If TrumpMusk initiates a layoff, the folks at SS won’t have a say. They are victims too. Email or call your Rep, Senator, and the White House. BTW both Social Security and Medicare can effectively be dealt with on line.
For most of us in pay status, our checks come automatically from trust funds, not from general tax revenues, that come from the budget via an algorythm, usually about the 12th of the month. At present they are fully funded.
In 2005, GWB thought he had a mandate to privatize it. A lot of the lies and folklore were generated so speculators could get their hands on the $ 3 trillion in the retirement trust fund.
IMHO the initial targets will be SSI. especially childs' benefits. SSI is NOT funded bt FICA tax and the funding does not come from the SSA trust funds. Virtually everyone on SSI is entitled to Medicare and Medicaid, based on income limits. At the same time that Musk et al are working to diminish SSI, they are doing worse with Medicaid.
Thom Hartmann yesterday--
The plan to “demolish” Social Security is underway right before our eyes: who will stop them? The GOP’s plan to make Americans hate Social Security is well along in its execution. Their scheme — which they’ve been advancing in small increments for 44 years — is brilliantly simple: break the agency’s ability to respond to taxpayers, causing people to have to wait on the phone or travel for hours to stand in line for hours. As complaints mount, Republicans will then point to the “broken Social Security Administration” and pitch a Medicare Advantage-like alternative: privatized “Social Security Advantage,” run by the big New York banks who are reliable GOP donors. Once a critical mass of seniors have moved from SS to the new privatized program, they’ll then just shut down legacy Social Security, arguing that “the free marketplace has spoken.” The key to accelerating the process (Social Security’s administrative staff has been far too small for decades since Reagan first started cutting it) is a new demand from Trump’s acting Social Security Commissioner that the agency cut its workforce by fully fifty percent. Once that happens, all bets are off; the agency may not even be able to get checks out in a timely manner or process applications for new benefits, much less help SS recipients sign up or solve problems they may encounter. As Congressman John Larson noted: “This is nothing more than a backdoor benefit cut and an insult to Americans who have paid into the system and earned their Social Security—all to pay for trillions in new tax cuts for the wealthy.” Social Security Works president Nancy Altman was blunt: “Field offices around the country will close. Wait times for the 1-800 number will soar.” Larson added: “Let me be clear—laying off half of the workforce at the Social Security Administration and shuttering field offices will mean the delay, disruption, and denial of benefits.” Meanwhile, Idaho’s Republican Senator Mike Crapo blocked Bernie Sanders’ attempt this week to give all seniors on Social Security a $2400 annual raise. Noting that the raise would be paid for by having people earning more than $250,000 a year start paying Social Security taxes on all their income above that amount (which is currently exempt from Social Security taxes), Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky (a co-sponsor of the legislation) said, “The Social Security Expansion Act will protect the national treasure that is Social Security by extending the trust fund’s solvency for 75 years and expanding benefits by $2,400 a year so that everyone in America can retire with the security and dignity they deserve after a lifetime of hard work.” But big banks and the morbidly rich object, and they own the GOP…
The impatient oligarchs are waiting in the wings for that to happen. Between DUI Hegseth and trumps J6 militias you better have a good back-up plan for your resistance/revolution. I know quite a few are organizing but these groups are splintered. We have to have a united front. There is far more that we have in common that unites us than divides us.
I deal with both online. I am going to call my rep and Senator again tomorrow morning and let them have it but I’m in a red state so I don’t know how much that will help. As far as what to do, I don’t know what the right thing to do but I do know that it will cause mass chaos.
Yes he has. But SS will be the straw that breaks the camels back. Someone wrote a huge response about privatizing SS, I read it and no one is buying that. All they know is they paid into it and “It’s their money!” They can’t turn around and say it’s broken…please. No mater what, we still live in a democracy that this immigrant is trying to destroy. It’s not a Ponzi scheme like he stated on Rogan. He takes that ketamine and what other drugs he does and spews nonsense.
Last month, i couldn’t get through on the phone- they had to call back and give me an appointment. I am in Venice Fl til April- bur it was tge same when I trued to reach someone in NY, too
The last time I called (maybe a month ago) the wait time was 120 minutes. Don’t make my mistake, because I work, I was only able to call in the pm. Best time is morning. Plan to leave it on speaker and just go about your day.
Who knows what will happen to the phones and local offices once they take Muskys chainsaw to it though?!?
I will say the on-hold music was chosen to be least annoying.
The response time is already outrageous. My mother passed away in January from cancer (thank goodness her pain and suffering has ended because I’m certain it would be far worse with the new regime 🤬) I called to make an appt with the local office so my Dad can claim the death benefit and receive her benefit amount (since it is greater). After waiting on hold over an hour, I was told an appointment date and time would be MAILED and if we can’t make the appt we would need to start all over again. As of today, 3 weeks later, crickets!!!
I am going to call the SSA itself. Put the phone on speaker while I wait on hold for approximately four hours. What are the hold times these days?
There are also physical offices.
If TrumpMusk initiates a layoff, the folks at SS won’t have a say. They are victims too. Email or call your Rep, Senator, and the White House. BTW both Social Security and Medicare can effectively be dealt with on line.
