Elon is coming for social security
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Anonymous
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Man Found Dead In Wife's Freezer After A Decade Left Note Saying She Didn't Kill Him
CBS News - December 18, 2019 snippet... ""Jeanne was, by all appearances, a very nice person. Very friendly. We've talked to her quite a bit and took her to doctor appointments," said Evan Kline, a resident of the retirement community. "The story that — at least she was putting out — was her husband walked out on her." "I think he died and she kept him so she didn't have to turn in his Social Security," said James Kite, another resident in the retirement community. "Based on what I know now, I'd have to say it was probably the plan, yeah, for her to keep the money because it was her only source of income," Kline said Police investigators believe Souron-Mathers received at least $177,000 of government payouts after her husband's death." https://www.cbsnews.com/baltimore/news/man-found-dead-wifes-freezer-decade-left-notarized-note-saying-she-didnt-kill-him/ |
Anonymous
What’s the point of this post? To provide that one example of some crazy person murdering their husband and receiving fraudulent payments means we need to throw out the whole thing? |
Anonymous
IG Reports: Nearly $72 Billion Improperly Paid; Recommended Improvements Go Unimplemented August 19, 2024 $23 billion remains unrecovered Through several audits, Social Security Administration’s Office of the Inspector General made dozens of recommendations for the Agency to prevent improper payments before they occur as well as to detect and correct existing improper payments. However, to date, many of those recommendations remain unimplemented, leading to continued improper payments. More: https://oig.ssa.gov/news-releases/2024-08-19-ig-reports-nearly-72-billion-improperly-paid-recommended-improvements-go-unimplemented/ Social Security to Reinstate Overpayment Recovery Rate March 7, 2025 By Social Security Administration The Social Security Administration (SSA) announced it will increase the default overpayment withholding rate for Social Security beneficiaries to 100 percent of a person’s monthly benefit. The Office of the Chief Actuary estimates this change will result in an increase in overpayment recoveries (i.e., a program savings) of about $7 billion in the next decade. “We have the significant responsibility to be good stewards of the trust funds for the American people,” said Lee Dudek, Acting Commissioner of Social Security. “It is our duty to revise the overpayment repayment policy back to full withholding, as it was during the Obama administration and first Trump administration, to properly safeguard taxpayer funds.” More: https://blog.ssa.gov/social-security-to-reinstate-overpayment-recovery-rate/ |
Anonymous
The point is Elon is NOT coming for social security. Audits WILL take place and proper payments will be restored. Fraud WILL be stopped. So stop with the hyperbole. |
Anonymous
SSA employee. We now have 57,000 employees. We were closed to 60,000– in 1975. When we were not serving Boomers. We are at our lowest number of staffers in 50 years— by far. It takes an average of 8 months to get a disability claim. And not just 40 year olds with bad backs. Stage 4 cancer. At this point, we are so understaffed that we are bleeding staff because we can’t begin to keep up with the workloads and people are overworked and demoralized. Yes, cutting us 15-50% (goal staffing numbers we are getting from Elmo who is puppetmastering the no-supervisory GS-15 who was on Admin leave and was about to be fired for leaking info to DOGE when Elmo made his Commissioner are all over the place) are a cut on social security. For several reasons. One, the slashing of staff is indiscriminate. FORK eligibility was targeted and mission critical positions were not eligible. But VSIP and VERA have been offered to everyone. But, not everyone can do payment center work, which is complicated and takes 2 years to learn a the level of basic proficiency. And almost no one understands COBOL (which powers our main payment systems) and how our hundreds of antiquated computer systems (held together by plastic straws and bubble gum and powered my hamster wheels) work together. Everyone who understands SSA operations believes the payment systems will break down, sooner rather than later. This includes former Commissioners from Trump and Biden *and our Limpdick GS-15 Commissioner* who gave the WaPo an interview and said “I’m not making decisions, Elmo is. And Elmo doesn’t know what he is doing and isn’t listening to people who do. Not my fault when the system breaks down”. The question is how many months it will take. Most knowledgable people believe within 90 days. And once it breaks down, can it be fixed? Again, more than a hundred old systems working together and everyone with a big picture view is leaving. They can actually make it worse when trying to fix the system by unintentionally doing something with a negative impact somewhere else. If you break the payment systems, and we miss payments for the first time in Agency history and can’t fix it quickly, Elmo has cut social security. And you can say it’s not intentional, but it is a