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Disability Pride Parade 2014 this Saturday, July 19 in Mountain View
The Silicon Valley Independent Living Center(SVILC) is presenting the 5th Annual West Coast Disability Pride Parade and Festival this Saturday, July 19, 2014 in beautiful downtown Mountain View, California. This event celebrates the historical significance of the signing of the Americans with Disabilities…
Tapping retirement accounts penalty-free before 59 1/2
Workers are retiring earlier these days, whether by choice or not, and many find they need to withdraw funds from retirement accounts prior to age 59 1/2. That’s the age when account holders can take distributions from 401(k) plans and…
White House Adds New Disability Adviser
A fresh face is on board at the White House tasked with focusing on disability issues. Starting this week, Taryn Mackenzie Williams will serve as a liaison between the disability community and the president as an associate director in the White…
Millennial Workers Expect No Social Security Benefit
The bad news: millennials — who were born 1979 and 1996 — have little faith that Social Security will help them in retirement. The good news: because they don’t expect much if any outside help, millennials as a group are off to…
Does the Medicare Data Dump Do More Harm Than Good?
In an effort to make the U.S. health care system more transparent, affordable and accountable, in April the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released an unprecedented amount of privacy-protected data on services and procedures provided to Medicare beneficiaries…
5 Key Social Security Strategies Everyone Should Know
No one ever said you could live like royalty on Social Security. The program was always intended to provide a foundation for retirement but not to completely replace one’s working income. Having said that, it is wrong to ignore the…
CBO: US deficit levels unsustainable
Congress’s nonpartisan budget watchdog warned Tuesday that U.S. entitlement programs would drive the country’s debt to unsustainable levels in the coming years. The federal debt is now 74 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product (GDP), the Congressional Budget Office (CBO)…
VA says it rushed to cut big backlog of claims for disability benefits
| In a rush to cut a huge backlog of claims for disability benefits, the Department of Veterans Affairs is making payments to tens of thousands of veterans without adequate medical evidence that they deserve the benefits, the department’s inspector…
Disability funds squeezed by budget impasse
Another partisan battle is brewing on Capitol Hill as Social Security in general, and disability insurance in particular, nears a budget squeeze. “Any of us could suffer an accident or illness we’re not expecting,” said Rebecca Vallas, associate director of the…
Skimping on Human Interaction Won’t Save Money for the SSA
In the past five years the Social Security Administration has completed the largest field office reduction in its history by terminating 533 temporary mobile offices and closing 64 of its field offices. In Maine, those actions resulted in the closure…