Raising The Minimum Wage Would Mean Higher Social Security Benefits For Many

     From MarketWatch:

More than doubling the federal minimum wage is quite the controversial proposal currently sitting in Congress, but there’s no debate about one facet of the concept: doing so would boost Americans’ retirement savings.

The House of Representatives recently passed the Raise the Wage Act, which would increase the minimum wage across the country from $7.25 to $15 an hour by 2025. The bill still needs to get approved in the Senate and then by the president ...

If a single worker with a life expectancy of 90 were to earn the current minimum wage her whole life, and claimed Social Security benefits at her full retirement age, she would receive a monthly benefit of $924, compared with that same type of worker earning $15 an hour, who would receive $1,337, said Bill Meyer, chief executive officer of software firm Social Security Solutions.

But Social Security benefits can also be calculated cumulatively — that is, the total amount in one’s lifetime. Cumulatively, a worker claiming at 62 after having earned the current minimum wage his whole life would receive $294,000 (assuming a 2% cost-of-living adjustment), and $398,000 if he claimed at 70. But if a worker earned $15 an hour and claimed at 62, he would see $425,000 in lifetime Social Security benefits, and $576,000 if he claimed at 70....

They Never Give Up

     The right wing hasn't given up on privatizing Social Security. Here's a recent Wall Street Journal op ed calling for giving people the right to divert their FICA taxes into a private account, which would, of course, quickly destroy funding for Social Security benefits. At least, I think that's what this incoherent proposal amounts to. These proposals never go into details because their authors never bother to understand how Social Security works. They hate Social Security and want the government to funnel money to them.

Democratic Senators, All Of Them, Urge Difference Stance On Employee Unions

     Each of the Democratic Senators has now signed a letter urging that Andrew Saul, the new Commissioner of Social Security, end the unilateralism and return to the bargaining table to work out new contracts with employee unions. 

     The Senators have these pointed questions for Saul:

1. Did the White House. Office of Management & Budget (OMB), or any entity outside of SSA provide direction or guidance on any proposals SSA negotiators have submitted? If so, please describe the nature and source of this direction or guidance.

2. Please explain the demonstrated need for each of these proposals:
      a. setting contracts for all three unions at SSA to be for seven-year terms;
     b. requiring the unions to submit unfair labor practices (ULPs) to the agency before filing with the Federal Labor Relations Authority (FLRA);
     c. adding new requirements for information requests from the union;
     d. putting telework at the sole discretion of the agency; and
     e. limiting the ability to file grievances

3. What discretion did your negotiation team have in deviating from the seven-year contract term, the grievance proposal, or guidelines the White House, OMB, or any other entity may have issued to SSA management?

So, What's Your Plan?

     Here's a first report on today's House Social Security Subcommittee hearing on the Social Security 2100 Act. Predictably, the GOP members oppose it because it raises taxes, particularly on the wealthy, but have no plan of their own. Let's line up a GOP plan that achieves long term balance solely by cutting benefits against this bill and see which one the American people prefer.

Stay Granted In Steigerwald Class Action

     The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit has given Social Security a stay in the Steigerwald v. Saul class action lawsuit.

     Steigerwald has to do with the computation of benefits to which a claimant is entitled in a case where Disability Insurance Benefits (DIB) and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) are both approved and the claimant is represented. To oversimplify, the needs based SSI benefits are supposed to be reduced because of the DIB payments. However, a represented claimant does not receive the entire DIB payment because some of it is used to pay the attorney. Should the SSI benefits be reduced by money the claimant never sees because it's used to pay the attorney? The answer is no but Social Security had been failing to do it that way which led to the class action lawsuit.

     The District Court had given Social Security only until September 25, 2019 to do the redeterminations. The Court of Appeals has given Social Security two years. 

     My opinion is that while the September 25, 2019 date was unrealistic, two years is way too long. Social Security should have known that it was going to lose Steigerwald from the day it was filed some two years ago. They had already lost another class action on this issue many years ago. Social Security should have gotten going far earlier. Foot dragging shouldn't be rewarded.

Proposed Changes To Digestive And Skin Disorder Listings

     The Social Security Administration has published a Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) to revise its Listing of Impairments for digestive and skin disorders. This is only a proposal. The public can comment on it. The agency must consider the comments before adopting a final version.