foreseeable consequence of cutting SSa staff with a chainsaw and not a scalpel. Two, justice delayed is justice denied. Disability wait times are now 8 months. That could easily double with staff cuts. And if someone has a terminal illness and dies with a pending SSI claim that is eventually allowed, their family doesn’t get back benefits. They get nothing. So the longer the wait, the more you get de facto disability denials because people die waiting. Also Medicare/ Medicaid are tied getting SSI/SSDI in many cases. So during the 8 or 12 or 16 months people wait for their claim to be reviewed, they are often in insured and not able to afford to treat chronic conditions. They may also become homeless and not be able to afford to eat well. All of which can lead to earlier deaths. Also, at a 50% cut— or even a 12% cut, the backlog of standard retirement claims starts. So, seniors lose the ability to file and start benefits that month. They are now waiting for payments to start on a standard claim. Cutting the teleservice staff and moving to AI is another area that can become de facto denials. The less tech savvy seniors and people with certain disabilities (blindness, intellectual disability, schizophrenia, other mental illnesses), as well as people with more complicated illnesses or earning records can’t manage AI. We walk these people though claims everyday, which is labor intensive. If you cut the labor, they have a long delay while waiting for a human to talk to. Or get so frustrated they abandon their claim. So yes, IRL, a “deep cut” of SSA staff — whatever percentage that turns out to be— results in people being unable to access benefits. You don’t have to outright deny to avoid paying retirement or disability. You just have to have so few SSA employees that backlogs are more than a year (already almost a year for some workloads). You can just create situations where people can’t get Medicaid to treat their illnesses or pay for food and housing and die waiting in the backlogs. You just have to make the agency so toxic people who understand complex programs and systems quit. The end result is the same. |
Anonymous
| Look it’s not Elon coming for it. It is the Republican. This is a long term goal they have had. |
Anonymous
Dear SSA employee: Thank you for taking such good care of my mom when my dad (primary breadwinner) died. The scheduled call occurred as promised and the employee who helped mom was courteous and helpful and understanding during a difficult time for her. It made a difference. And frankly out of all the bureaucracy we had to deal with, SSA was the nicest and clearest. All the private sector reps parroted “so sorry for your loss” and acted like douchebags. |
Anonymous
She received an average of $17,700 a year in payments by note disclosing his death. Goodness, how much would she have received if she had reported his death. That’s rough. |
Anonymous
You are delusional. Musk isn’t auditing anything. He is firing the people who perform audits. He isn’t stopping fraud. He and Trump are committing massive frauds. Wake up. Open your eyes. |
Anonymous
Audits were already happening. Musk isn't doing any. So stop with the disinformation and stupidity. |
Anonymous
To be clear, SSA has always docked checks to recover overpayments. The issue is whether they dock 25% of the check (or whatever similar percentage) or 100%. Most overpayments are not fraud— and many are SSA mistakes. Docking 100% may not hurt the UMC with other income streams and savings much. But for many retirees and disabled people, RSI/ SSI/SSDI is their only income. So, you are taking ALL of their income for however many months. And they can’t eat/ lose their homes/ can’t pay for medical care, etc during that time. Many will have no choice to declare bankruptcy. This usually isn’t the win you think it is. We have much more luck collecting overpayments without people starving, going bankrupt, losing their housing etc when we set repayment army a reasonable percentage of their check. Again, because sometimes the claimant is not to blame for the overpayment— we calculated something incorrectly. It’s like your employer saying— we underwrites your health insurance payment. For the next 4 months, your whole paycheck will go towards correcting our mistake. It’s not realistic or fair. |
Anonymous
Well by all means let’s burn the whole system to the groin because one crazy person hid her husband’s body in a freezer. This is a sound way to make public policy. |
Anonymous
Shows that the OIG was doing their job and that the built-in oversight and accountability was working. That means DOGE is redundant and a waste of taxpayer dollars. |
Anonymous
So why are all of his minions burrowing into our data illegally? This affidavit by Tiffany Flick, the acting chief of staff to the acting SSA Commissioner, tells the truth about the behind-the-scenes theft and abuse at SSA. https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.mdd.577321/gov.uscourts.mdd.577321.22.10.pdf This is horrifying, and impacts literally anyone with a social security number. We've all been DOGEd. |
Anonymous
Exactly. Fox News strategy: manufacture outrage over a single outlier case and use it to overturn anything that’s not of direct benefit to the billionaire class. |