Making aging parent nervous with Social Security changes

   Everytime a headline references Social Security, I wince. As a retiree, I’m wary of any plans to privatize the pension benefits of 56 million Americans who paid into the system all their working lives.

  As the father of a developmentally challenged adult daughter, I cringe when I read about cutting staff, limiting consumer access and shuttering field offices. The system already seems broken.

    Now the president’s cost-cutting minions are targeting 7,000 employees of the Social Security Administration, intending to shutter 47 field offices and, starting March 31, requiring people to visit field offices for simple transactions such as filing for benefits or changing bank destinations for payments.

   Enough already. Everyone supports efficiency and transparency, but this fallacy of overwhelming waste and fraud is nonsensical. I don’t care how many right-wing commentators, Department of Government Efficiency staffers and White House mouthpieces spin the narrative. The role of government should be to support its citizenry and make lives easier. Ignoring available technology in a misguided effort to turn back the clock remains unfathomable.

   The real problem to confront is Social Security solvency. The system’s reserves won’t be able to meet obligations for Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) in 2035. The system’s 56 million pensioners might only receive 83 percent of their benefits. The Disability Insurance fund is healthier; projections state that its 11 million benefactors would be covered for another 75 years.

   The Great Depression-era Social Security Act was set up in January 1937 as a pay-as-you-go program to protect the elderly and vulnerable in society. Social Security doesn’t receive any revenue from general taxes. Employees and employers each pay 6.2 percent of wages into trust funds. The payroll taxes are invested in U.S. Treasury bonds to support payouts. I don’t trust a private profiteer to manage the money.

   As life expectancies grow, benefits have surpassed the income from payroll taxes. Since 2021, Social Security has been tapping into its $2.9 trillion reserves, making 2035 a crucial year. There are two politically unpopular solutions – cut benefits or raise the payroll tax.

  Congress has been kicking this can down the road since the 1990s. It realizes the overwhelming popularity of the program (87 percent of Democrats, 81 percent of independents and 72 percent of Republicans favor the payroll taxes) but hasn’t mustered the resolve to make changes.

  America’s most respected think tank, the centrist Brookings Institute, has offered its solution — a detailed blueprint to address tax thresholds and close loopholes. Brookings’ two most prominent suggestions are to raise the eligibility age to 67 and hike the payroll tax by .2 percent to 12.6 percent.

   I won’t be surprised by further inaction by Congress; I’m more worried about the service interruptions to Social Security recipients. The Social Security Administration intends to close 47 field offices this year. Of the 26 offices named to date, only White Plains and Poughkeepsie were identified in New York State. The 15 staffers at the Ogdensburg office at 101 Ford Street, and the Watertown office, seem safe, for now.

    I’ve spent 15 months coping with the Social Security Administration’s dysfunction. In January 2023, a letter informed us that our daughter Katie owed the SSA $12,352.10 for overpayment of benefits. Her pre-vocational job site had been modified to a vocational job site, meaning her pay doubled to minimum wage. SSA decided after a year at the new pay level that Katie had been overpaid for 12 years.

   We filed an appeal. We made two visits to the local office, and were told by staff members that it was a mistake that soon would be rectified. We waited months for a letter confirming the situation. Nothing came. We got in the phone line queue for 3 hours, but the call was dropped.

   Katie’s case is complicated by the fact that we, her legal guardians, can’t represent her in phone calls or visits. She must take time off from her job and be present. We’re also coping with another party, her fiduciary agent. If it chooses to send us notices in a timely manner, we can react. That hasn’t been the case to date.

   After Katie’s benefits were withheld for a time, and she lived independently off her small paycheck and some savings, SSA granted Katie about $7,000 in withheld benefits. There was no letter, no phone call, nothing we could produce for an official hearing if something goes wrong again. We are still waiting.

   The next big change to consumers occurs March 31. SSA will implement “stronger identity procedures,’’ requiring millions who lack a “My Social Security’’ account – think elderly or developmentally challenged – to visit field offices for transactions that could be done over the telephone or Internet. If you live in Canton, Massena or Potsdam, you’re driving to Ogdensburg. Malone residents go to Plattsburgh.

    If you can’t access the online system, you must call 1-800-772-1213 to make an appointment.

  I called the number to ask if there was any update on Katie’s case. I got a recording, telling me that if I wanted to file for benefits, the case would be decided in 200-230 days. Medicare cases could be resolved in 30 days.

  “I’d like to speak with someone about my daughter’s disability benefits.’’

   The phone system responded with two minutes of computer-generated voices addressing side topics. Frustrated, I did not respond any further. The system hung up on me.

   That was my government working on my behalf. The president and his adviser Elon Musk must be out hunting for the non-existent “tens of millions’’ of dead people collecting benefits. How about the “tens of millions’’ of people who will need support navigating the system?

            Morristown native Jim Holleran is a retired teacher and sports editor from Rochester. Reach him at jimholleran29@gmail.com or view past columns under “Reflections of River Rat’’ at https://hollerangetsitwrite.com/blog/