Saving Social Security won't be painless
Politicians have clamored for 20 years about fixing Social Security, but few members of Congress have the political mettle to make the program solvent. (click for full article)

Report on Social Security delayed
The Obama administration is delaying release of the annual report on the financial health of Social Security and Medicare so that the new report can reflect the impact of the recently passed health care overhaul. (click for full article)

Social Security needs an overhaul to save it
Something happened recently that should alarm us all. For the first time in more than two decades, Social Security has started paying out more benefits than it collected, a total of $29 billion more for this year. The problem is our government has been borrowing and then spending the money you pay into social security for other purposes. (click for full article)

Social Security to See Payout Exceed Pay-In This Year
The bursting of the real estate bubble and the ensuing recession have hurt jobs, home prices and now Social Security. (click for full article)

Recession puts more stress on Social Security
Security provides a majority of the retirement income for about two-thirds of Americans over age 65, but if you're in your mid-50s or younger, it's time to make alternate arrangements. (click for full article)

Social Security is next big issue
Now that landmark legislation overhauling the health insurance system is about to become law, addressing Social Security's solvency could well become the next big thing for President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats. (click for full article)

Social Security IOUs stashed away
The retirement nest egg of an entire generation is stashed away in this small town along the Ohio River: $2.5 trillion in IOUs from the federal government, payable to the Social Security Administration. (click for full article)

Defaulted Loans May Haunt Seniors
A little-noticed law could soon result in smaller Social Security checks for hundreds of thousands of the elderly and disabled who owe the U.S. money from defaulted loans and other debts more than a decade old. (click for full article)

4 Unusual Ways To Boost Social Security Benefits
For many retirees, Social Security retirement benefits are their only source of fixed income once they stop working. As retirement approaches, people start thinking about when they should apply for these benefits. (click for full article)

Social Security Depletion: Is The Fear Justified?
Scary headlines about the depletion of the Social Security program have been in the news for years. The grim text on the yearly statement sent to future Social Security recipients doesn't help matters, with its dire warning that the Social Security Trust Fund will be exhausted if changes to the program are not made. (click for full article)

Senate rejects Social Security bonus payment
The Senate on March 3 rejected a proposal by President Barack Obama to give people on Social Security a $250 bonus check. (click for full article)

The Social Security Conundrum
Last May, Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue met with Financial Planning during a trip to New York to promote the $250 recovery payments that were being issued to people who receive Social Security and Supplemental Security Income. (click for full article)

Seniors getting smaller checks
A majority of seniors are receiving a smaller Social Security check this year than in 2009, according to an annual survey of elderly Americans, released earlier today by The Senior Citizens League (TSCL). (click for full article)

Next in line for a bailout: Social Security
NEW YORK -- Don't look now. But even as the bank bailout is winding down, another huge bailout is starting, this time for the Social Security system. (click for full article)

Direct deposit of Social Security is safer, easier for winter travelers
(ARA) - As cold weather sets in, thousands of retirees are making plans for a winter getaway. If you're one of them, switch to direct deposit for your Social Security payments before you leave - it's the safest, easiest way to receive your money. (click for full article)

People getting older happier than they used to be
CHICAGO - Even if the candles don't all fit on the cake, there's extra reason to celebrate some key older birthdays in the post-meltdown economy. (click for full article)

People getting older happier than they used to be
CHICAGO - Even if the candles don't all fit on the cake, there's extra reason to celebrate some key older birthdays in the post-meltdown economy. (click for full article)

10 things to know about Social Security
Social Security is a lot like the ozone layer - we all know it's there now and we count on it being there in the future. Yet some people may not know much more about it than that. (click for full article)

Pols Seek To Boost Social Security $$$
City Council Member Elizabeth Crowley and Rep. Anthony Weiner joined seniors for a rally on Monday, Oct. 26 at the Middle Village Adult Center to call on the U.S. Social Security Administration to increase social security payments for New York City’s elderly citizens. (click for full article)

Social Security benefit cuts or higher taxes likely coming
SAN FRANCISCO - Social Security provides a majority of the retirement income for about two-thirds of Americans over age 65, but if you're in your mid-50s or younger, it's time to make alternate arrangements. (click for full article)

Addabbo slams cuts to Social Security
New York State Sen. Joseph Addabbo Jr. (D-Howard Beach) has assailed the Social Security Administration's decision to cut cost-of-living allowances as a hardship for seniors. (click for full article)

