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April 24, 2012 |
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Experts: Contrary to Mainstream Myth, 'Social Security is Strong' and Could Be Made StrongerLifting the payroll tax cap and better coverage by journalists would help build sustainable future for essential programThe Social Security trust fund is in strong financial standing and the overall program could be further strengthened, say experts and lawmakers, with a simple increase of the current payroll tax cap which is currently set at $110,000. The trustee's annual financial report was released on Monday. “The most effective way to strengthen Social Security for the next 75 years is to eliminate the cap on the payroll tax on income above $250,000. Right now, someone who earns $110,100 pays the same amount of money into Social Security as a billionaire. That makes no sense,” said Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders, the chairman of the Defending Social Security Caucus. He also chairs the Senate aging subcommittee. Robert Greenstein, founder and President of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, responded to the report by noting that although the program does warrant some adjustments, Social Security "faces no imminent crisis." In fact, he argues, the revenue loss from a permanent extension of the Bush tax cuts (already extended by President Obama) for people making over $250,000 — the top 2 percent of Americans — would itself be nearly as large as the entire Social Security shortfall over the upcoming 75-year period. "Members of Congress cannot simultaneously claim that the tax cuts are affordable while the Social Security shortfall constitutes a dire fiscal threat," he said. "Projections in the 2012 Trustees Reports come as no surprise to anyone who understands how Social Security and Medicare work," Max Richtman, president of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, said in a statement. "The trust fund solvency date for Social Security has seen fluctuations many times in recent decades, from a depletion date as distant as 2048 in the 1988 report to as soon as 2029 in the 1994 and 1997 reports. This year's report is well within that range. Contrary to the crisis myths perpetuated by fiscal conservatives and many in the media, the prevailing facts show once again that Social Security remains among the nation's most successful and stable programs. The Trustees report there is now $2.7 trillion in the Social Security trust fund, which is $69 billion more than last year, and continues to grow. Payroll contributions and interest will fully cover benefits for decades to come." "Contrary to the crisis myths perpetuated by fiscal conservatives and many in the media, the prevailing facts show once again that Social Security remains among the nation's most successful and stable programs." -Max Richtman, NCPSSM Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, writes today, "The main reason that the program's finances have deteriorated relative to the projected path is that wage growth has not kept pace with the path projected. This is in part due to the fact that productivity growth slowed in the 80s, before accelerating again in the mid-90s and in part due to the fact that much more wage income now goes to people earning above the taxable cap. In 1983 only 10 percent of wage income fell above the cap and escaped taxation. Now more than 18 percent of wage income is above the cap." And Trudy Lieberman of the Columbia Journalism Review, writing recently on the continued failure to present -- much less advocate for -- the payroll tax cap solution, lamented, "that option is not on Washington’s table, nor has it been discussed much in the press. Why not? Because it doesn’t fit into the doom-and-gloom narrative that has proved politically expedient to tell." |
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New Disability Determination Process A new process for disability determination and appeals of unfavorable decisions was implemented in the summer of 2006 in the Social Security Administration's Boston Region, which encompasses Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont. If you have applied for SSDI or SSI in one of these states, the new process will apply to your case. If you applied outside the Boston Region, the "old" disability determination and appeals process applies to your case. Based on the New Electronic Disability Claims System The new process is based on the SSA's electronic disability claims system. Computerizing the whole system is helping reduce the case backlog and the amount of time that people must wait for decisions about their cases. The new process is significantly different from the existing process. Components of the New Disability Determination Process The new process is in place in the Boston Region, and is expected to be implemented eventually in all of the regions of the U.S. Here are its components: Components of the New Disability Determination Process The new process is in place in the Boston Region, and is expected to be implemented eventually in all of the regions of the U.S. Here are its components:
Please contact us today for a complimentary consultation with an experienced social security disability attorney who can make sure you get the benefits you deserve as quickly as possible. |
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March 28, 2011 |
Claims for Social Security benefits on the rise |
By Lisa Rein, Monday, March 28, 10:58 PM Claims for Social Security and disability benefits have grown in recent years, the result of baby boomer retirements and high unemployment. The Social Security Administration received 10 million new claims in 2009, up from about 8.2 million in 2004. With 65 percent of new disability claims initially denied, appeals began piling up, and administrative law judges who hear these cases were overwhelmed. By August 2008, an appeal took an average of 532 days to resolve. The agency hired judges and support staff to speed up the process, and by last year the average appeal took 390 days. There was still a backlog of 705,370 pending hearings. But progress has been undermined by the budget impasse affecting most federal agencies, according to a report by the Congressional Research Service. Without a budget for the current fiscal year, the Social Security staff has had to cut short its efforts to improve efficiency. “Extended continuing resolutions that largely fund the agency at previous year levels, appropriations below the president’s budget request” and cuts proposed by House Republicans “may make [the goal of reducing the claims backlog] difficult to attain,” says the CRS report, which was released last week. |
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The report also says that President Obama’s budget requests for the Social Security Administration in recent years have not covered the increases in claims and backlog in appeals. The agency would have received $12.4 billion in the current fiscal year, but it has operated at last year’s budget level of $11.4 billion for six months. Stimulus funding added $350 million in 2010, but under the stopgap measure funding the government through April 9, it lost $200 million from a pot aimed at addressing the claims backlog. The cuts will delay claims from being processed for about 700,000 people, according to an estimate compiled by Democratic House lawmakers. In response, the Social Security agency has suspended efforts to open eight planned hearing offices to process claims in Alabama, Minnesota, Indiana, Michigan, Texas, Montana, California and New York, spokesman Mark Lassiter said. Overtime has been largely eliminated, and a hiring freeze has blocked new staff to process appeals. The extended stopgap measures have “made it much more difficult” for the agency to reduce the backlog in disability claims, he said. “We have many high-traffic offices where all day long, our employees interview people filing for benefits,” said Witold Skwierczynski, president of the union representing local Social Security field offices. “Then they have to process a case. That takes time.” The agency pays out more than $800 billion in benefits every year to retirees, their spouses, dependents and survivors, low-income disabled adults and children, and some low-income World War II veterans. reinl@washpost.com February 23, 2011 by the New York Times. Breaking news from the nation's capital that may have a direct impact on social security disability and veterans benefits was reported. Members of the Senate and the House of Representatives have been engaged in budget negotiations for months, and as the deadline for compromise nears, the threat of a total government shutdown looms over the country. If Republicans and Democrats cannot agree on the 2012 fiscal year's allocation of federal funding by midnight on March 4th, the government will be shut down. Perhaps most critically, Social Security Administration and Veterans Affairs offices will close. The last time the federal government shut down, in 1995, more than 400,000 veterans' payment checks were delayed, according to the New York Daily News. Even more veterans will be affected if offices shut down this March. The SSA, which is already experiencing a historic case backlog , will be unable to process new social security disability claims, and disabled workers who rely on their benefits may have to wait until the government reopens before receiving their payments. The latest news from the Capitol may affect the situation. Carl Hulse of the New York Times reports that House Republicans have communicated to Senate Democrats that they will pass a temporary spending bill in order to keep the government running for an additional two weeks while the budget is negotiated further. However, the GOP stipulated that $4 billion in funding cuts already passed by the House will need to be instituted on an immediate and pro-rated basis. The initial response from the Democrats is unfavorable. Jon Summers, a spokesman for Nevada Senator and majority leader Harry Reid, said that the bill “would simply be a two-week version of the reckless measure the House passed last weekend.” Summers was referring to the $61 billion in funding reductions passed by House Republicans, including significant reductions in funding to programs such as Women, Infants and Children (WIC), National Public