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Although we are still a month away from an official announcement about the size of the annual cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) for Social Security benefits in 2017, the latest Social Security Trustees report projects a 0.2% increase in benefits next year. That would boost the average Social Security retirement benefit of $1,341 per month by about $2.70 and increase the maximum benefit of $2,663 per month in 2016 by about $5.30 next year. While that would be an improvement over this year when there was no inflation adjustment over 2015 benefit levels, a small COLA will do little to shield seniors'...

The IRS has discovered more than 1 million Americans whose Social Security numbers were stolen by illegal immigrants, but officials never bothered to tell the taxpayers themselves, the agency’s inspector general said in a withering new report released Tuesday. Investigators first alerted the IRS to the problem five years ago, but it’s still not fixed, the inspector general said, and a pilot program meant to test a solution was canceled — and fell woefully short anyway. As a result, most taxpayers don’t learn that their identities have been stolen and their Social Security files may be screwed up. “Taxpayers identified...

If you’ve spent any time in downtown D.C., you’ve likely seen 80-year-old Wanda Witter. Shock white hair, a determined, unsmiling set to her mouth, jeans. She may have asked you for some change and probably didn’t smile if you gave her some. This month you may have also been taken aback by the black eye and stitches across her face. For years, Witter bedded down for the night at 13th and G streets in Northwest Washington, on the cement in her blue sleeping bag, pulled up tight to keep the rats and cockroaches out. Her tower of three suitcases was...

The Social Security Administration is relaxing a recent security directive requiring beneficiaries to use two-factor authentication to log into personal accounts after complaints that the new restrictions hindered user access. ...SSA has not come up with a new two-factor verification method. The agency is strongly recommending that users take advantage of the text-message security option, but beneficiaries are able once again to use a simple username and password to access their accounts....

The U.S. Social Security Administration announced last week that it will now require a cell phone number from all Americans who wish to manage their retirement benefits at ssa.gov. Unfortunately, the new security measure does little to prevent identity thieves from fraudulently creating online accounts to siphon benefits from Americans who haven’t yet created accounts for themselves. ... “People will not be able to access their personal my Social Security account if they do not have a cell phone or do not wish to provide the cell phone number,” the agency said. ... Also, as one reader already pointed out...

The American debt problem was almost entirely ignored at the Republican National Convention last week, and we can expect nothing more when the Democrats gather this week. Both parties support the entitlement spending system and the decrepit tax system that fails to support it. They compete on the fiscal side of politics with impossible promises to spend more and tax less. Imagine the U.S. Treasury as an airplane beginning to roll down the runway to take off. For a mile or so, the plane gains no altitude, then the wings start to generate lift. The wheels leave the ground and...

Do we really need that wall and do you still plan on locking your doors tonight? Do you lock your doors at night? If you answered yes to this question, then tell me why? Do you lock them in order to keep out those you don’t know or those who might intend you harm? Do you lock them so strangers cannot enter your house at anytime of day or night? Do locked doors give you a feeling of security? Do you feel locking your doors will keep you and your family safe? Donald Trump promised to build a wall to...

The report, "Stagnation Generation", calls for the social contract between young and old generations to be renewed, as millennials are at risk of becoming the first generation to earn less over their lifetime than earlier generations. According to the report, in the U.K. today's 27 year olds are earning the same amount as a 27 year old would have 25 years ago. "A typical millennial has actually earned £8,000 ($10,587) less during their twenties than those in the preceding generation – generation X," the report claims. ... Meanwhile, young people are failing to get onto the property ladder. The report...

In the terminal collapse of the Roman Empire, there was perhaps no greater burden to the average citizen than the extreme taxes they were forced to pay. The tax ‘reforms’ of Emperor Diocletian in the 3rd century were so rigid and unwavering that many people were driven to starvation and bankruptcy. The state went so far as to chase around widows and children to collect taxes owed. By the 4th century, the Roman economy and tax structure were so dismal that many farmers abandoned their lands in order to receive public entitlements. At this point, the imperial government was spending...

The boards of trustees of our Social Security and Medicare programs just issued their annual report, and we learn, once again, that both programs are fiscally insolvent. The trustees project there will be insufficient funds from the Social Security program to pay its obligations beginning in 2034, 18 years from now, and Medicare will fall short in 2028, 12 years from now. Given that both of these programs play outsized roles both in the federal budget -- combined they represent 41 percent of federal spending in 2015 -- and in the personal lives of just about every American citizen, you'd...