While we slept, Congress looted our Social Security
High Social Security payroll taxes have contributed to yearly Social Security Trust Fund surpluses until the proclaimed surplus is now in excess of $2,420 billion ($2.42 trillion). (click for full article)

Social Security makes it official: No COLA in 2010
There will be no cost of living increase for more than 50 million Social Security recipients next year, the first year without a raise since automatic adjustments were adopted in 1975. (click for full article)

'Income' eats away at Social Security disability checks
The recession is expected to add more people to the Social Security rolls - so many, in fact, that the government said it will pay out more benefits than it will collect in taxes the next two years. (click for full article)

New York reps criticize Social Security plan
A group of Democratic elected officials and a City Council candidate have demanded that the Social Security Administration scrap its plan to cut off cost-of-living allowances for two years despite rising costs. (click for full article)

Sales tax error launches campaign to preserve SS COLAs
When it comes to money, Howard McKenna counts every penny - literally.

On Thursday, he discovered that two Dollar General stores in Farmington were charging 9 percent sales tax instead of the proper tax of 7.975 percent. McKenna contacted the city, the state revenue department and State Sen. Kevin Engler, R-Farmington. (click for full article)

Low oil prices block retirees' cost-of-living adjustment
It was higher oil prices last year that led to the largest annual cost-of-living adjustment to federal entitlements since 1982. Good thing, too. (click for full article)

Pro-Con | Should Social Security recipients receive an annual cost-of-living adjustment despite there being no inflation?
I always tell people to refrain from griping if they didn't vote.

But not only did I vote, I did everything in my power to keep the current president out of office. In the Democratic primary, our fair city voted for Hillary Clinton, hands down. (click for full article)

Queens politicians outraged over Social Security COLA freeze
With the cost of healthcare, housing, prescription drugs and transportation increasing, news that Social Security benefits will remain stagnant may make difficult times even worse for seniors. (click for full article)

Seniors wary over Social Security changes
Monroe, NJ - Fixed income seniors may have to pinch their pennies a little tighter next year as experts around the country are projecting cuts in Social Security benefits. (click for full article)

More charged in Social Security fraud case
MUSKEGON (Michigan) -- Another batch of people have been arraigned for allegedly cashing duplicate Social Security disability checks in the Muskegon area. (click for full article)

No Social Security COLA is no biggie
"Millions of people face shrinking Social Security checks next year," The Washington Post reported Monday, "as officials project that benefits will stay flat for the first time in a generation." (click for full article)

Put Congress on Social Security
Perhaps we are asking the wrong questions during election years.

Our Senators and Congressmen do not pay into Social Security and, of course, they do not collect from it.

You see, Social Security benefits are not suitable for persons of their rare elevation in society. They feel they should have a special plan for themselves. So, many years ago they voted in their own benefit plan. (click for full article)

Petitions and Memorials -- (Senate - April 22, 2008) [Page: S3252]
The following petitions and memorials were laid before the Senate and were referred or ordered to lie on the table as indicated:

...POM-308. A collection of petitions forwarded by the Benefit Security Coalition relative to establishing a more equitable method of computing cost of living adjustments for Social Security benefits; to the Committee on Finance. (click for full PDF file)

Health Plans Could Aid, Hinder Efforts To Fund Social Security
While a health care overhaul takes precedence, the Obama administration will eventually tackle the Social Security issue, top White House economic adviser Lawrence Summers said last week. (click for full article)

Mountain of debt: Social Security crisis looms
WASHINGTON - As Congress agonizes over health care, an even more daunting and dangerous challenge is bearing down: how to shore up Social Security to keep it from burying the nation ever deeper in debt. (click for full article)

Retirees rethink Social Security in tough economy
CHICAGO - Many Americans are living on the edge these days, and that means more are opting to take Social Security early. The potential consequences for them down the road are troublesome. (click for full article)

Is Hiding Your Social Security Number Worth It?
Consumers who have spent hours locking up their passports, shredding their billing statements and filing away their tax returns may soon learn they've wasted a great deal of time. Their efforts to shield themselves from identity theft by guarding their Social Security numbers are being undermined by government officials and social networking sites. (click for full article)

Payback: Making Money Off Social Security
Americans give the government interest-free loans with their salary withholdings. There's a way to turn the tables. (click for full article)

