Two Good Ideas

     This week's syndicated column on Social Security from Tom Margenau is an open letter to President Trump which contains two ideas I strongly agree with: Increase Social Security's administrative funding and either eliminate or increase the lump sum death payment.

     Margenau notes that 10,000 people a day are retiring and signing up for Social Security retirement benefits each day and many more are applying for other sorts of Social Security benefits. As he writes to President Trump "Let’s say your steak business was growing by 15,000 new customers every day. Would you cut funding and staff to all your producers and suppliers? I doubt it. I am pretty sure you would increase the resources."

     The lump sum death payment is only $255. That's ridiculous. It probably costs more to administer it than is actually paid out in benefits. Either increase it to something meaningful or eliminate it. There's no good reason for it to exist in its current form.

Merry Christmas

Don't Do The Crime If You Can't Do The Time

     From The Republic:

Charges are piling up against a Kentucky lawyer whose capture in Central America ended his six months on the run to avoid prison for his role in a massive Social Security fraud case.

A federal prosecutor filed court papers Wednesday signaling the government will try Eric Conn on more than a dozen charges including mail fraud, wire fraud and money laundering.

If convicted, the flamboyant attorney could spend the rest of his life in prison.

Conn would have avoided the charges if he had abided by his plea deal with the government. ...

Merry Christmas

No, that's not me. Also, note that he's wearing a T-shirt.

Real IDs Will Be A Mess

     Here's a good article on Real IDs which most people don't have but which will eventually be required to enter federal buildings. Do we know when Social Security offices will require Read IDs? I'm expecting major problems when that day arrives. Many people will fail to get a Real ID until too late.

Winning The Case But Losing Her Home

     From the Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

Mary Ann Statler, an accountant from Acworth, had battled depression and anxiety for years, but in the summer of 2015 her condition worsened dramatically. ...

“I made a pretty good salary,” said the single parent of three children. “Just as much as I tried to push myself, I couldn’t do it.”

Following her doctor’s advice, Statler applied in August 2015 for disability benefits from Social Security. 

Social Security denied her claim — twice — but gave her the option to schedule an appeal hearing before an administrative law judge. Since then, she has been caught in a backlog of disputed disability claims totalling more than 1 million cases nationwide. And that backlog is only getting worse. ...

In Georgia alone, Statler is one of 28,000 people waiting an average of nearly three years to be heard. During that delay, those waiting often get worse or even die before a decision is made on their benefits, experts say. ...

In the end, the judge gave full approval for her disability claim, but it will be late next month before she sees a penny of her benefits. That’s too late to save her house, which was sold in a bank foreclosure. She has to be out shortly after the new year, she said. ...

If part of the solution is more personnel, I wouldn’t hold my breath. President Trump instituted a hiring moratorium upon taking office this year. Social Security received special permission to do some restocking, but it’s barely kept up with the pace of attrition. ...

Remember

Donald Trump's SSN Is Out There

     From ABC News:

A Louisiana private investigator pleaded guilty on Monday to misusing Donald Trump's Social Security number in repeated attempts to access the president's federal tax information before his election last year.

Jordan Hamlett, 32, faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine following his guilty plea in federal court.

Authorities have said Hamlett failed in his attempts to get Trump's tax information through a U.S. Department of Education financial aid website. ...

Merry Christmas

Problem Solved!

     From Mother Jones:

... I have some good news to share. I was browsing through the 2017 Social Security Trustees report, and it turns out that Social Security will be solvent through the rest of the century. Here’s their chart of how things look based on different estimates of economic growth:

As we all know, the official OMB/Treasury estimate of future economic growth is 2.9 percent, which means the trust fund will be flush with cash far into the future. This means everyone can stand down and leave Social Security alone. In fact, it’s doing so well that Congress might want to think about raising benefits. Hooray!