A recent report by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget raises concerns that proposals by this year’s presidential candidates would further increase the national debt. America’s major entitlement programs—Medicare, Medicaid, Obamacare, and Social Security—are driving the nation’s greatest fiscal challenge, and yet Americans have heard very little about how the candidates will address these programs. Autopilot entitlement spending on federal health care programs and Social Security, along with the net interest the nation must pay on the federal debt, are projected to consume all federal tax revenues by 2033.

Republican candidate Donald Trump focused this weekend on his economic platform: Cut taxes and regulations across the board while also saving Social Security, Medicare, and other government safety-net programs. Trump’s platform is nearly invincible in the general election if he stresses it enough, polling shows. Trump’s plan will also have a transformational effect on how people view his party. But he still needs to make the accounting work to ensure that his Third Way platform is feasible.

Final rules on how the Social Security Administration (SSA) plans to prohibit its beneficiaries from owning firearms were published in early May, but it took several weeks for observers parsing the 41-page document to realize its implications for the Second and Fifth Amendments. It was sold as impacting, on an annual basis, only about 75,000 beneficiaries receiving disability benefits, or 0.11 percent of the 65 million people already receiving checks from the system. This was to counteract the initial impression that the new rules would prohibit more than four million citizens from owning firearms because of mental health issues. As...

For more than 20 years, the Government Accountability Office has been warning that the varioius Social Security funds would go broke in a matter of decades unless something is done to shore up the program. Unfortunately, there are limited options when trying to address this crisis. You can employ a combination of raising the retirement age and/or increase the FICA tax. Other than that, you're rearranging chairs on the deck of the Titanic. But President Obama – who is fully aware of the threat of insolvency – is now proposing that Social Security benefits be increased and wants the "rich"...

President Barack Obama on Wednesday called for an expansion of Social Security benefits, saying that the program was more necessary than ever to support an aging population. Speaking at a high school in Elkhart, Indiana, Obama noted there are some Americans who don't have retirement savings and those who might not be able to save money because they are unable to pay the bills. "We can't afford to weaken Social Security, we should be strengthening Social Security," Obama said. "And not only do we need to strengthen its long term health, it's time we finally made Social Security more generous...

There are limits on what the Fed can do when this bubble bursts, as it inevitably will, as surely as night follows day. It's no secret that virtually every pension fund is dead man walking, doomed by central banks' imposition of low yields on safe investments, i.e. Zero Interest Rate Policy (ZIRP). Given that both The Economist and The Wall Street Journal have covered the impossibility of pension funds achieving their expected returns, this reality cannot be a surprise to anyone in a leadership role. [link]Many unhappy returns: Pension funds and endowments are too optimistic [link]Public Pension Funds Roll Back...

The Social Security Administration has announced the details of a new rule that would bar many receiving federal disability payments from owning firearms. The proposed rule is part of President Obama’s push to tighten gun laws while bypassing Congress. News of the plan to add some Social Security recipients to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, or NICS, was first uncovered by the Los Angeles Times last summer and has faced fierce opposition from gun rights groups ever since. President Obama announced in January that he was officially ordering the Social Security Administration to start the process for implementing...

TED CRUZ just screwed YOU out of your Social Security income...at least he did for me! I was getting widow benefits...but no more! Obama was happy to sign it! [snip]Politicians describe Social Security as "the third rail," meaning that enacting any benefit cuts will kill them politically. But this is precisely what they voted to do under the Bipartisan Budget Bill of 2015. Spouses as well as divorced spouses (who were married for 10 or more years) who reached 62 by Jan. 2 can still collect just their spousal or divorced spousal benefit between 66 and 70 and then take...

Politicians describe Social Security as "the third rail," meaning that enacting any benefit cuts will kill them politically. But this is precisely what they voted to do under the Bipartisan Budget Bill of 2015. The bill reduced the benefits of married couples and divorcees who were younger than 62 as of Jan. 2 by up to $60,000. Even $25,000 is a lot of money for most workers, given that the median household income is about $50,000. The new law prevents most people who reach age 66 from providing spousal benefits to their spouse or children while letting their own retirement...