More On Tomorrow's Congressional Hearing On The Social Security 2100 Act

     Here's the list of witnesses for tomorrow's hearing before the House Social Security Subcommittee on the Social Security 2100 Act:

• Stephen C. Goss, Chief Actuary, Social Security Administration
• Nancy J. Altman, President Social Security Works
• Kelly Brozyna, Member, Job Creators Network’s National Women’s Coalition
• Abigail Zapote, Executive Director, Latinos for a Secure Retirement
• Shaun Castle, Deputy Executive Director, Paralyzed Veterans of America

     By the way, in case you're wondering whether this is a serious proposal that might move forward should Democrats actually control the White House and both houses of Congress after the next election, here's the list of the bill's cosponsors:

Mr. Larson of Connecticut for himself, Ms. Adams, Mr. Aguilar, Ms. Barragán, Ms. Bass, Mrs. Beatty, Mr. Bera, Mr. Beyer, Mr. Bishop of Georgia, Mr. Blumenauer, Ms. Blunt Rochester, Ms. Bonamici, Mr. Brendan F. Boyle of Pennsylvania, Ms. Brownley of California, Mr. Brown of Maryland, Mrs. Bustos, Mr. Butterfield, Mr. Carbajal, Mr. Cárdenas, Mr. Carson of Indiana, Mr. Cartwright, Mr. Case, Mr. Casten of Illinois, Ms. Castor of Florida, Mr. Castro of Texas, Ms. Judy Chu of California, Mr. Cicilline, Mr. Cisneros, Ms. Clark of Massachusetts, Ms. Clarke of New York, Mr. Clay, Mr. Cleaver, Mr. Clyburn, Mr. Cohen, Mr. Connolly, Mr. Correa, Mr. Courtney, Mr. Cox of California, Mrs. Craig, Mr. Crow, Mr. Cuellar, Mr. Cummings, Ms. Davids of Kansas, Mr. Danny K. Davis of Illinois, Mrs. Davis of California, Ms. Dean, Mr. DeFazio, Ms. DeGette, Ms. DeLauro, Ms. DelBene, Mrs. Demings, Mr. DeSaulnier, Mr. Deutch, Mrs. Dingell, Mr. Doggett, Mr. Michael F. Doyle of Pennsylvania, Mr. Engel, Ms. Escobar, Ms. Eshoo, Mr. Espaillat, Mr. Evans, Mr. Foster, Ms. Frankel, Ms. Fudge, Ms. Gabbard, Mr. Gallego, Mr. García of Illinois, Ms. Garcia of Texas, Mr. Garamendi, Mr. Golden, Mr. Gomez, Mr. Gonzalez of Texas, Mr. Green of Texas, Mr. Grijalva, Ms. Haaland, Mr. Hastings, Mrs. Hayes, Mr. Heck, Mr. Higgins of New York, Ms. Hill of California, Mr. Himes, Ms. Kendra S. Horn of Oklahoma, Mr. Horsford, Ms. Houlahan, Mr. Huffman, Ms. Jackson Lee, Ms. Jayapal, Mr. Jeffries, Ms. Johnson of Texas, Mr. Johnson of Georgia, Ms. Kaptur, Mr. Keating, Ms. Kelly of Illinois, Mr. Kennedy, Mr. Khanna, Mr. Kildee, Mr. Kilmer, Mr. Kim, Mrs. Kirkpatrick, Ms. Kuster of New Hampshire, Mr. Lamb, Mr. Langevin, Mr. Larsen of Washington, Mrs. Lawrence, Mr. Lawson of Florida, Ms. Lee of California, Mr. Levin of Michigan, Mr. Levin of California, Mr. Lewis, Mr. Ted Lieu of California, Ms. Lofgren, Mr. Lowenthal, Mr. Luján, Mr. Lynch, Mr. Malinowski, Mrs. Carolyn B. Maloney of New York, Mr. Sean Patrick Maloney of New York, Ms. Matsui, Ms. McCollum, Mr. McEachin, Mr. McGovern, Mr. McNerney, Mr. Meeks, Ms. Meng, Ms. Moore, Mr. Morelle, Mr. Moulton, Ms. Mucarsel-Powell, Mr. Nadler, Mrs. Napolitano, Mr. Neal, Mr. Neguse, Mr. Norcross, Ms. Norton, Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, Ms. Omar, Mr. Pallone, Mr. Panetta, Mr. Pappas, Mr. Pascrell, Mr. Payne, Mr. Perlmutter, Mr. Peterson, Ms. Pingree, Ms. Plaskett, Mr. Pocan, Ms. Porter, Ms. Pressley, Mr. Price of North Carolina, Mr. Quigley, Mr. Raskin, Miss Rice of New York, Mr. Richmond, Mr. Rouda, Ms. Roybal-Allard, Mr. Ruiz, Mr. Ruppersberger, Mr. Rush, Mr. Ryan, Mr. Sablan, Ms. Sánchez, Mr. Sarbanes, Ms. Scanlon, Ms. Schakowsky, Mr. Schiff, Ms. Schrier, Mr. Scott of Virginia, Mr. David Scott of Georgia, Mr. Serrano, Ms. Sewell of Alabama, Ms. Shalala, Mr. Sherman, Mr. Sires, Mr. Smith of Washington, Mr. Soto, Mr. Suozzi, Ms. Speier, Mr. Stanton, Ms. Stevens, Mr. Swalwell of California, Mr. Takano, Mr. Thompson of Mississippi, Mr. Thompson of California, Ms. Titus, Ms. Tlaib, Mr. Tonko, Mrs. Torres of California, Mrs. Trahan, Mr. Trone, Ms. Underwood, Mr. Vargas, Mr. Veasey, Mr. Vela, Ms. Velázquez, Ms. Wasserman Schultz, Ms. Waters, Mrs. Watson Coleman, Mr. Welch, Ms. Wexton, Ms. Wild, Ms. Wilson of Florida, and Mr. Yarmuth

