News

The Social Security Trustees recently projected that the Disability Insurance Trust Fund will be fully depleted by 201If the next Congress takes no action to address the matter, payroll taxes will only be sufficient to cover about 80 percent of benefits after Trust Fund depletion. While Congress has never permitted a trust fund to run out before, time is short to make what's likely to be difficult long-term changes. "The longer lawmakers wait at this point, the greater the chances of a funding crisis and benefit cuts," Cates says..An ongoing study of the buying power of Social Security benefits, a special project of TSCL, has found that, since 2000, COLAs increased Social Security benefits by a total of 46%, but the typical expenses of older households grew more than twice as fast - 96.3%. For every 0 a retired household spent in 2000, the same household can only buy about worth of goods and services today..TSCL polls indicate that a wide majority of older Americans are opposed to this policy. TSCL strongly supports legislation that would ban the use of earnings under invalid and fraudulent Social Security numbers from being used to determine benefits..Some lawmakers are advocating for paid leave legislation that would require new parents to trade their future Social Security retirement benefits for twelve weeks of parental leave. This would undermine the mission of the Social Security program, increase its insolvency, and permanently cut the retirement benefits of those who take paid leave. Do you think this is a responsible proposal?.TSCL recently released an analysis of the proposal that estimates the chained CPI would cut the growth in average benefits of ,100 today by about ,634 over the course of a 25-year retirement, and that assumes that the economy becomes more stable soon. Nevertheless, the reductions in COLA growth compound over time, and are deepest when seniors are the oldest and sickest. By the time seniors are in their late 80s or 90s, when they are most likely to have chronic health problems, monthly benefits would be about 5 lower using the chained CPI..On Wednesday, the Board of Trustees hosted a successful breakfast reception for all Members of the 113th Congress and their staff, along with Shannon Benton, former Congressman David Funderburk and Mrs. Betty Funderburk, and TSCL's staff. More than 125 Members of Congress and/or staff were in attendance, and we were pleased to have the chance to speak with them about the issues that matter most to TSCL's members and supporters. We especially want to thank Rep. Nick Rahall, who has been a regular attendee at TSCL's receptions..Any Toll Free call to Congress on the number will be paid for by The Senior Citizens League.."The bottom line is that Medicare Part B premiums rise several times faster than COLAs, and those premiums are now high enough to cause the net Social Security benefits of millions of people to remain flat for years at a time," Johnson says. "We are at the point where this is affecting far more people than anyone ever anticipated, and it's a red flag that Medicare premiums are increasing too fast, while Social Security benefits are not adequately keeping pace," she explains..In a way that's not news. You already knew prices had been going up and so did we at TSCL. But it's nice to have the facts to back us up.