For most of us in pay status, our checks come automatically from trust funds, not from general tax revenues, that come from the budget via an algorythm, usually about the 12th of the month. At present they are fully funded.
In 2005, GWB thought he had a mandate to privatize it. A lot of the lies and folklore were generated so speculators could get their hands on the $ 3 trillion in the retirement trust fund.
IMHO the initial targets will be SSI. especially childs' benefits. SSI is NOT funded bt FICA tax and the funding does not come from the SSA trust funds. Virtually everyone on SSI is entitled to Medicare and Medicaid, based on income limits. At the same time that Musk et al are working to diminish SSI, they are doing worse with Medicaid.
Thom Hartmann yesterday--
The plan to “demolish” Social Security is underway right before our eyes: who will stop them? The GOP’s plan to make Americans hate Social Security is well along in its execution. Their scheme — which they’ve been advancing in small increments for 44 years — is brilliantly simple: break the agency’s ability to respond to taxpayers, causing people to have to wait on the phone or travel for hours to stand in line for hours. As complaints mount, Republicans will then point to the “broken Social Security Administration” and pitch a Medicare Advantage-like alternative: privatized “Social Security Advantage,” run by the big New York banks who are reliable GOP donors. Once a critical mass of seniors have moved from SS to the new privatized program, they’ll then just shut down legacy Social Security, arguing that “the free marketplace has spoken.” The key to accelerating the process (Social Security’s administrative staff has been far too small for decades since Reagan first started cutting it) is a new demand from Trump’s acting Social Security Commissioner that the agency cut its workforce by fully fifty percent. Once that happens, all bets are off; the agency may not even be able to get checks out in a timely manner or process applications for new benefits, much less help SS recipients sign up or solve problems they may encounter. As Congressman John Larson noted: “This is nothing more than a backdoor benefit cut and an insult to Americans who have paid into the system and earned their Social Security—all to pay for trillions in new tax cuts for the wealthy.” Social Security Works president Nancy Altman was blunt: “Field offices around the country will close. Wait times for the 1-800 number will soar.” Larson added: “Let me be clear—laying off half of the workforce at the Social Security Administration and shuttering field offices will mean the delay, disruption, and denial of benefits.” Meanwhile, Idaho’s Republican Senator Mike Crapo blocked Bernie Sanders’ attempt this week to give all seniors on Social Security a $2400 annual raise. Noting that the raise would be paid for by having people earning more than $250,000 a year start paying Social Security taxes on all their income above that amount (which is currently exempt from Social Security taxes), Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky (a co-sponsor of the legislation) said, “The Social Security Expansion Act will protect the national treasure that is Social Security by extending the trust fund’s solvency for 75 years and expanding benefits by $2,400 a year so that everyone in America can retire with the security and dignity they deserve after a lifetime of hard work.” But big banks and the morbidly rich object, and they own the GOP…
Then we take to the streets and start a revolution!
The impatient oligarchs are waiting in the wings for that to happen. Between DUI Hegseth and trumps J6 militias you better have a good back-up plan for your resistance/revolution. I know quite a few are organizing but these groups are splintered. We have to have a united front. There is far more that we have in common that unites us than divides us.
I deal with both online. I am going to call my rep and Senator again tomorrow morning and let them have it but I’m in a red state so I don’t know how much that will help. As far as what to do, I don’t know what the right thing to do but I do know that it will cause mass chaos.
They've already caused mass chaos. It will only get worse in degrees.
Where do they stand on Ukraine?
Yes he has. But SS will be the straw that breaks the camels back. Someone wrote a huge response about privatizing SS, I read it and no one is buying that. All they know is they paid into it and “It’s their money!” They can’t turn around and say it’s broken…please. No mater what, we still live in a democracy that this immigrant is trying to destroy. It’s not a Ponzi scheme like he stated on Rogan. He takes that ketamine and what other drugs he does and spews nonsense.
My understanding is they are closing a lot of the offices.
Last month, i couldn’t get through on the phone- they had to call back and give me an appointment. I am in Venice Fl til April- bur it was tge same when I trued to reach someone in NY, too
you can't get into the physical offices to meet with anyone without an appointment.
Is this something new? As I've always been able to walk in.
I don’t know how long for wait times, I haven’t called in a long time.
The last time I called (maybe a month ago) the wait time was 120 minutes. Don’t make my mistake, because I work, I was only able to call in the pm. Best time is morning. Plan to leave it on speaker and just go about your day.
Who knows what will happen to the phones and local offices once they take Muskys chainsaw to it though?!?
I will say the on-hold music was chosen to be least annoying.
The response time is already outrageous. My mother passed away in January from cancer (thank goodness her pain and suffering has ended because I’m certain it would be far worse with the new regime 🤬) I called to make an appt with the local office so my Dad can claim the death benefit and receive her benefit amount (since it is greater). After waiting on hold over an hour, I was told an appointment date and time would be MAILED and if we can’t make the appt we would need to start all over again. As of today, 3 weeks later, crickets!!!
So sorry for your loss and all you’re going through. Once I had my appointment-the rep was do helpful. Best of luck!
They are closing our local social security office down
Even 10 years ago my local Social Security office in a small town had armed security. That was shocking to me.