#eldelry

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Dear CNN: Ask the candidates if they will BOOST or CUT Social Security.

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As our nation awaits for the U.S. Supreme Court to decide whether the Trump administration can add a citizenship question to the 2020 Census, two important questions affecting more than 43.5 million Americans won’t be asked at all. The missing questions address whether a U.S. resident is a caregiver for an adult family member or a disabled child and whether a resident is receiving care from a family member.

The 2020 Census does include questions about grandparents caring for their grandchildren (up to age 18) in their homes. But what about family caregiving at the other end of the age spectrum? Nothing.

via Next Avenue.

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The Social Security Administration plans to close its Arlington field office and one of its Baltimore locations in June, part of a series of shutdowns across the country that activists and political leaders say is causing major difficulties for the elderly, people with disabilities and other beneficiaries.

The number of Social Security office workers has dropped by 3,500 since 2010, and under the funding level proposed by the Trump administration, another 1,000 jobs would be lost, said Max Richtman, chief executive of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, a Washington-based advocacy group. Congress cut the agency’s operating budget every year from 2010 to 2017, before increasing it this year, he said. But with 10,000 Americans turning 65 every day, the demand for Social Security services is not going away.

“Despite the recent funding boost, SSA continues to close field offices, primarily in urban neighborhoods,” Richtman said.

via Washington Post.

Related Reading:

Social Security Administration should stop closing field offices.

But another, more likely cause, is the failure of Congress to adequately fund SSA’s administrative budget. 

Congress shouldn’t be cutting funds for SSA operations when Social Security’s administrative costs are already paid for by workers’ payroll contributions. 

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In the latest in a series of “oops” moments for the GOP, Congressional leaders apparently didn’t realize that their deficit-swelling tax scheme would trigger $136 billion in automatic cuts to mandatory spending programs. This includes a $25 billion reduction in Medicare spending, which would take effect almost immediately after passage of the tax bill.

Needless to say, that large a cut could be devastating to the 57 million seniors and disabled who rely on Medicare. As a consequence of cutting taxes for the wealthy and big corporations, it would also be grossly unfair.

More from our blog post can be found by clicking here.

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Opinion: Detroit workers win by delaying retirement

Workers in Detroit face a major — and very real — retirement crisis. Wealth inequality and workplace changes have practically sawed-off two of the legs of the traditional retirement stool: pensions and private savings. More than half of today’s retirees rely on the third leg of the stool, Social Security, for most of their income. Even with Social Security, some 7% of Michigan seniors live in poverty. The good news is that workers can increase the size of their future Social Security checks by delaying retirement.

Delayed claiming past the early retirement age of 62 results in bigger monthly benefit checks for life. Waiting until after the current full retirement age of 66 yields even greater gains — up to 44% more than early claiming. But too few of Detroit’s workers are taking advantage of this delay-and-gain strategy. More than half of Michigan workers retire by age 62 — four years before they can collect their full Social Security benefits.

Read more from our op-ed by clicking here.

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The National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare strongly objects to the scheduled closure of the Social Security Administration (SSA) field office in Arlington, VA, which currently serves some 25,000 seniors, people with disabilities, and many other beneficiaries every year.

If the office is shuttered as planned on June 21st, lower income Social Security and SSI (Supplemental Security Income) claimants may find themselves traveling up to two hours round-trip on public transportation to an alternate field office.  Once they arrive at the nearest alternative location, they will experience an average two-hour wait (based on national data) in a crowded office where it can be difficult to locate a seat – an extra hardship for seniors and people with disabilities.

Read more about this issue by clicking here.

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News for NYT: Donald Trump and Paul Ryan are Not Political Philosophers | Beat the Press | The Center for Economic and Policy Research

This generational description is wrong on many counts. First, since generations of families often live together (which is especially true with poorer families) cutting Social Security payments would directly hurt tens of millions of low income children. Medicaid also disproportionately benefits both children and seniors. If this program is protected in the Trump budget then it will help both groups. Also, as a practical matter, few Republicans advocate large cuts for current beneficiaries of programs like Social Security and Medicare. They generally advocate cuts that will hurt future generations, like the millennials. In effect, they are proposing cuts to these programs that will hit today's young, but not until they are older. It is difficult to see how this would be siding with the young in a generational battle.

The divide is not between generations.