Radio (NPR), Planned Parenthood, Head Start, greenhouse gas pollution regulations, and housing and heating subsidies for low-income citizens. A vote on the bill may occur next week. Whether it passes or fails, both Democrats and Republicans hope to assign blame for a stall or a federal shutdown on the opposite party. Unless a compromise of some sort is reached, the possibility of the furlough of Social Security Disability benefits is becoming more real every day. July 4th, 2010 A Meaningless “Right” In Bellingham-Whatcom County You have just been arrested and provided a breath sample that seems very wrong. There is no way that the printed result could be right. After all how could it be when you only had 1 drink? Or in another scenario, you have spoken with an attorney before you have to give a breath sample and s/he has advised you to give a breath test and then exercise your right to an “independent” test of your choosing and tell the officer that you want to be taken for a blood draw at your own expense. After all, this is your right, correct? YES. The Implied Consent law in Washington states that a driver arrested for DUI has a right to an independent alternative test by a qualified person of their choice. Despite the importance of an alternative blood test, many citizens do not know how to obtain one, and many lawyers forget to counsel the 2 am client to do so. This right translates into very important evidence that often times provides a more accurate test and when the old and unreliable breath testing technology shows a person to be around the .08 to .10 mark, a blood test will often show that they are in fact innocent of DUI as they are under the legal limit of .08, or under the .15 threshold where more sever sanctions upon DUI conviction occur. While this is a right all driver’s suspected and arrested for DUI have, it is one that is NOT respected in Whatcom County. Although this is a right of a driver granted by statute, it is no less a right than the rights granted by Constitution. The right to an independent test is no less a right that the right to vote, bear arms, free speech, or freedom to assemble. The fact that this right is most meaningful in a unpopular situation of DUI, does not diminish it. A person who tries to exercises this right is unfairly denied the ability to obtain an alternative test in this county. Here is why: The main arresting agencies in Whatcom County are, State Patrol, Whatcom County Sheriff, Western Washington Campus Police, Bellingham Police, Ferndale Police, Lynden Police, Blaine Police, and Sumas Police. Due to policy issues every person arrested for DUI in Whatcom county is to be booked into the County Jail. Arrested persons are typically taken to the nearest breath testing machine, located in either the jail or the city police depatrment and once a breath sample is obtained and if at, or above .08 they are transported and booked into jail on the charge of DUI. Once at the Jail, despite the fact they have trained medical staff they will not perform a blood draw. The only facility in the county where there are qualified persons to perform a “legal” blood draw is St. Joseph hospital. The hospital is open 24 hours, but has recently stopped performing these blood draws for those who request it at their own expense. The irony is that St. Joseph will happily perform the exact same blood draw if the arresting officer has a warrant to do do so. This is not at the expense of the driver, but rather the tax payer. The rational for this refusal to perform voluntary blood draws is currently unknown at the time. By virtue of the fact they will do a blood draw if a warrant is present (by the way the warrant does not order them to perform the draw, it only requires the person to submit to a blood draw) indicates that there is no inability to do the blood draw, and that perhaps they are trying to accomplish some moral-legal goal. However, by failing to do a legal blood draw upon the simply request to do so at the requesters own expense, can have the direct opposite effect. June 15, 2010Chairman Lewis’ Opening Statement at Hearing on Medicare Fraud, Waste and AbuseBy Lauren Bloomberg 202-225-8933WASHINGTON, D.C. – Ways and Means Oversight Subcommittee Chairman John Lewis (D-GA), delivered the following statement today at a joint hearing with the Subcommittee on Health on reducing fraud, waste and abuse in Medicare: “Thank you, Chairman Stark and Ranking Members Boustany and Herger for holding this joint hearing today with the Oversight Subcommittee. “Both subcommittees are committed to protecting the Medicare program and its beneficiaries. Millions of our seniors and disabled Americans, some of whom are the most vulnerable people in our society, depend on the Medicare program for their health care. “Fraud and abuse of the Medicare system is a shame and a disgrace. It is an affront to the program and to seniors. Those who would abuse the system or engage in fraud strike at the very heart of the Medicare program. “We cannot allow bad actors to weaken this important program. We cannot and will not tolerate abuse of the system. Together we must seek out and eliminate fraud so that Medicare truly works for the people it serves. “I