Social Security Benefits

President Obama's bipartisan deficit reduction commission is calling for cuts in Social Security benefits. ("Deficit plan spreads the pain,", Nov 11). This recommendation will appeal to many conservatives. Why is it that conservatives who cry bloody murder at any mention of increased taxes are happy about reduced Social Security benefits? Reducing benefits takes money out of people's pockets just like raising taxes. The effect of reduced benefits is exactly like a new income tax, except that it only applies to retired people.

I must disagree with letter writer Neil L. Bergsman's view that high taxes don't drive people out of Maryland ("Tax rates have a negligible effect on people's decision to move out of state," Dec. 29). My wife and I retired from the federal government, and it puzzles us why Maryland is taxing our retirement income when states like Texas and Florida do not tax retirement income or Social Security benefits. Maryland is not a tax-friendly state for retirees, even though Social Security benefits are not taxed here.

More than one-third of Baltimore's homeless may be eligible for Social Security benefits, but only 4 percent are receiving aid, in part because of an impersonal review system that frustrates the most dogged applicants.The chain of paperwork takes a minimum of three months if an applicant is approved on the first try. Sixty percent of all applicants have to appeal initial rulings against them, drawing the wait out to more than six months.Factor in the special problems of the homeless, about one-third of whom are mentally ill, and the difficulty in matching people to services becomes even greater, homeless advocates and Social Security workers agree.

Jim Nicholas lay in a hospital bed recovering after a heart procedure when his attorney called with life-changing news: The Social Security Administration would pay him more than $206,000 in disability benefits, bringing an end to his nine-year court battle. Ever since he began suffering from heart failure, Nicholas and his wife, Yvonne, had been trying to prove he was sick enough to get benefits from the agency, which not only administers Social Security but provides support for those too disabled to work.

Q: Recently, I mailed in the new Social Security form SSA-7004, and I just received the summary of my retirement benefits. The following statement puzzled me: "Your monthly benefit at 62 in today's dollars will be about $330."I'm 48 years old. Let's assume that when I turn 62, a dollar will be worth about half of what it is today In 2005, will my check be $165, $330 or $660?A: Social Security benefits are adjusted for inflation, so the face amount of the check would grow as long as we have a positive inflation.

Q. I am 55 years old and thinking about retiring in a year or two. Would my early retirement affect how much I receive from Social Security after I elect to take regular benefits at age 65? - B.S.K., Chicago A. Based on the way Social Security benefits are calculated and paid, you and many others should carefully reconsider your decision to retire early. Here's why. The monthly benefits you receive from Social Security depend on your average earnings over the best 35 years in your work history.

WASHINGTON -- To Verna Adcock, it is the final indignity.As she mourned the death of her 22-year-old daughter last year, Ms. Adcock, of Tempe, Ariz., learned that the killer, Curtis Donald McDonnell, was receiving monthly Social Security disability -- even though Congress outlawed Social Security benefits for felons in 1980.Even more troubling to Ms. Adcock was the discovery that McDonnell, who witnesses said shouted racial epithets at the young black woman after he pulled the trigger, remains eligible for benefits even today, while he is confined at the Arizona State Hospital after being found incompetent to stand trial.

WASHINGTON -- Vice President Al Gore proposed yesterday the most substantial increase in Social Security benefits in 25 years, suggesting that widows and working mothers be granted more money to combat high poverty levels among elderly single women. The $100 billion proposal, outlined at a Philadelphia community center, drew praise from senior citizens and women's groups. But it drew fire from liberal and conservative experts on Social Security, who questioned the wisdom of increasing benefits when the system's long-term solvency is in doubt.

IT NO longer makes sense to penalize senior citizens for continuing to work beyond the time they can collect full Social Security benefits. Our thriving economy is short on manpower and needs their enormous pool of expertise and strong work ethic. Under Social Security laws, anyone age 65 to 69 who continues to work and earns over $17,000 this year will lose $1 of Social Security benefits for each $3 earned above that limit. This punitive provision was enacted in the Depression, when America had far more workers than jobs and sought to encourage seniors to retire.

WASHINGTON - More than 47 million elderly and disabled people will receive a 2.7 percent cost-of-living increase - an average of about $25 a month - in their Social Security benefits starting in January, the government announced yesterday. But for many of those who participate in Part B of Medicare, which covers visits to doctors' offices, almost half of the benefit increase will disappear before they ever see it. The government announced last week that the Medicare premium, which typically is deducted from Social Security checks, would rise by $11.60 a month next year.