President Obama has budgeted $17,613 for each of the estimated 75,000 Central American teens expected to illegally cross into the United States this year, $2,841 more than the average annual Social Security retirement benefit, according to a new report The total bill to taxpayers: $1.3 billion in benefits to "unaccompanied children," more than double what the federal government spent in 2010, according to an analysis of the administration's programs for illegal minors from the Center for Immigration Studies. The average Social Security retirement benefit is $14,772.

The Internal Revenue Service will start notifying victims of employment-related identity theft in a shift of policy that comes after criticism from Congress. "We’re still working out the details of the policy change to advise people of possible misuse of their Social Security number, and we will have more details to share in the near future," the IRS said in a statement. During a Senate Finance Committee hearing earlier this month, Sen. Dan Coats (R-Ind.), expressed concerns about the fact that the IRS doesn't inform victims when illegal immigrants use their Social Security numbers to obtain employment and then file...

Stan Druckenmiller ... when I look at the current picture of expected tax revenues combined with benefits promised to future generations, this is the most unsustainable situation I have seen ever in my career. The disaster that Druckenmiller sees coming for the United States is all about changing demographics and entitlement spending. They don’t add up to a sustainable situation. In 1940, entitlement payments, which include everything from disability payments to Social Security to Medicare, amounted to just over 20% of annual government spending in the United States. Today, entitlement spending has swelled to nearly 70% of the annual federal...

This isn’t exactly the kind of story the IRS wants buzzing around at tax time. The IRS and Justice Department normally want ‘scared straight’ stories just before Tax Day. Ideally, when an indictment or conviction for tax evasion hits the news, it makes you think twice. Somehow, you think just a bit more about all those deductions, or if you really reported all your income, before you sign your return under penalties of perjury. Instead, we have the top dog at the IRS, the IRS Commissioner himself, admitting that, well, there’s a problem with illegal immigrants and taxes. In fact,...

The IRS is struggling to ensure that illegal immigrants are able to illegally use Social Security numbers for legitimate purposes, the agency's head told senators on Tuesday, without allowing the numbers to be used for "bad" reasons. IRS Commissioner John Koskinen made the statement in response to a question from Sen. Dan Coats, R-Ind., during a session of the Senate Finance Committee about why the IRS appears to be collaborating with taxpayers who file tax returns using fraudulent information. Coats said that his staff had discovered the practice after looking into agency procedures. "What we learned is that ... the...

Investigators identified nearly 2,000 cases of potentially phony disability claims stemming from a massive Social Security fraud scheme, but three years after the scam was first exposed, the government says it’s still struggling to stop the payments. Only slightly more than 300 cases have been disqualified, and Social Security is still “in the process of effectuating those terminations,” the agency told The Washington Times just days after the accused ringleader and two lead accomplices were indicted on federal fraud charges. Despite three investigations into suspicions of massive fraud, Social Security officials say they are assuming all of the applications are...

... What Trump implicitly promises is a closing of the gap between federal revenue and spending without any pain for ordinary voters. He claims that better management, led by him, is all it will take. It is the worst kind of wishful thinking and deception. On entitlements, Trump is essentially in agreement with most Democrats. He says he won’t make any changes to Social Security or Medicare benefits. In previous years, he also said Medicaid shouldn’t be cut. He says he now favors converting Medicaid into a block grant to the states, although he has not promised that this switch...

Let me remind you that Medicare and Medicaid are the entire problem space within our federal budget, and that same issue -- retiree health care costs -- are the entire issue with state and local budgets, along with private pensions. There is only one candidate from either major political party that has put forward any sort of cogent plan of any kind of deal with the Medicare and Medicaid mess -- along with the mess of health care in private industry. This, as I've written about pretty-much since The Market Ticker began publication, is the intermediate and longer-term issue that...

The number of people receiving benefits from the Social Security Administration topped 60,000,000 for the first time at the beginning of 2016. ... The total number of beneficiaries includes retired workers and their dependents, survivors of deceased workers, and disabled workers and their dependents. ... In February, there were 151,074,000 people employed in either full or part-time jobs in the United States, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics ... There were 123,206,000 people employed full-time in February, according to BLS’s seasonally adjusted numbers. That equals approximately 2.05 full-time workers per each beneficiary of the Social Security Administration. ... The...

