Sequester cuts have reduced FY 2013 allocations for the Social Services Block Grant from $1.7 billion to $1.613 billion. Since the first two FY 2013 allocations were issued before sequestration took effect, the full cut will be absorbed in the second half of the fiscal year and will result in an approximate 10 percent funding cut. Social Services Block Grant allocations are used to fund many important programs for older Americans, including Adult Protective Services. See the impact of sequester on your state.
The SSA needs to focus on "program integrity," a polite term for reducing fraud and payment errors, the agency's inspector general told Congress. Reducing improper payments is one of the challenges facing the next SSA commissioner, Patrick O'Carroll, Jr., the agency's inspector general, told the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Social Security on April 26. In fiscal year 2012, the Social Security Administration reported $4.7 billion in improper payments in the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program, a 9.2 percent improper payment rate. (SSI is funded by general tax revenues, not payroll taxes. It helps elderly, blind, and/or disabled people…
A majority of older voters oppose cost-of-living cuts for Social Security and would object to their member of Congress supporting the policy, according to a new poll. The national survey from AARP found that 66 percent of voters over 50 would be "considerably less favorable" to lawmakers that back slower cost-of-living increases in Social Security. President Obama's new budget is expected to include a so-called chained consumer price index (CPI) proposal as an olive branch to Republicans, and the left has signaled strong opposition to the policy ahead of the budget's rollout. Messaging from AARP, including Monday's poll, indicates that…
The Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) has published its annual Retirement Confidence Survey that confirms what virtually all such surveys have concluded: 1) that Americans are living longer; and 2) that they do not have anywhere near enough saved for retirement. The truth is that Americans do almost no thinking about what kind of retirement they want. They mistakenly assume that Social Security is a retirement program, when in fact it is a supplemental retirement program. The three legs of the retirement "stool"—Social Security, a pension, and private savings—have all seen some shrinkage in the past few years. For Social…
On January 1, the maximum amount of annual earnings subject to the Social Security tax – a.k.a. the payroll tax cap – increased to $113,700. Every year, this cap is adjusted to keep up with inflation. Many Americans are not aware that income above the cap is not taxed by Social Security. In other words, workers who make $113,700 or less per year pay a higher Social Security payroll tax rate than those who make more. To help alleviate Social Security’s long-term budget shortfall, raising — or even eliminating — the cap has gotten some attention from policy makers. A…
A recently released survey suggests that, at least where Social Security is concerned, voters may feel differently: When asked to choose in a trade-off between lower benefits and higher payroll taxes for themselves, even self-identified Republicans were more likely to choose the tax. In all, 74 percent of Republicans and 88 percent of Democrats agreed with the statement that “it is critical to preserve Social Security even if it means increasing Social Security taxes paid by working Americans.” The survey was commissioned by the National Academy for Social Insurance, a nonpartisan group of specialists in entitlement policy who generally agree…
Included in President Obama’s December 17th proposal to avert the fiscal cliff was a significant change to government benefits, most notably Social Security. The President conceded to Republican demands to change the method currently used to measure inflation, which determines the cost of living adjustment (COLA) for Social Security and other federal programs. The President’s proposal would mean that inflation would now be measured using the chained Consumer Price Index (chained CPI), which would replace the current CPI formula. Although not included in the final fiscal cliff bill, the chained CPI is very much still on the table as a…
Here are some changes that appear relatively certain regardless of the action Congress takes: • The personal exemption will increase, reportedly to $3,900, in 2013 from $3,800 this year. • The maximum earnings subject to the Social Security tax will increase to $113,700 in 2013 from $110,100 in 2012. • Contributions to defined contribution plans will climb to a maximum $23,000 — $17,500 in regular contributions, up from $17,000 in 2012, plus $5,500 in catch-up contributions for those 50-plus, same as in 2012. • There will be a higher threshold on medical deductions, meaning it will be harder to qualify….
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid has announced the new Medicare premiums, deductibles, and coinsurances. The standard Medicare Part B premium is increasing by $5 to $104.90 a month, smaller than the $9 per month increase predicted earlier in the year. Social Security recipients will receive a 1.7 percent increase in payments in 2013. Most people have their Medicare premiums deducted from their Social Security benefits. The smaller-than-expected hike means that most Medicare recipients will still receive a modest boost in Social Security benefits. Here are all the new Medicare figures: Part B premium: $104.90/month (was $99.90) Part B deductible:…
Glenn Smallwood does not have a cell phone, computer, or credit card. Nor does he have a bank account. And that’s exactly the way he likes it. “I guess you could say I’m an old fuddy duddy,” Smallwood, 63, a semi-retired insurance salesman in Clearwater, Fla., told ABC News. “I’m set in my ways. I don’t want my money in a bank. I keep my money in my pocket.” So when Smallwood received a notice from the U.S. Treasury Department informing him that as of March 2013, his Social Security checks would be directly deposited into his bank account –or…
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