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Help! I've Been Told I Have To Return My Deceased Husband's Last Social Security Check. Is This Really True?.House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said last week that she is pushing to attach drug price cutting legislation to the major budget bill carrying most of President Biden's trillion economic agenda in the coming months..The largest percentage of those surveyed in TSCL's 2017 Senior Survey - 37 percent - reported that their household expenses rose by more than 9 per month in 2016, yet the annual cost of living adjustment increased benefits by only 0.3 percent, about .00- .00 per month for someone with average benefits. Few beneficiaries actually saw an increase in benefits at all, however, because rising Medicare Part B premiums took the entire COLA. "This flat growth in Social Security forces tens of millions of retirees and their families to spend more out of savings every year, go into debt, or look to Medicaid and other safety net programs to make ends meet," Johnson says..The problem is that most retired individuals don't have 0,000 to set aside just for healthcare. According to the Employees Benefit Research Institute, the average person in their 60s who has contributed to a 401 for more than 30 years only has about 5,000 for all retirement expenses. But that's just counting the people who do have retirement accounts - and millions do not. According to the U.S. Government Accountability Office, 60% of all U.S. households have no retirement savings at all..While most retirees tend to want to hold onto their current supplement or health plan, concern about rising costs is universal. TSCL's 2019 Senior Survey found that more than 75% of survey respondents favor the establishment of a cap on the maximum percentage of profit that private insurers may earn..Leadership Elections Kick Off "Lame Duck" Session.In January of 2021, bipartisan legislation, the Social Security Fairness Act, which would eliminate the WEP and the GPO, was introduced by Rep. Rodney Davis. To date, the bill has 136 co-sponsors including BOTH Democrats and Republicans. TSCL strongly endorses this legislation and we encourage you to ask your Representative to support it. Public service employees deserve to get all the Social Security benefits they rightfully have paid for..During our slow, arduous economic recovery that followed the financial crisis and recession of 2008 and 2009, many government programs, Social Security in particular, were stretched to the limit. A number that made headlines last year was the Social Security Trustees' estimate that the Social Security trust funds would run a billion cash deficit in 20Most of the time when the Social Security trust fund is referred to, we mean two trust funds - the old-age and survivor's insurance trust fund, that pays retirement and widows benefits, and the disability insurance trust fund..Medicare Part B premiums were found to be the fastest growing cost for seniors, increasing by 195 percent over the eighteen-year period. Average out-of-pocket spending on prescription drugs followed closely behind, increasing by 188 percent. Meanwhile, between 2000 and 2018 the COLA increased Social Security benefits by only 46 percent.