COLA: 3.2%Attorney User Fee: $117SSI Amounts: $943 for individuals and $1,415 for a couple/monthFICA wage base: $168,600Quarter of coverage amount: $1,730Substantial gainful activity amount (non-blind): $1,550/monthTrial work period threshold: $1,110/month
As is often the case, the Social Security Administration is lagging behind the medical community. This time the so-called “long hauler” COVID patients are getting short shrift. SSA doesn’t recognize that COVID symptoms can last for a long time after the test results are negative and, perhaps permanently. Attorney Crawforth has represented several of these…
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…
The annual Social Security & Medicare Trustee Report was released at the end of March and the news was mixed.
The Social Security retirement trust fund will be unable to pay full retirement benefits, unless something is done to shore it up, in 2033. However, the Social Security disability trust fund is in much better shape. There is enough money in that fund to pay projected full benefits for 75 years.
The short term news for the Medicare trust fund is a little better. Premiums went down slightly this year and health care spending is down accordingly, partly because 1.1 million Americans died of COVID. Also, knee and hip replacements have become so routine the largely done on an outpatient basis.
Nevertheless, the Medicare trust fund will not be able to pay full benefits as of 2031, unless it is shorn up. Last year it was projected to be broke as of 2028.