The CEO of Chick-fil-A did more than express a view denigrating gay relationships ("Fast food activism," Aug. 1). The company spends millions to attack the very lives and security of people in same-sex relationships. As a result of anti-gay legislation like the Defense of Marriage Act, insurance companies do not offer private annuity contracts to same-sex couples who want to provide for their retirement. Social Security benefits do not extend to survivor relationships in same-sex unions.

Last week, Social Security beneficiaries learned their benefits would go up 3.6 percent next year. That's about $43 a month for the typical check of $1,186, according to the National Committee to Preserve Social Security & Medicare. But the concern was that increases in Medicare Part B premiums would eat up that raise in benefits. The Department of Health and Human Services announced today that the premium would only go up by $3.50. That means, according to the national committee, seniors over the age of 65 who paid $96.40 a month for Medicare Part B will pay $99.90 next year.

As readers of The Sun for over 40 years, we have never read a letter to the editor composed with such animosity than the recent letter from William Smith ("Gas tax brings out whiners," Oct. 19). Being high net worth individuals, we can easily afford another $3 to fill our gas tanks if, in his complete stupidity, Gov. Martin O'Malley gets away with adding 15 cents to the existing 23.5 cents per gallon we pay. After all, it's only a mere 63.8 percent increase. If we remember correctly, Mr. O'Malley ran on a no tax increase platform.

The Association of Community Services has announced the recipients of the 2011 Audrey Robbins Humanitarian Awards, who will be honored in a ceremony later this month. The annual awards recognize individuals and groups who have "performed services above and beyond the call of duty" in the Howard County community, according to the organization. This year's winners are: • Volunteer of the Year: Don Bard, who helps provide access to computers to local students and their families who could not otherwise afford them through his Lazarus Foundation.

President Obama's bipartisan deficit reduction commission is calling for cuts in Social Security benefits. ("Deficit plan spreads the pain,", Nov 11). This recommendation will appeal to many conservatives. Why is it that conservatives who cry bloody murder at any mention of increased taxes are happy about reduced Social Security benefits? Reducing benefits takes money out of people's pockets just like raising taxes. The effect of reduced benefits is exactly like a new income tax, except that it only applies to retired people.

The op-ed written by Robert Koulish in the March 15 Baltimore Sun ("Punishing immigrants") was interesting. He implies that Illegal immigrants should be allowed to remain in our country, work in our businesses and eat up our taxpayer dollars with education for their children, hospital and doctor coverage paid by our tax dollars, and when caught they should not be sent back to their home country. What other country would allow illegal immigrants to do this? I am sure that if the new health care bill is passed that he would want them to be included.

I must disagree with letter writer Neil L. Bergsman's view that high taxes don't drive people out of Maryland ("Tax rates have a negligible effect on people's decision to move out of state," Dec. 29). My wife and I retired from the federal government, and it puzzles us why Maryland is taxing our retirement income when states like Texas and Florida do not tax retirement income or Social Security benefits. Maryland is not a tax-friendly state for retirees, even though Social Security benefits are not taxed here.

Millions of Americans rely on Social Security benefits, and they've been able to count on those dollars being safe from debt collectors under federal law. A creditor or debt collector can't garnish your future Social Security benefits. And even when you deposit your Social Security check in the bank, those dollars continue to be protected - except in a few cases -- as long as they can be identified as government benefits, according to the Social Security Administration. But that's rapidly changing, warns Rep. Barney Frank, who says creditors and debt collectors are increasingly managing to garnish federal benefits from bank accounts.

There's a cola war going on, but it has nothing to do with Coke versus Pepsi. It began earlier this month, when the Congressional Budget Office projected that for the first time in three decades, there would be no cost-of-living adjustment - or COLA - for Social Security recipients in 2010, 2011 and 2012. These adjustments are designed to keep elderly Social Security recipients from losing purchasing power as prices rise, so it's not surprising that the initial reaction was one of concern.

The Q: By the time you reach 84, the last thing you want to worry about is money. The problem is that's exactly what's got Eleanor Kramer of Annapolis so distressed lately ever since she was informed by the Social Security Administration that her benefits were being reduced from $598 a month to $468. "We sold our house in March of 2006 and moved to a retirement community," said Kramer, whose husband is also 84. "SS said that the [Internal Revenue Service] had reported an increase in income.