Continuing a Conversation on Social Security
The rules covering Social Security are so numerous and so complicated that it isn't easy to figure out the optimal time to take benefits. As we recently wrote, this decision is different for each person and depends on a variety of factors: your health, your savings, when you stop working, whether you are married or single, and more. (click for full article)

Social Security Payments Could Shrink for Some
Because Social Security won't provide a cost-of-living adjustment next year and Medicare Part B premiums likely will rise, some retirees will get smaller checks. (click for full article)

David Walker Explains Social Security's Future
David Walker, former U.S. comptroller general, has made it his mission to call attention to how current spending patterns could hurt future generations. He rails against the budget deficit and speaks out in favor of spending controls. Now, as head of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, Walker continues to urge politicians to make programs such as Social Security and Medicare sustainable. (click for full article)

Trustees: Outlook is not good for Social Security, Medicare
You'd have to have been living under a rock to be surprised by the news in May from the Social Security and Medicare trustees that the programs are in trouble. In a nutshell: The U.S. population is aging, health-care costs are spiraling upward and neither program has the money to cover promised benefits. In addition, politicians have known this for many years, and yet no progress has been made in fixing the programs. (click for full article)

Security trust fund exhausted 4 years sooner than last year's forecast
NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- The recession has taken its toll on Social Security. The officials who oversee the program forecast May 12 that the Social Security trust fund will be exhausted by 2037 -- four years earlier than estimated last year. (click for full article)

Recession puts Social Security in spotlight
The financial crisis has cast a shadow over a perennial debate in Washington: How to ensure the long-term financial health of Social Security.

While President Obama has taken on more major issues in his first few months than most presidents, the entitlement program for retirees hasn't made the list. (click for full article)

Lawmakers Seeking Consensus On Social Security Overhaul
Key lawmakers from both parties have held tentative talks about overhauling the Social Security system, and Congress could turn its attention to the federal retirement program as soon as this fall if a bipartisan consensus emerges, House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer said May 5.

"I am hopeful. It's a tough issue," Hoyer (D-Md.) said in an interview, adding that he and other lawmakers are still trying to assess whether sufficient support exists to move forward. (click for full article)

Hoyer Delivers Keynote Address on Entitlement and Health Care Reform
WASHINGTON, DC - House Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer (MD) delivered the keynote address at a Bipartisan Policy Center forum, "Unprecedented Federal Debt: Putting Our Fiscal House in Order," hosted by former Senator Pete Domenici at the St. Regis Hotel. Below are his remarks as prepared for delivery:

"If I were to guess the single most lasting lesson of our economic crisis, and if I were to spell it out in just five words, I would say: this is what debt does. (click for full article)

Hoyer 'hopeful' on entitlement reform this year
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said May 6 he's "hopeful" that Congress will reform Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid later this year, after lawmakers deal with contentious healthcare reform and energy bills. (click for full article)

50 million retirees to get $250 checks in May
WASHINGTON (AP) - More than 50 million retirees can expect to receive $250 payments from the government in the next few weeks as their share of the economic stimulus package enacted in February. (click for full article)

Don't Count on Future Social Security Increases
Social Security payouts increased 5.8 percent this year. It was the largest cost-of-living increase in more than 25 years and increased the typical retiree's check by approximately $63. (click for full article)

Zero Social Security COLA Increase Until 2013 For 37 Million Senior Citizens
WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The 37 million Americans aged 65 and over who receive a Social Security check each month are forecast to receive no increase in their Social Security checks until 2013. (click for full article)

Recession Puts a Major Strain On Social Security Trust Fund
As Payroll Tax Revenue Falls, So Does Surplus
The U.S. recession is wreaking havoc on yet another front: the Social Security trust fund. (click for full article)

COLA for Military Overseas Plunges with Dollar
STUTTGART, Germany — Most service members in Germany can expect about a $200 cut in their monthly cost-of-living allowances this year as a result of rising prices for goods in the U.S., where inflation has outpaced that in Germany, according to the Department of Defense’s Per Diem, Travel and Transportation Committee. (click for full article)

One-Time $250 Social Security Payment Due In May
WASHINGTON (AP) - People who collect Social Security or disability benefits will share $13 billion in federal money, each receiving a one-time, $250 payment beginning in May, Vice President Joe Biden said March 26. (click for full article)