want to thank the witnesses for being here today and for all their good and great work to protect the Medicare program. Your offices have investigated, prosecuted, ended and prevented some of the worst cases of fraud. You’re using new tools and a joint approach that has returned billions of dollars to the program and taxpayers. “We have heard you when you’ve asked for additional tools. We look forward to hearing about the implementation of the new fraud and abuse provisions that passed as part of the Affordable Care Act. “The Congress is committed to finding ways to work even more closely with our witnesses to ensure that Medicare beneficiaries receive the best health care we can deliver, to ensure that wrongdoers are held accountable, and to ensure that the Medicare program remains strong for the next generation of Americans. “I look forward to learning more about each agency’s plan to oversee this vital program.” U.S. Rep. John Tanner, chairman of the Ways and Means Subcommittee on Social Security, urged the Social Security Administration to continue its focus on reducing the unprecedented backlog in disability claims. The number of Americans awaiting a hearing on their disability claims more than doubled from 2000 to 2008. Some claimants are waiting up to three or four years to have their cases heard, Tanner said in written opening remarks. “Because applicants often have little or no income while awaiting a decision on benefits, the backlog has caused severe hardship to hundreds of thousands of Americans with significant disabilities,” Tanner said in his statement. “Today we have good news and bad news to report. First, the good news: After many years of growing backlogs in SSA’s hearing offices, we have finally turned a corner. Since the beginning of 2009, the hearings backlog has begun to slowly decline. ... This shows that Congress’ investment in SSA is starting to pay off. The subcommittee particularly wants to commend all the dedicated SSA employees who have contributed to this success.” Tanner noted that many West and Middle Tennesseans often must wait months or years to have their disability claims heard. Beth Bates, a Jackson attorney who works with disability claimants, testified before the subcommittee about the impact of the SSA disability backlog on many Tennesseans she represents. She echoed Tanner’s remarks about the hardships placed on Tennesseans and others with pending claims.“Foreclosures and bankruptcies have increased, with claimants losing their homes and vehicles and their economic stability,” Ms. Bates said in her testimony. Tanner said Congress is committed to working with SSA to continue progress on the backlog reduction.
“Millions of Americans pay Social Security taxes every year with the promise that if they become severely disabled, Social Security will be there for them,” Tanner said in his written statement. “But the lengthy delays many face when they apply for benefits means that we now are falling short on that promise. Collecting on a
Working Partner's Social Security In this example, your salary -- if you file for benefits this year -- will substantially exceed Social Security's annual earnings limit. As a result, you wouldn't receive any benefits -- which means your wife can't receive any, either. Simply put, half of zero is still zero. (To figure out your full retirement age and the amount by which a worker's or spouse's benefit would be reduced by taking it early, go to socialsecurity.gov, click on "Plan your retirement" and then click on "Find your retirement age")Social Security recipients who are younger than their full retirement age are allowed to earn a small paycheck without affecting their benefit. This year, the earnings limit is $13,560. Social Security would deduct $1 from your benefits for each $2 you earn above that limit. So, if you made $100,000 this year, you and your wife together would have to be eligible for more than $64,830 this year in early Social Security benefits for either of you to get any. And that isn't possible; the maximum Social Security benefit for a worker retiring this year at full retirement age is $21,085 (or $31,627.50 for a couple in which one spouse collects based on the other's work record). If you made less money, your wife might have a shot at collecting benefits, depending on the Social Security benefits for which you are eligible. To get a better idea, go to socialsecurity.gov, again click on "Plan your retirement," then select "Near retirement?" and click on the "earnings limit" calculator.
The Social Security Board of Trustees today released its annual report on the financial health of the Social Security Trust Funds. While the key dates for program costs exceeding tax revenues and Trust Fund exhaustion remain unchanged, the 2008 Trustees Report shows improvement in the projected long-term financial status of the Social Security program from last year -- particularly in the latter half of the long-range projection period. This improvement is principally the result of methodological changes for projecting certain aspects of immigration. In the 2008 Annual Report to Congress, the Trustees announced: >> MORE>> |
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