Yes. Social Security provides a variety of benefits to people who have not paid into the system. If one meets certain eligibility criteria, one can be eligible for benefits based on another person's account. Here are some examples:.As inflation continues to steeply increase prices, older consumers are reporting that food has been the fastest growing category of their household budgets so far this year, according to a new survey by The Senior Citizens League. The same survey also found that nearly one out of five survey respondents, 19 percent, say they have visited a food pantry or applied for food stamps since the beginning of this year," says Mary Johnson, Social Security policy analyst for The Senior Citizens League..Now, it has been reported that the top lawyer in the Department of Health and Human Services has warned in an internal memo that the President's plan to give seniors 0 discount cards to buy prescription drugs could violate election law..While a multitude of new mandates and burdensome administrative requirements have been layered on over the past several years, payments to physicians have not only failed to keep pace with inflation, they have, in some cases, decreased in real terms..The issue of PBM transparency is not a hyper-partisan issue - and that was clear when the U.S. House passed our bill by an overwhelming margin of 403 to 0. That vote should signal just how common high drug prices are in districts across the country, and I'm encouraged by Democrats and Republicans both recognizing the pressing need for our legislation..That doesn't mean that a budget agreement is completely out of the question or the much more unlikely scenario that Congress won't get paid. The No Budget No Pay Act holds Congressional paychecks in escrow, and, by law, will release the funds either when a budget agreement is reached, or on the last day of the 113th Congress, which ends on December 31, 2014..The statement that "nearly two-thirds of undocumented immigrants affected by the president's executive action don't pay taxes today" doesn't appear to be supported by the government's own data, and is contradicted by statements from Social Security's own Chief Actuary Stephen Goss. Goss was quoted in The New York Times as saying that about "three-quarters of other-than-legal immigrants" already pay payroll taxes. And the Social Security Administration receives on average about 9 million copies of suspicious wage and payroll tax reports a year in which the Social Security number and name don't match those on Social Security records. This situation frequently occurs when undocumented immigrants illegally work under invalid or fraudulent Social Security numbers. But if that's the case, awarding work authorization and Social Security numbers now would make up to 5 million individuals eligible to claim permanent Social Security and Medicare benefits based on earnings under those illegitimate wage reports..Please be aware that if the federal government shuts down on Tuesday, October 1st, your daily life should NOT be affected. Medicare will continue to operate, and your Social Security benefits will go out on time regardless of whether or not the federal government is running..In normal political times neither party would allow Medicare to be cut. But because of our current highly partisan times, it would require ten Republicans to join with Democrats to stop the cuts to Medicare with new legislation if reconciliation were used.
