Headlines
Autism and Social Security Disability Benefits
Autism, even in high-functioning individuals, can be a debilitating condition. For parents, having a child with autism poses a unique set of challenges. Unfortunately, a common challenge for parents of children with autism is financial instability. Specialty medical care, assistive…
BBB: Navigating Social Security Benefits
The Better Business Bureau (BBB) is alerting St. Louis area consumers to mailers from National Reply Center, which claim to offer free information on Social Security changes and benefits. The BBB says the mailers, which use a post office box in Bridgeton,…
Social Security disability fund to go broke in 2016
Disability stories aren’t going away. Last month, New Mexico Watchdog reported how the number of people in New Mexico receiving Social Security disability benefits has skyrocketed nearly 60 percent in the last nine years. Now, we’ve learned that, by the Social Security…
How Social Security Benefits are Calculated
For most American retirees, Social Security is a huge part of the retirement equation. In fact, a recent New York Times article notes that even retirees with a $1 million nest egg rely heavily on Social Security income during retirement. Even though Social…
Media Coverage Of Social Security Ignores Proposals That Assist Beneficiaries
Cable and television news outlets have overwhelmingly presented Social Security as a program that should be cut, giving little to no airtime for proposals that would instead strengthen the program for beneficiaries. Media Matters research revealed significant media selection bias in the…
Retiring soon? Don’t forget tax implications
If your retirement is not far off, you’ve probably already started to estimate what your living expenses will be after the regular paychecks stop. Most would-be retirees remember to include routine expenses like housing (rent or mortgage), medical bills and…
House Republicans Draft Their Debt-Ceiling Playbook
With an anxious eye toward the coming debt-ceiling negotiations, House Republicans are drafting what members call a “menu” of mandatory spending cuts to offer the White House in exchange for raising the country’s borrowing limit. This menu is more a…
Editorial: A consumer price index in chains? Not the best idea for Social Security
A president elected on a platform of “change” is finding that some supporters reject his proposed changes. So it is with the way cost-of-living adjustments would be figured for veterans and Social Security recipients in President Barack Obama’s 2014 budget.…
Should the government make you save for your retirement?
When pensions started giving way to 401(k) plans in the 1980s, baby boomers started saving for their own retirement. But younger workers aren’t following through with the same verve. In the past decade, their participation in 401(k)s and other retirement…
Rally decries Social Security benefit cuts
It was a spirited demonstration over an arcane issue that drew a small audience to an incongruous place, but it had a certain Vermont-style gravitas about it: Both of the state’s U.S. senators showed up to voice their support. The issue…