It looks like the new Social Security Commissioner, Martin O’Malley, is really taking charge. A number of changes have been implemented in the several weeks Commissioner O’Malley has been on the job. Among the most meaningful is decreasing the default overpayment withholding rate to 10% (or $10, whichever is greater) from 100%. This will significantly…
Social Security uses what is called the “fee agreement process” to pay representatives who help Claimants. For those signing an appropriate fee agreement Social Security will approve the agreement and pay the representative up to 25% of a retroactive fee. Since November 2022 that retroactive fee could not exceed $7,200. Sometime this fall the cap…
Summer 2021 Newsletter STILL STANDING…AND PRACTICING I published the first issue of Social Security & You in Spring of 1993. Some years I’ve published more issues than others. The most recent issue was dated Spring 2019: over 2 years ago. The world was a much different place then. Especially for me. Read the full newsletter…
Spring 2019 Newsletter An Opioid Story I’ve changed his name. Let’s call him Gerald. He was a laborer. And by that I don’t mean that he just did physical work. He was a card-carrying member the Labor’s Union local. And that meant a lot to him. I represented him for Social Security disability and Michigan…
After his re-election in 2004, President George W. Bush made reforming Social Security his #1 domestic agenda. He proposed phasing out Social Security in favor of individual retirement accounts that could be invested in the stock market.
Despite a strong push by lobbyists for the investment industry, the support both publicly and in Congress was lacking and the proposal went nowhere.
Now former Vice-President, Mike Pence, who may be taking a run at the Republican nomination for President himself, is raising the issue again.
House Republicans who have taken control of the lower house of Congress have floated the idea of cuts to the popular federal program, despite polling which shows the concept remains unpopular.
Former President, Donald Trump, opposes the idea, stating recently “Under no circumstances should Republicans vote to cut a single penny from Medicare or Social Security”.
The Republican Governor of Florida, Ron DeSantis, supported raising the retirement age for Social Security when he was in Congress.