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You may possibly qualify for a divorced spouse Social Security survivor's benefit that would be the same as what a widow would get, but you have a number of options that you need to carefully think through. If you receive survivors benefits as a divorced spouse now, you can switch to your own retirement benefit later if it is higher than your widow's benefit..TSCL Calls Seniors To Action.Reduce overpayments, fraud and abuse in the system - increase the frequency of continuing disability reviews. A recent audit found that the Social Security Administration had overpaid nearly half of the people receiving disability benefits over the past decade. Continuing disability reviews are conducted periodically to determine if disability recipients still remain eligible for benefits. According to the Social Security Advisory Board, every spent on reviews returns in savings to the program..Lawmakers Debate Spending Bill, Immigration.Fifty-six percent of all Social Security households pay taxes on their benefits. Many of them have very modest middle incomes and didn't adequately understand or plan for these taxes, which take about 6% on average of Social Security income..Providers couldn't send patients a balance bill for any amounts that exceed the cost-sharing requirement in those scenarios..Should Medicare change from a program that guarantees coverage for a fixed set of benefits, to one that guarantees a fixed federal payment to cover a portion of beneficiaries' healthcare expenses?.Since the start of the first CPI in 1940, the BLS has made changes to how it calculates price inflation - most recently announcing changes to how they collect price data. A new paper reports that the BLS has undertaken several pilot projects in an attempt to supplement and/or replace its traditional field collection of price data with "alternative sources." If that sounds suspicious, you have good reason to ask questions. The BLS Handbook of Methods lists more than 21 changes that economists have made to how they calculate the CPI since 198In most cases the so-called "improvements" tend to slow the measured rate of inflation. That means the growth in COLAs is cut and Social Security benefits grow more slowly over time. In short, this boils down to an erosion in the buying power of your Social Security benefits when, in reality, prices are actually going up..I'm single and I live alone. When I retire this year I will receive payments from a 401 and a traditional IRA of approximately ,000. My annual Social Security benefit will be around ,000. Will my Social Security benefit be subject to income tax even though I will not be working?