According to financial research firm ICI, total retirement assets in the Land of the Free now exceed $23 trillion. $7.3 trillion of that is held in Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs). That’s an appetizing figure, especially for a government that just passed $19 trillion in debt and is in pressing need of new funding sources. Even when you account for all federal assets (like national parks and aircraft carriers), the government’s "net financial position" according to its own accounting is negative $17.7 trillion. And that number doesn’t include unfunded Social Security entitlements, which the government estimates is another $42 trillion. The...

Utilizing his executive authority, President Obama has instructed the Social Security Administration to crack down on elderly firearms ownership. Acting Commissioner Carolyn Colvin explained that "this population cohort is marked by disproportionate incidences of subnormal intelligence, mental illness, incompetency, poor health, and disease. Are such people the kind we want to entrust with guns?" Colvin tried to characterize the move as "basically a humanitarian one. People prone to dementia because of age may harm themselves or others. Taking weapons out of their hands will spare the nation a lot of heartbreak." She also cited the success of a similar program...

The owners of a Northern Virginia mobile-home park are trying to evict about 15 residents who don’t have Social Security numbers and are in the country illegally, an effort that attorneys for the families say violates federal and state fair housing laws... Waples is owned by a limited partnership headed by Albert J. Dwoskin, who did not return calls for comment. Dwoskin’s property management company — A.J. Dwoskin & Associates — said it insists on Social Security numbers from all new tenants as a way to conduct background checks on those residents... “Everyone has to have an ID, a Social...

Like seven million other Americans last week, I watched Madoff, the ABC miniseries chronicling the life and financial crimes of the infamous Bernie Madoff. Madoff, chairman of Madoff Investment Securities from its start-up in 1960 until his arrest on December 11, 2008, operated the largest corporate Ponzi scheme and financial fraud in U.S. history. The film, which starred Richard Dreyfuss and Blythe Danner as Madoff and his wife Ruth, aired for four hours over two evenings. The film had the highest viewership of its time-slot, but earned only modest reviews. After the film, ABC aired Madoff: After the Fall, a...

**snip** ...Ted Cruz has endorsed policies that would fundamentally change who pays the federal government’s bills, and how.Expect the establishment wing of the Republican Party to increasingly draw attention to this fact, especially when it comes to his tax policy. While on the one hand Cruz’s plan hews to Republican orthodoxy in its large tax cuts for the wealthy, he also embraces a European-style Value Added Tax, which is a lot like a sales tax, as replacement for all payroll taxes, and which would enable the elimination of all income tax outside a 10% flat tax for all earners...**snip** ...The...

During this election year, we are destined to hear many words that are toxic in the way they misrepresent reality and substitute fantasies that can win votes. One of these words is "entitlement." To hear some politicians tell it, we are all entitled to all sorts of things, ranging from "affordable housing" to "a living wage." But the reality is that the human race is not entitled to anything, not even the food we need to stay alive. If we don't produce food, we are just going to starve. If we don't build housing, then we are not going to...

The U.S. came very close to having private retirement accounts as part of a sweeping Social Security reform. And, no, it wasn't under President George W. Bush, who put forward a workable plan that went nowhere. It was under President Clinton. That surprising bit of news comes 18 years after the fact in a reminiscence by Cato Institute senior fellow Jose Pinera, who once upon a time served as Chile's secretary of labor and social security, and who designed that country's highly successful pension reforms in 1980. Pinera says that Clinton began thinking in earnest about privatizing part of Social...

On Monday the U.S. national debt hit a new record: $19,012,827,698,418. This is the first time the national debt has ever exceeded $19 trillion. That's more than $58,000 for each person who lives in the U.S. today (including children). The main culprit behind the rising deficits and debt is growing federal spending--especially among Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Obamacare. Traditionally, Congress has set a limit for how much debt the U.S. may take on, known simply as the debt limit. But rather than put a higher limit on the debt, lawmakers and the president have repeatedly suspended the debt limit,...

Once again, Barack Obama believed that the American People were not paying attention. After all, much of what he spoke about “correcting� at his tear-stained, anti-gun press conference was already law. The women of “The View� were predictably apoplectic about automatic weapons–machine guns–and outraged that they have not been banned. This was before Sen. Rand Paul patted their hands and told them not to fear, that such automatic weapons are available to the public only after obtaining a special license from the ATF. Just another straw man propped up by our Socialist in Chief to cause the American People to...

