The Social Security Administration website crashed four times in 10 days this month, blocking millions of retirees and disabled Americans from logging in to their online accounts because the servers were overloaded. In the field, office managers have resorted to answering phones at the front desk as receptionists because so many employees have been pushed out. But the agency no longer has a system to monitor customers’ experience with these services, because that office was eliminated as part of the cost-cutting efforts led by Elon Musk. And the phones keep ringing. And ringing.
rcooley25
Level 11
Monday
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Do any of you have clients who are retired teachers.?
My wife is a retired teacher, and boy did we ever get a very pleasant surprise from social security recently.
My money for fireball will be taken care of for a long time.
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BobKamman
Level 15
Monday
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Retired teacher in Texas got $16K. Retired letter carriers, $5K to $6K. Retired police and firefighters, about the same. Social Security website says 75% of the WEP Repeal payments have been made.
Just-Lisa-Now-
Level 15
Tuesday
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Yes, Ive had a few that didnt know about it and I told them to check their bank account and they had some free money!
♪♫•*¨*•.¸¸♥Lisa♥¸¸.•*¨*•♫♪
BobKamman
Level 15
Tuesday
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Meanwhile, speaking of Social Security, the Washington Post reports this morning:
The federal agency that delivers $1.5 trillion a year in earned benefits to 73 million retired workers, their survivors and poor and disabled Americans is engulfed in crisis — further undermining its ability to provide reliable and quick service to vulnerable customers, according to internal documents and more than two dozen current and former agency employees and officials, customers and others who interact with Social Security.
The turmoil is leaving many retirees, disabled claimants and legal immigrants who need Social Security cards with less access or shut out of the system altogether, according to those familiar with the problems.
“What’s going on is the destruction of the agency from the inside out, and it’s accelerating,” Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) said in an interview. “I have people approaching me all the time in their 70s and 80s, and they’re beside themselves. They don’t know what’s coming.” King’s home state has the country’s oldest population. “What they’re doing now is unconscionable,” he said.
IRonMaN
Level 15
Tuesday
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You get some yahoos together for what they think is a new video game to play, and you end up with stuff like this. But it isn't a game they are playing, it's playing with people's lives. Karma eventually comes around, but sometimes it just takes a while for it to arrive.
Slava Ukraini!
BobKamman
Level 15
Tuesday
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I learn something new every day. Today I learned that one of the founders of Signal calls himself Moxie Marlinspike, although of course that's not his real name. He X'd today: "There are so many great reasons to be on Signal. Now including the opportunity for the vice president of the United States of America to randomly add you to a group chat for coordination of sensitive military operations. Don’t sleep on this opportunity…"
Moxie says he is 45 years old and "I've worked as a founder, engineer, sailor, captain, and shipwright. I used to travel a lot; I've hopped freight trains across the US from coast-to-coast."
One of the nice features about Signal is that you can set it to erase everything after a certain number of hours, or days, or weeks. Which gets around those pesky laws that government documents be preserved, for later storage in Florida resort bathrooms. Today only the little people obey laws.
sjrcpa
Level 15
Tuesday
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Meanwhile they are shutting offices and if you can't make it through the online hoops, you have to make an appointment to go to one of the offices. They stopped doing a bunch of stuff by phone that they used to do.
Great way to serve the elderly and disabled.
The more I know the more I don’t know.
rcooley25
Level 11
Tuesday
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Yes I understand what you are saying.
I was just expressing my joy over the blessings my wife received.
On the other hand we have been told for years by both political Partys what bad shape the social security fund is in and the danger of it going bankrupt. While I am very happy for what my wife has received I do wonder if the social security fund is in as bad of shape as we are being told where is all of this money that my wife and others have received where is it coming from?
BobKamman
Level 15
Tuesday
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The Social Security "trust fund" is an accounting myth. It's just some special US Treasury notes they keep in one drawer of a file cabinet in West Virginia. According to the myth, they will only be able to pay 97% of what is owed to current beneficiaries in about ten years. Does that mean they will stop paying anything to everyone? No, it means that they will have to figure out a way, either to reduce everyone's benefits by 3%, or to raise taxes so that they can stay at 100%. Neither of those solutions are popular, so the decision has been made to put off making a decision.
