News

This week, Members of Congress continued working on a stopgap funding bill to keep the federal government operating past October 1st. In addition, The Senior Citizens League announced its support for one new piece of legislation, and two key bills gained support..The Senior Citizens League is hopeful that Congress will pass responsible reforms to the Social Security and Medicare programs as soon as possible to strengthen benefits and restore the solvency of the Trust Funds. For more information about legislation that has been endorsed by The Senior Citizens League, visit the Bill Tracking section of our website..With about 1 million supporters, The Senior Citizens League is one of the nation's largest nonpartisan seniors groups. Located just outside Washington, D.C., its mission is to promote and assist members and supporters, to educate and alert senior citizens about their rights and freedoms as U.S. Citizens, and to protect and defend the benefits senior citizens have earned and paid for. The Senior Citizens League is a proud affiliate of TREA The Enlisted Association. Please visit or call for more information.While the Social Security hold harmless provision provides important protection from Social Security reductions, more money is required to catch up to Medicare Part B levels in following years. If COLAs continue to remain low, premiums would adjusted again due to low COLAs. COLAs would have to be substantially higher in following years or the whole process would happen all over again..In the days ahead, many Senators will be holding town hall meetings in their home states. TSCL encourages its members and supporters to attend these events and to ask important questions about the BCRA, like the following two….The Bipartisan Policy Center points out in a recent blog, that each of these sources of revenues is negatively impacted by high unemployment. When people are out of work, no payroll taxes are withheld from earnings. A portion of Social Security benefits is taxable when a Social Security recipient has an income higher than ,000 or ,000 for a couple filing jointly. But the coronavirus recession has impacted both earnings from jobs and the value of retirement accounts, so that fewer retirees will meet the income thresholds that make their benefits taxable this year. Finally, the Federal Reserve has responded to the recession by cutting interest rates, which means that the yields on the bonds held by the Social Security Trust Funds are smaller and will provide lower interest income. A recession also causes a higher number of new claims when older workers are forced to retire earlier than planned, raising costs in the short term..On Thursday, Senate lawmakers passed legislation to suspend the debt ceiling until next spring, fund the government through December 8th, and provide .25 billion in relief to victims of Hurricane Harvey. At the time of writing this week's legislative update, the House had not yet voted on the legislation, but it is expected to pass with bipartisan support by the end of Friday afternoon..Ways and Means Subcommittees Consider Entitlement Reform.The Obama Administration along with many private corporations like Hewlett-Packard and Walgreens announced several other new projects that will aim to improve the lives of seniors at Monday's conference. For more information, check out the White House's Fact Sheet that summarizes each one.