The government spent $936 billion last year on health programs including Medicare, Medicaid and subsidies related to the Affordable Care Act, a jump of 13 percent from 2014, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Spending on Social Security, in contrast, totaled $882 billion, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) reported.

Shredding the right to keep and bear arms has long been a goal of President Obama, the self-professed constitutional law professor who has long regarded the Constitution as an impediment to advancing his progressive agenda and acquiring as much federal power as possible. The rules he has announced are touted as “sensible gun restriction� are in fact a shameless gun grab that violate the Constitution and patient-doctor confidentiality.

A new law means that two claiming strategies will be off the table in the coming months. The recent budget agreement did more than authorize the federal government to engage in additional borrowing, it also changed the rules for claiming Social Security. Going forward, two claiming strategies that had given some couples the potential for higher lifetime benefits will no longer be available.* Closing the door on two strategies What do you need to know? Social Security strategies are built around the fact that you can start to claim benefits as early as age 62, but if you defer, the...

Retirement savers will get the option to participate in a new type of retirement account next year, the myRA. There will also be fewer Social Security claiming options for married couples and a small Medicare premium increase for some beneficiaries. Here are some of the important ways retirement benefits will change in 2016...

An internal audit out this week reports that there are 6 million people with Social Security numbers who were born more than 112 years ago. Unless there is a Missouri's worth of extremely aged Americans, what this means is that Social Security didn't get the death information that it was supposed to receive on these people.

Do SS benefits increase based on age breaks? There seems to be a different level of benefit at age 62, age 66, and age 70. So as an example, the monthly benefit at age 62 is $2,000, age 66 is $2,500, and age 70 it becomes $3,000. When I read the literature from SSA, it sounds to me like once you start collecting retirement benefits, the based amount you collect is "frozen" at that level, and subject only to COLA increases. I understood that if you start collecting at age 62, your benefit will stay at the $2,000 subject to...

How do I find a thread talking about the news story I've been hearing about? I've looked for an hour and turn up nothing. Social Security changes affecting spouse loophole passed in this recent budget.

First of all, I apologize for the vanity, but this is a subject that has been touched on inside the forum over the years briefly. Given the current political season and the focus on the illegals in our midst, I would like to bring this up again. We discuss the use of E-verify and other eligibility sites for employers to use, but we have a governmental enemy working against us: The Social Security Administration itself. Of course, the problem has gotten much worse during the current regime, and local SSA offices have been given their marching orders for years now....

Why are you here?" I asked. The whistleblowers looked at each other and smiled. "Because I love my country. And I just can't do this no more. It's not right," said one of the IRS workers. "That's why we're both here," said the other, echoing her colleague with long, deliberate pauses. "It's a crime, and it's…just…not…right." Together, they have decades of experience at the Internal Revenue Service, working on the front lines with frustrated, angry or confused taxpayers who contact the agency for help. Risking their jobs to come forward, the whistleblowers do not want to show their identity. But...

Social Security's financial health has deteriorated significantly over the past eight years, with multi-trillion-dollar funding shortfalls posing a threat to retirees and taxpayers alike. But if Social Security is to thrive in the 21st century, the next president needs to do more than simply adjust its tax and benefit rules. Instead, Social Security needs a new paradigm for how individuals and government programs contribute to retirement security. Social Security receives scant attention compared to many other policy issues, large and small. But Social Security is an important program, both in its impact on Americans' lives and in what it says...

See Mike Lee's Twitter page and his facebook post

From Mike Lee's Facebook: This is how it happens. Last night while you were sleeping the Senate voted to steal $150 billion dollars from the Social Security Trust Fund. I joined 34 of my colleagues in a vote to prevent this raid. I would like to thank Senator Rand Paul for leading the fight to protect to Social Security from the thieves in Washington, who seem to think that if they steal from the American people at night while they are sleeping that they will get away with it. I was proud to vote with Senator Paul on his point...

When Congress passed the Senior Citizens Freedom to Work Act in 2000, it introduced a new concept called “voluntary suspension� of benefits, allowing those who had already started Social Security benefits to stop their payments and earn delayed retirement credits. In the process, however, the new voluntary suspension rules unleashed several additional Social Security claiming strategies, including various “claim now, claim more later� tactics involving File-and-Suspend and Restricted Applications for spousal benefits. Those may be going away. Under this week’s two-year budget agreement between Congressional leaders and the White House, Congress will close these loopholes in the Social Security rules....