Starting October 2024, SSI check recipients will receive their SSI checks in a WHITE envelope instead of a BLUE envelope. It’s quick and easy to get your payments electronically. ...
From a press release issued by the House Ways and Means Committee:
The Social Security Administration (SSA) will be forced to streamline their processes for Americans whose Social Security numbers (SSNs) have been compromised thanks to bipartisan legislation passed by the U.S. House of Representatives. H.R. 3784, the Improving Social Security’s Service to Victims of Identity Theft Act, was introduced by Ways and Means Social Security Subcommittee Chairman Drew Ferguson (R-GA) and Ranking Member John Larson (D-CT) and was passed unanimously by the Ways and Means Committee. ...
[The bill] requires the SSA to provide victims of identity theft with a single point of contact at the agency when the misuse of their SSN results in the need to resolve an issue or issues with the SSA or when their Social Security card is lost in the mail. ...
Why is it that haven't seen one of these stories in years? I used to see them regularly. From NBC Philadelphia:
A Philadelphia woman is accused of stealing social security disability benefits from a woman who officials said was found murdered and buried under six to eight feet of concrete in the basement of a home. …
Officials said the Philadelphia Medical Examiner’s Office and a forensic anthropologist concluded that the cause of death for E.W. was blunt trauma to the head and neck and the manner of death was homicide. It is estimated that the woman died at least four years and up to ten years prior to the recovery of her remains. …
From a Social Security website:
... The Help America Vote Act of 2002, P.L. 107-252 (HAVA) requires states to verify the information of newly registered voters for federal elections. Each state must establish a computerized state-wide voter registration list and verify new voter information with the Motor Vehicle Administration (MVA).
States are required to verify the driver’s license number against the MVA’s database. Only in situations where no driver’s license exists may the state verify the last four digits of the new voter’s Social Security Number (SSN). The state submits the last four digits of the SSN, name, and date of birth to the MVA for verification with Social Security Administration (SSA). In addition, SSA is required to report whether its records indicate that the person is deceased.
The information submitted through the Help America Vote Verification (HAVV) system is kept confidential and must be used only for voter registration. ...
... Starting next year, China will raise its retirement age for workers, which is now among the youngest in the world's major economies, in an effort to address its shrinking population and aging work force. ...
The policy change will be carried out over 15 years, with the retirement age for men raised to 63 years, and for women to 55 or 58 years depending on their jobs. The current retirement age is 60 for men and 50 for women in blue-collar jobs and 55 for women doing white-collar work. ...
From Government Executive:
... In a letter to House Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., O’Malley warned of dire consequences if SSA is flat-funded past September, as proposed in the House GOP’s six-month continuing resolution. House Speaker Mike Johnson on Wednesday cancelled a planned vote on the measure, after dissent within his caucus threatened to derail its passage.
“If enacted, a six-month CR without any additional funding for the Social Security Administration would be devastating,” O’Malley wrote. “We would be forced to implement a hiring freeze with minimal exceptions. We would lose over 2,000 staff in the first half of the year alone and reach a new 50-year staffing low by the end of December. We would need to significantly reduce overtime to historically low levels, decreasing processing capacity for our most critical workloads.”
And in testimony before the Senate Budget Committee, O’Malley laid out how both the House and Senate funding proposals for SSA would fall short of the agency’s needs. Under the House plan, employees would be furloughed by 20 days, while the agency would see its headcount fall by 3,400 staff, not including the 1,500 decrease in staff at state Disability Determination Services offices. And funding for the agency’s IT infrastructure would be “barely” enough to “keep the lights on.” ...
This is from a news article on the hearing:
… The ultra-wealthy are avoiding nearly $2 trillion in taxes every 10 years," Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said during a Senate Budget Committee hearing. "That is enough to keep Social Security whole till the end of this century."
"That's where we ought to go to start making progress," Wyden added. …
A statistical report from Social Security on performance at its Office of Hearings Operations:
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