News

  • Weekly Update For Week Ending September 26 2020

    Minimal Workplace Enforcement—A Contributing Factor .Start Now! .The CBO also notes that increasing the payroll tax rate or subjecting more earnings to the payroll tax could improve Social Security's financing. … Continued

  • Legislative Update For Week Ending May 24 2019

    Why ban the use of earnings from unauthorized work to determine Social Security benefits? Under current law Social Security uses all earnings to calculate Social Security benefits. That means earnings of unauthorized immigrants from jobs worked under invalid and fraudulent Social Security numbers (SSN) can be used both to qualify for benefits and for the calculation of the initial retirement benefit. There is no official published data on the amount of wages on file attributable to aliens working without authorization, but the Social Security Administration maintains an earnings suspense file that represents an estimated 3.5 billion in wages from 2000 through 2010[2], most of it believed to be attributable to illegal workers. Under immigration reform, that could mean a huge new liability for Social Security in the future, triggering more rounds of cuts and higher taxes. .Millions of Americans Forgoing Health Care .Chen cited two international flights from earlier stages of the pandemic where infection rates varied depending on mask use. On the first flight, no passengers were wearing masks, and a single passenger infected 14 people as the plane traveled from London to Hanoi, Vietnam. On the second flight, from Singapore to Hangzhou in China, all passengers were wearing face masks. Although 15 passengers were Wuhan residents with either suspected or confirmed cases of COVID-19, the only man infected en route had loosened his mask mid-flight and had been sitting close to four Wuhan residents who later tested positive for the virus. … Continued

COLA Cuts .The resolution's authors wrote, "Our plan would strengthen Medicare by offering future seniors guaranteed-coverage options – including traditional Medicare – regardless of pre-existing conditions or health history. All seniors will have the support they need to get the care they deserve." .In addition, one new cosponsor signed on to the Strengthening Social Security Act (H.R. 3118), bringing the total up fifty-two. The new cosponsor is Rep. Mike Quigley (IL-5). If signed into law, the bill would reform the Social Security program in three ways: it would adjust the benefit formula, resulting in more generous monthly benefits; it would adopt the Consumer Price Index for Elderly Consumers (CPI-E), resulting in more accurate cost-of-living adjustments (COLAs), and it would lift the cap on income subject to the payroll tax. The bill would extend the solvency of the Social Security Trust Fund responsibly, without cutting benefits for seniors. .Why Mothers and Wives Can Receive Less in Social Security .A new Medicare cost-saving rule that was launched late in 2020 will cut payments to hospitals for some surgical procedures and could potentially raise costs for Medicare recipients. According to an article by Susan Jaffe, of Kaiser Health News, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has for years classified 1,740 surgeries and other services as "so risky" for older adults that Medicare would pay for them only when people were admitted to the hospital as inpatients. But under the new rule, CMS is beginning to phase out that requirement. By the end of 2023, these "inpatient only services" which includes complicated procedures such as heart and brain operations, is scheduled to be gone. .Just years before they were set to retire, these individuals learned that they would have significantly lower benefits than originally anticipated. The issue was created by the amendments to the Social Security Act that were signed into law in 1977, and it has compounded over time. ."Taxpayers and patients will pay more for drugs and medical supplies," a group of more than 250 economists warned in a letter to the White House earlier this year. .Support for the IPAB at both hearings was scarce. Some Members, including the Ranking Member of the House Budget Committee, Chris Van Hollen (MD), called the IPAB a necessary "failsafe" measure that will stabilize healthcare costs. He stressed the fact that the experts on the IPAB will make recommendations, but Congress will ultimately have the final say in whether or not they become law. .Finally, when older workers do land new jobs, they typically experience a steep drop in income and benefits. Median wages for people who take new jobs in their fifties fall by a median of 57 percent, and 25 percent lose their health insurance.