SS Trust Fund to run dry sooner than anticipated

[Steel Rain]

Friendly discussions about financial matters are always friendlier when they are helped along with data and sources vs. a gut feeling or anecdotes.

Hehe, fair enough, i guess i will lurke more, I have to do the data thing at work, its overrated

Steel

 

[73ss454]

73, your neighbor is a lightweight at this money making plan compared to my maternal grandfather. When he turned 65 he had eight children under age 18. He had a total of 12 kids before the oldest turned 18 - grandpa was 72 when his youngest was born.

Only one small problem - SS wasn't enacted until three years after his death in 1932. Timing is everything...

No, my neighbor told me there is a max amount you can get and he cut the new wife off at that point. This guy knows how to milk the system. I think your maternal grandfather was in it for other reasons.

 

[pb4uski]

Interestingly, there was an article in the WSJ, last week I think about this very topic. Apparently, the growth in the SSI disability program is vastly larger than the population as a whole. Dont remember the exact statistics but it does not surprise me in the least. I know serveral unempoyed folks who are turning down jobs to run the 99 weels dry. So, not surprising in the least.

Steel

Steel,

I think you are confusing SSDI and unemployment insurance (which is what lasts 99 weeks). Totally different and separate programs.

 

[Steel Rain]

Steel,

I think you are confusing SSDI and unemployment insurance (which is what lasts 99 weeks). Totally different and separate programs.

Nah, just making a comment on what i consider to be similar situation where folks take advantage. I dont know anyone on SSDI.

Steel

 

[Steel Rain]

How wonderful for you. You must be very proud.

Just for giggles, I went ahead and looked at the firm i saw advertising;

Social Security Disability Nationwide Advocates | New York Disability SSD | National SSD Benefits

Its contingency, as I thought.

Steel

 

[GrayHare]

Attorney SSDI ads became far more common when the law was changed about 10 years ago so as to remove the ($4000?) cap on what an attorney could charge the client.

 

[ScaredtoQuit]

Scams like this should also push insolvency along.

My neighbor was an airline pilot and left his wife for a very young stewardess. They made some babies and then he retired. So now we pay him, his kids and don't forget the young wife SS bennies. This makes sense, no?

Unfortunately, I don't know a whole lot about SS. Does this mean that if you are retired and on SS, if you have minor children they get some sort of a supplement too?? Is this why young women go for geezers??

 

[73ss454]

Unfortunately, I don't know a whole lot about SS. Does this mean that if you are retired and on SS, if you have minor children they get some sort of a supplement too?? Is this why young women go for geezers??

Don't forget the young wife, she gets paid also.

 

[brewer12345]

Just for giggles, I went ahead and looked at the firm i saw advertising;

Social Security Disability Nationwide Advocates | New York Disability SSD | National SSD Benefits

Its contingency, as I thought.

Steel

Was that so hard? Still does not tell us if it is just this firm doing so, but its nice to have an example.

 

[ziggy29]

Is this why young women go for geezers??

This is nothing new:

Gertrude Janeway - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Gertrude Grubb was born in Blaine, Tennessee, and was courted by John Janeway beginning when she was only 16. Her parents would not allow her to marry until she was 18. She married John Janeway, an officer in the 14th Illinois cavalry, in 1927 when she was 18 and he 81.

...

Gertrude continued to live in the cabin for nearly 70 years after her husband's death. She received a $70 pension check for veterans' benefits from the government every two months until her death in 2003.

The practice of very old Civil War veterans marrying very young women in the early 20th century was not all that rare.

And obviously, that pension had no COLA...

 

[Steel Rain]

Was that so hard? Still does not tell us if it is just this firm doing so, but its nice to have an example.

Not hard, but in general I need to restrict my comments where i dont have to provide research. I dont want to do a disertation, just talk with folks. I get your point, but im not sure you get mine. Its ok, im new here, I will adopt the standards of community and we can call it good. There was one benefit to sitting in this airport all day

Steel

 

[Brett_Cameron]

In theory the reduced FICA amount was made up by the general fund. That should have no direct effect on SS solvency.

The accelerated solvency problems are driven by out-of-work people retiring to SS earlier than usual and more people out of work not contributing payroll taxes.

Another, under the radar cause is people out of work getting themselves declared "disabled" and going on permanent SS disability. This is the fastest growing part of the SS budget.

Yes, you are correct. See here for a summary of the 2012 Trustees reports on Social Security and Medicare:

Trustees Report Summary

"The legislation establishing the payroll tax reduction also provided for transfers of revenues from the general fund to the trust funds in order to "replicate to the extent possible" payments that would have occurred if the payroll tax reduction had not been enacted. Those general fund reimbursements comprise about 15 percent of the program's non-interest income in 2011 and 2012."

 

[ziggy29]

"The legislation establishing the payroll tax reduction also provided for transfers of revenues from the general fund to the trust funds in order to "replicate to the extent possible" payments that would have occurred if the payroll tax reduction had not been enacted. Those general fund reimbursements comprise about 15 percent of the program's non-interest income in 2011 and 2012."