Speak Up!

His Social Security Account Was Hacked; When He Reported It He Was On Hold For An Hour

     From Robert J. Samuelson, a columnist for the Washington Post:

I got hacked. It was scary. ...

My encounter with bad stuff began a few weeks ago when I received a letter from the Social Security Administration via “snail mail.” By itself, this was neither alarming nor threatening. If you’re 65 or over (I am 73), you receive regular notices from Social Security and its first cousin, Medicare.

The letter looked authentic — and was. “Thank you for using Social Security’s online services,” it said. “On June 28, 2019, you successfully created an online account with the Social Security Administration.” This, too, seemed innocuous, except for one troubling detail: I didn’t create an online account with the Social Security. ... I decided to call the 800 number in the letter. (The 800 number seemed legitimate, because the same number appeared on many SSA websites.) 

The wait was about an hour. I was repeatedly tempted to hang up. I’m glad I didn’t. The woman who answered was courteous and helpful. Yes, my personal data had been altered so that my monthly benefit would be diverted to someone else’s account ...

The existing approach to creating reliable identification numbers (say, Social Security cards or driver’s licenses) is known as “knowledge-based verification” (KBV). To prove you are who you say you are, you’re asked questions to which, presumably, only you know the answers: for example, your birth date, home address or Social Security number.
But the KBV “model has fallen apart online,” asserts the Better Identity Coalition, a group searching for more accurate approaches. KBV is hobbled because data breaches have made a lot of “secret” information widely available to cybercriminals. ...

Against this backdrop, I surmised that the SSA must be swamped with complaints like mine: benefits that were digitally hijacked. Wrong. Their number peaked at about 12,000 in 2013. For the first half of 2018, that number was down to about 200, estimates the Office of the Inspector General. Compared with the roughly 63 million Social Security recipients, that’s virtually nothing. ...

Arguments On Increasing Social Security Benefits

     Congressman John Larson, the Chairman of the House Social Security Subcommittee, is pushing the Social Security 2100 Act which would increase benefits by about 2%, change the Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) formula to make it more favorable to those receiving benefits, set a minimum benefit level and cut taxes for some low income people. It would also increase taxes for most workers, particularly for those with wages over $400,000 a year. The net result would be to put Social Security into low term actuarial balance.

     John Biggs of the American Enterprise Institute, a right wing "think tank" has released an argument against any increase in Social Security benefits on the grounds that retirees are better off now than in the past, largely because of private pension plans. I think there's more than a little sleight of hand in his arguments on defined contribution plans. He uses the increase in defined contribution plan assets as proof that there is no "retirement crisis" even though there is no way around the fact that the increase in defined contribution plans has happened because of the decline in defined benefit plans which afford far greater retirement security than defined contribution plans. Still, he certainly marshals facts in support of the thesis that most retirees are better off today than they were in the past. I'm just not sure that's going to continue as defined benefit plans continue their decline and more workers shift into the "gig economy." I know that's not the case now for lower income workers.