Strengthen Social Security
At this point, we need to confront an elemental truth: No Wall Street rally can obscure the scary historical prospect that most Americans now working can expect to have less income security in retirement than their parents. (click for full article)

The payoff for waiting to collect Social Security
Readers had two questions about my recent column on taking my Social Security benefits. Most readers wanted to know why I had waited so long several months after my 68th birthday. After all, they argued, it would take years to recoup the benefits I had deferred. (click for full article)

Amnesty Bill—Worst Provisions
Lou Dobbs discusses the worst Provisions of the new Amnesty Bill. (click to view the video)

Social Security chief hopeful on system's solvency
ST. LOUIS (AP) -- Social Security Commissioner Michael Astrue is hopeful the Obama Administration will address the solvency of the system before the 2012 elections. But in a speech on Monday in St. Louis, Astrue declined to speculate on exactly how the administration plans to fix it. (click for full article)

Social Security Workers Feeling Strapped
Workers at the Social Security Administration are working harder and enjoying it less, while its customers grow ever more frustrated.

That's a major take-away from a recent Government Accountability Office report detailing the negative impact of SSA staff cuts. (click for full article)

Taking Apart the $819 billion Stimulus Package
The centerpiece of President Obama's domestic agenda is an $819 billion economic stimulus plan. The Senate will consider the measure this week, with an eye toward the amount of tax cuts and spending. Republicans and Democrats spar over what to consider a tax cut. An analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office tallies the tax-cut portion to be significantly less than the one-third Democrats claim it to be. (click for full article)

Bunning's Social Security change defeated again
Kentucky U.S. Sen. Jim Bunning's bid to lower Social Security taxes died this week when his amendment to the financial stimulus package was soundly defeated.

Bunning, a Republican, blamed Senate Democrats for leading the charge against the amendment that fell Wednesday night by a vote of 57 to 39. (click for full article)

The Congressional economic stimulus plan would place the Social Security Trust Fund into deficit for the first time ever next year, if the current economic stimulus package is passed by both Houses of Congress.

Social Security is funded by payroll taxes that employees and their employers pay into the system. Money that comes into the Social Security Trust Fund is used to pay the Social Security checks retirees receive each month, and since the creation of the Trust Fund in 1983, the program has always had more money coming in than going out.

However, that may change as soon as next year, due to a proposed refundable payroll tax credit which would offer workers a refund on their portion of Social Security taxes, meaning there would be insufficient cash to pay benefits. The $145.3 billion refundable payroll tax credit proposal would give individual workers up to $500 and couples up to $1,000.

The Benefit Security Coalition joins The Senior Citizens League in advocating for any decrease in payroll taxes to be taken from the general treasury, not the Social Security Trust Fund.

http://sev.prnewswire.com/publishing-information-services/20090129/DC6451529012009-1.html

You want change? Try these ideas
Each presidential candidate is giving his rendition of the changes he wants for America.

Here are a few that I believe all Americans want... (click for full article)

Robin Summerfield, representing Maryland Senator Ben Cardin, addresses an audience of 50 at the Civic Council-sponsored Seniors Resource Center in Frederick, MD, on December 10, 2008. He discussed some of the challenges facing the Social Security and Medicaid systems, and some of the options for addressing those problems.

Thomas Cromwell (at podium) and Edwin Pierson, of the Civic Council, explain some of the advocacy programs of the Council to 50 guests gathered at its Seniors Resource Center in Frederick, Maryland, on December 10, 2008. Among the issues discussed was the need to achieve a fairer COLA calculation for Seniors, as well as the dangers posed by a totalization agreement with Mexico.

The only way to fix Social Security
August 20, 2008, NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- John McCain and Barack Obama both talk about how they would put Social Security on sound financial footing.

The program will face the first signs of a financial crunch within a decade and have to rely on Uncle Sam - who's in hock already - to make up for the shortfall. (click for full article)

Medicare Drug Premiums to Rise about 12 Percent a Month in 2009
August 17, 2008, Medicare’s beneficiaries will see about a $3 increase in their monthly premiums for prescription drug coverage in 2009, federal reports said on Thursday.

This increase of 12 percent will boost the monthly premium to $28 for standard drug coverage. It seems to be three reasons behind this premium increase, according to Kerry Weems, acting administrator of the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. (click for full article)

Pay Raises Not Always Welcomed
March 30, 2008, Washington -- Most people would like the ability to set their own salaries. The U.S. Constitution requires Congress to do just that.But it never has been a chore it relishes, and it has struggled with a variety of systems to accomplish it.

