From the Motley Fool:
Under George H.W. Bush, the single-most memorable [Social Security] moment was the signing of the Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act (OBRA) on Dec. 19, 1989. OBRA contained 25 separate provisions related to Social Security, which included the requirement that the Social Security Administration send personal earning and benefit statements to persons working under Social Security. These statements allow workers to estimate what they'll receive from the program if claiming at full retirement age.
Was that funded or just mandated like so many other things?
ReplyDelete@12:29
ReplyDeleteThe Social Security Administration is self-funded under 42 U.S.C. § 401(g)(1)(B)(i)(I). So yes it was funded, and yes it was mandated.
Seems to be a waste of the funding then, as most people barely glance at the statements and they are now available online. More mandated waste.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, though the Motley Fool's article stresses the individual statements' (PEBES, in SSA-speak) usefulness in telling workers about their future retirement benefits, remember that they also tell people about their potential disability benefits.
ReplyDeletePhilip Armour of RAND concluded that sending PEBES to nearly everyone helped boost knowledge of, and applications for, SSDI. It's logical to think that ending mass mailing of PEBES has the opposite effect.
Many people don't know about disabled-worker benefits, and it doesn't help when people like Mick Mulvaney dismiss SSDI as somehow not part of "core" Social Security.
9:26, actually a lot of people look at the statements and research shows it has a measurable impact on people's claiming decisions, labor force participation, and opinions about the program. See https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3123794 and https://appam.confex.com/appam/2018/webprogram/Paper27806.html
ReplyDeleteMailing the statement also allows more people to check their earnings records and correct issues like identity theft and scrambled earnings. That improves program integrity.
It was a political cost to him - signing that basically lost him a 2nd term due to the need to raise taxes. Bush sacrificed for our country.
ReplyDeleteThey don't send those statements any more unless the person is 60 or over, do they? Cut back under Pres Obama.
ReplyDelete