Yeah, but this still has the impact of increasing our debt load which isn't healthy for any of these programs. It would be like me taking out a loan to fund my IRA. Technically through accounting sleight of hand, it isn't depleting the pile of assets designated to SS but it still adds to our liabilities.

 

[BUM]

The lawyers don't need to be successful for their clients in order to be raking it in.

beware CHP (Cocktail Hour Post)... If we could execute 1000 lawyers a day, its unlikely we'd the benefit until the end of the decade.

 

[Brett_Cameron]

This thread prompted me to go research social security trust funds. I was surprised to learn there has always been a trust fund since 1937. It has always been used to buy special treasury instruments. There has been annual projections of benefits, taxes on wages, trust fund level and actuarial statistics. There have been a few instances of Congress holding the FICA tax rate lower than previously projected.

I did not find anything that points to the present day situation of a projected depletion of the trust fund to be unique. There have been many things done in the past to restore long term actuarial balance, some of which are very clever. This research of mine was review of some but not all of the Trustees Reports available on the SS website. Don't worry, be happy.

 

[Bikerdude]

Im shocked really I am

Steel

Round up the usual suspects.

 

[NW-Bound]

From this link on Bloomberg site:

The fund that helps finance benefits for 44 million senior citizens and survivors of deceased workers will be exhausted by 2035, the program’s trustees said in an annual report yesterday... Social Security’s disability program, which helps support 11 million Americans, will run through its trust fund in 2016, two years earlier than predicted.​

And

Enrollment in the disability insurance program has soared in recent years. There will be 10.9 million beneficiaries this year, according to the report, up 64 percent since 2000.​

 

[donheff]

All these data requests to steel rain got me googling. Now this is anecdotal because I am on an iPad and can't figure out how to copy/paste Google Urls. But I saw a lot of results that indicated disability claims are generally done on a contingency basis. Many were attorney pages but a few looked to be articles explaining that contingency is the normal practice. Google it yourself if you want the details.

 

[MooreBonds]

Perhaps if there were a public database of everyone that qualified for SS disability, and their "disability" listed next to their name? Might help deter quite a few fraudsters....or encourage people to report the liars?

Yes, I realize that there is some level of "medical privacy"...but if you're on the public dole receiving a share of the SS disability pool, that should be part of the benefit of receiving the public assistance.

 

[traineeinvestor]

beware CHP (Cocktail Hour Post)... If we could execute 1000 lawyers a day, its unlikely we'd the benefit until the end of the decade.

Remind me not to visit America anytime soon.

The easier solution is to abolish awards of punitive damages and intangible losses such as "emotional distress" where only negligence is involved - that would put [a large number] of the ambulance chasers out of business overnight and, in theory at least, cut insurance premiums for some industries.

 

[traineeinvestor]

All these data requests to steel rain got me googling. Now this is anecdotal because I am on an iPad and can't figure out how to copy/paste Google Urls. But I saw a lot of results that indicated disability claims are generally done on a contingency basis. Many were attorney pages but a few looked to be articles explaining that contingency is the normal practice. Google it yourself if you want the details.

In theory contingency fees allow people access to legal represenation that they would not otherwise be able to afford and at the same time discourages the lawyers from taking on cases that have limited prospects of success. In practice, I don't think it works that way.

Interestingly, I only see ambulance chaser type adds when I visit the US - I can't think of anywhere else in the world that I have seen those sort of legal services being promoted.

 

[obgyn65]

As a clinician I am totally opposed to such a grotesque idea.

Perhaps if there were a public database of everyone that qualified for SS disability, and their "disability" listed next to their name? Might help deter quite a few fraudsters....or encourage people to report the liars?
.

 

[BLS53]

Perhaps if there were a public database of everyone that qualified for SS disability, and their "disability" listed next to their name? Might help deter quite a few fraudsters....or encourage people to report the liars?

Yes, I realize that there is some level of "medical privacy"...but if you're on the public dole receiving a share of the SS disability pool, that should be part of the benefit of receiving the public assistance.

So SSDI recipients are the equivalent of sex offenders now. Nice.

 

[MichaelB]

All these data requests to steel rain got me googling. Now this is anecdotal because I am on an iPad and can't figure out how to copy/paste Google Urls.

To copy the URL touch the address line once to bring up the keyboard. Then touch again and hold until the select function appears. Choose "select all", then "copy". That copies the URL. Then touch and hold where you want to paste until the select function appears again, choose "paste".

 

[brewer12345]

Perhaps if there were a public database of everyone that qualified for SS disability, and their "disability" listed next to their name? Might help deter quite a few fraudsters....or encourage people to report the liars?

Yes, I realize that there is some level of "medical privacy"...but if you're on the public dole receiving a share of the SS disability pool, that should be part of the benefit of receiving the public assistance.

Lets drug test them, require an annual oath of fealty, look for evidence of not being a Muslim, and require a monthly polygraph. Better yet, how about having the TSA probe them every time they get a check?