From 1789, when congressional salaries were $6 a day, until 1968 when they were $30,000 a year, Congress enacted stand-alone legislation for 18 separate salary adjustments. Partisan battles accompanied many of those votes, and sometimes a decade would pass between increases. (click for full article)

Social Security Announces 5.8 Percent Benefit Increase for 2009
Monthly Social Security and Supplemental Security Income benefits for more than 55 million Americans will increase 5.8 percent in 2009, the Social Security Administration announced today. The 5.8 percent increase is the largest since 1982. (click for full article)

Social Security's Running Out of Time
March 19, 2008, (Fortune Magazine) -- One of Washington's rites of spring is almost upon us. It's the wonks' version of the Cherry Blossom Festival - the release of the annual Social Security trustees' report showing the health of our nation's biggest social program. Each year the report touches off a debate, mostly misguided, about Social Security's financial status. Given the political environment this year, you can expect more heat than usual when the report comes out. But you're unlikely to see much light. (click for full article)

Democrats Get Wish: More Taxes!
March 14, 2008, WASHINGTON - The Senate rejected calls from both parties' presidential candidates to take an election-year break from pork-barrel spending as a Democratic-run Congress passed budget plans that would torpedo hundreds of billions of dollars in tax cuts won by President Bush. (click for full article)

Rebate Letters to Cost $42 Million
March 7, 2008, WASHINGTON — At a cost of nearly $42 million, the IRS wants you to know: Your check is almost in the mail.

The Internal Revenue Service is spending the money on letters to alert taxpayers to expect rebate checks as part of the economic stimulus plan. (click for full article)

Cost of Living Too Costly for Seniors
February 27, 2008, SACRAMENTO — The threshold for seniors to qualify for government assistance is so low that most Ventura County seniors who have incomes twice that high don't have enough money to pay for the necessities of living, a UCLA study released Tuesday shows. (click for full article)

2.8 % Increase Would Raise Average Benefit Just $30.20 Per Month During Economic Downturn
February 14,2008, WASHINGTON /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Late last month, the Congressional Budget Office published a little-noticed estimate that forecasts seniors will receive just a 2.8 percent increase in their Social Security checks beginning in January, 2009. (click for full article)

Benefit Security Coalition in the Congressional Record
Petitions and Memorials -- (Senate - February 07, 2008) The following petitions and memorials were laid before the Senate and were referred or ordered to lie on the table as indicated:

POM-284. A collection of petitions forwarded by the Benefit Security Coalition relative to establishing a more equitable method of computing cost of living adjustments for Social Security benefits; to the Committee on Finance. (click for full article)

Town Wants to Let Seniors Work Off Taxes
GREENBURGH, New York (AP) -- Audrey Davison lives alone, gets a $620 Social Security check each month and worries about the sharply rising taxes on her four-bedroom house. Davison, 76, raised her family there and after 43 years, she really doesn't want to leave Greenburgh. (click for full article)

2008 COLA Lowest in 4 Years!
WASHINGTON (AP) — Come January, Social Security benefits for nearly 50 million Americans are going up 2.3 percent, the smallest increase in four years. It will mean an extra $24 per month in the average check, the government announced Wednesday. (click for full article)

48 Million Seniors Forecast to Receive Second Smallest Social Security COLA '08
WASHINGTON, April 25 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- In its annual report released to Congress earlier this week, Social Security's Trustees announced that the Social Security Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) for 2008 -- the annual adjustment provided to seniors each year to help them keep up with inflation -- is forecast to be just 1.4 percent, and could be as low as 1.2 percent. (click for full article)

Social Security Adjustment Isn’t Calculating the Cost-of-living
Seniors’ Medicare premiums are rising so rapidly that in five years, the premiums alone will wipe out the annual cost-of-living adjustments in their Social Security checks, according to a new study.

The yearly cost-of-living adjustment is supposed to keep pace with inflation’s effect on the costs of energy, food and transportation. But the monthly premiums for Medicare Part B alone have gone up much faster than the cost-of-living adjustments, and the situation is expected to worsen. In addition to Medicare Part B doctors coverage, many seniors face higher-than-expected premiums for the new Part D drug coverage. (click for full article)