I Think We Have A Ringer!

     From time to time I notice reader posts on this blog that appear to be from ringers -- people pretending to be Social Security employees who aren't. Here's one now:

Figured a claimant's finacial assistance the other day. If she were paying taxes, she would have to make about $20.00 an hour to have what she is currently receiving from all finacial assitance. I can not think of any reason she would ever try to go to work. With her background and abilities she is not worth over $8.00 an hour. An thus the system continues to redistribute the wealth.

      If you are talking about $20 an hour, you're talking about approximately $3,500 per month. There is no way you can get to this number if you are talking about needs based assistance. You cannot get much over $1,000 a month. If you are talking about non-needs based assistance -- Title II benefits -- you could get a bit higher but still you could not get to $3,500 per month. And for that matter, Social Security employees are not in a good position to calculate the value of Medicaid, food stamps and housing assistance. How would a Social Security employee compute this anyway? I say the post quoted above is bogus. Don't believe everything you hear on Fox News. Relying on public benefits is a tough life. It's never the equivalent of $3,500 per month of income.