different numbers, some of which are truly scary. Writing for Marketwatch, Alicia Munnell of Boston College and the Center for Retirement Research cites a study that she hopes “will put the statistical debate to rest.” Sadly, I don’t see any rest for the weary on this issue. But looking at one additional study which uses the best...

Article IV, Section 3 of our Constitution provides that "The Congress shall have the power to dispose of and make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other property belonging to the United States." A Republican-run state might buy up a few square miles of unoccupied land and sell it and the state sovereignty over it to the federal government. The federal government might then sell it off to a state-authorized private party who promises to create a new republic on it with: 1. limits on taxation/governmental fees/fines/licensing, and 2. no foreign military force, and 3. no governmental...

CORONA, Calif.—Roberta Gordon never thought she’d still be alive at age 76. She definitely didn’t think she’d still be working. But every Saturday, she goes down to the local grocery store and hands out samples, earning $50 a day, because she needs the money. “I’m a working woman again,” she told me, in the common room of the senior apartment complex where she now lives, here in California’s Inland Empire. Gordon has worked dozens of odd jobs throughout her life—as a house cleaner, a home health aide, a telemarketer, a librarian, a fundraiser—but at many times in her life, she...

"I have a friend who receives his social security check on the fourth wednesday of every month. So, based on the concept of one month, he thought that each check was four weeks apart, regardless of dates. A month is a month. Given the randomness--periodicity over long periods of years notwithstanding [400 years]--of what day of the week might be what date of the month, I did a cursory glance at the math and accepted it, although it didn't feel right, those straggling days at the end must count for something. This month--November--he has to wait 5 weeks between checks....

Leftists have been pushing the idea of paid family leave for a long time. It was one of the big early crusades of Bill Clinton’s presidency. The notion that the government should help cover the costs of having a child springs naturally from the “progressive” mindset that government should be there to provide in case anyone needs (or merely prefers) assistance. It also dovetails with the liberal political mentality that many votes are to be won by giving people stuff. And now, we find that people who are not on the left are nevertheless backing a paid family leave plan,...

Social Security is, barring an immediate and massive overhaul in how benefits are paid to the back-end of the Baby Boomer generation and beyond, on its deathbed. There can be no mistaking that fact. Veronique de Rugy explains at Reason: Since 2010, [Social Security] has been running at a cash-flow deficit – meaning that the Social Security payroll taxes the government collects aren't enough to cover the benefits it's obliged to pay out. That should have been a signal that the time had come to look at reform. Instead, we've spent the last seven years ignoring the problem. To get...

On Thursday, House Democratic Party Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi characterized as "crumbs" the bonuses of $1,000 or more, pay raises of up to $3 per hour, and other benefits well over 100 companies have showered on over 2 million employees as a result of December's tax law passage. Given their track record, there's no reason to believe that the establishment press will report Pelosi's condescending remarks — or that they will remind their audience that in 2011 and 2012, the Obama administration and Democrats in Congress treated the prospect of workers losing $40 every other week in their paychecks as...

Key Points Taking Social Security benefits before you reach full retirement age may not be in your best interest. We’ll cover Social Security benefit eligibility and factors to consider when deciding when to take Social Security. The strategies for maximizing benefits can get complex—talk to your financial planner or tax professional if needed. When you start receiving full Social Security retirement benefits is a key question for your retirement plans. The first thing to understand is that the concept of “full retirement age” is a moving target that depends on your birth year (see table below). You can elect...

When financial advisers discuss Social Security benefits, it is usually in the context of counseling clients when to claim retirement benefits and the impact of that decision on the amount of survivor benefits for the remaining spouse. But one of the Social Security program's most valuable features is disability benefits that are paid to workers and their dependent family members when they are too sick or injured to work. Yet many advisers are at a loss when it comes to guiding a client through the disability application labyrinth. That's when it's time to call in the pros. One adviser contacted...

Federal agents spent months tracking down Conn, who cut off his electronic monitor and fled in June. Conn pleaded guilty in March to stealing from the federal government and bribing a judge in a more than $500 million Social Security fraud case.

A prominent Kentucky disability attorney at the center of a more than $500 million Social Security fraud case, who became the subject of a massive manhunt after he vanished months ago, has been captured in Honduras, officials announced Monday. Eric Conn was captured by a SWAT team as he came out of a restaurant in the coastal city of La Ceiba, the Honduras public magistrate’s office said in a news release . The office added that the arrest was “the product of arduous intelligence, surveillance and tailing by the agents.” U.S. federal agents spent months tracking Conn, who cut off...

Florida Senator Marco Rubio admits that the Republican tax cut plan to aid corporations and the wealthy will require cuts to Social Security and Medicare to pay for it. Rubio told reporters this week that in order to address the federal deficit, which will grow by at least $1 trillion if the tax plan passes, Congress will need to cut entitlement programs such as Social Security. Advocates for the elderly and the poor have warned that entitlement programs would be on the chopping block, but this is the first time a prominent Republican has backed their claims. “We have to...

Many Americans rely on Social Security benefits to see them through retirement, but how much should they really be depending on those checks? Not very much, experts said. Social Security is not being used as it was intended, said Ric Edelman, executive chairman and co-founder of Edelman Financial Services in Fairfax, Va. and author of “The Truth about Your Future.” When Congress and President Franklin D. Roosevelt created the system in 1933, the program was designed to be a safety net for Americans — for those who had no financial support. Now, “a great many Americans are relying heavily on...

One possibility is using cryptographic keys, or a combination of long random numbers WASHINGTON—The administration of President Donald Trump is exploring ways to replace the Social Security number with a safer system based on modern technology in the wake of the Equifax Inc. EFX -0.58% hack, the White House cybersecurity czar said Tuesday. Rob Joyce, the White House’s cybersecurity coordinator, said one possibility is using cryptographic keys, or a combination of long random numbers, to unlock personal data. The merit of such numbers is that they could be revoked once they are found to be compromised, he said. “I feel...

The psychologist who helped pull off the biggest Social Security fraud in U.S. history was sentenced Friday to 25 years in prison. Alfred Bradley Adkins was part of the fraud ring orchestrated by Eric C. Conn, one of the country’s most prominent disability lawyers, and David B. Daugherty, a Social Security judge who rubber-stamped at least 1,700 bogus applications for benefits. All told, the scam would have cost the government at least $600 million in fraudulent lifetime benefits, according to the government’s conservative estimate. Some $93 million were already paid out before the scam was stopped, the government said. Judge...

The Social Security Administration improperly paid children in juvenile detention facilities $1.7 million, according to a new audit. The inspector general for the agency found that just four states accounted for the improper disability payments. The estimate for fraudulent payments was "conservative" since the audit did not compile all data from the four states reviewed...*snip SEE POST #1* "While SSA had established overpayments for 274 of these juveniles, we identified 273 instances where SSA was unaware of all or part of the confinement period. We determined that 158 of these juveniles were confined for 6 months or longer without SSA's...

The Social Security Administration made $37 million worth of benefit payments to dead veterans, according to a new audit.The inspector general for the agency reported more retirement and disability payments could be made to deceased individuals if action is not taken to correct the government's death record system.