The AP reports today at the San Francisco Chronicle, www.sfgate.com:

People planning for retirement got a new tool this week: a fast and easy online estimator for their Social Security benefits. The retirement benefit is usually the same as the amount paid for Social Security Disability.

The Social Security Administration unveiled its new retirement estimator on its Web site Monday. On it, it takes just a few points and clicks and some personal information to produce benefit estimates within a few minutes.

The new calculator will be followed this fall by an updated online application for benefits that Social Security Administrator Michael Astrue promises will reduce application time from the current 45-minute process to 15 minutes — and eliminate the need for follow-up visits to agency field offices.

“These initiatives will help us better handle the baby boomer wave and make it easier for the public to do business with us online,” Astrue said.

Currently, workers get an annual benefit estimate mailed to them. It’s based on prior earnings but assumes people’s salary stays the same until retirement age. The online calculator supplements the annual mailing but won’t replace it.

GO here to see the calculator:

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U.S. Representative Kathy Castor (D-FL) called a press conference, Monday, to announce legislation to expedite the Social Security Administration disability claims process. Thousands of Tampa Bay area families are caught in a multi-year backlog.

Steadily lengthening delays in the resolution of Social Security disability claims have left hundreds of thousands of people in a kind of purgatory, now waiting as long as three years for a decision. From fiscal year 1997 through 2006, backlogged disability claims in the Social Security Administrations processing system doubled, reaching about 576,000 cases.

Two-thirds of those who appeal an initial rejection eventually win their cases; but after years of delay, more and more people are losing their homes, declaring bankruptcy or even dying while awaiting an appeals hearing. See article here:

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The Christian Science Monitor reports on new Supreme Court Ruling:

Judges must approach medical disability and health insurance disputes with a skeptical eye when they involve insurance companies that both evaluate and pay employee claims.

In a 6 to 3 decision announced Thursday, the US Supreme Court ruled that benefit denials by such companies must be examined with caution when circumstances suggest a high likelihood that financial considerations affected a benefits decision.

The court added that an apparent conflict of interest is only one of many factors that a reviewing judge must consider.

The ruling is important because it offers guidance to federal judges presiding over lawsuits challenging medical disability and health insurance determinations in group policies. See full report here:

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Administration’s Office of the Inspector General.

The inspector general found that some financial institutions are apparently violating federal law by garnishing accounts that receive electronic deposits of old age, survivors and disability insurance, and/or supplemental security income payments. These funds are supposed to be protected from creditors except under certain conditions.

From today’s Washington Post: “Millions of beneficiaries rely on Social Security benefits as their only source of income for basic needs such as housing and food,” the inspector general’s report says. “When a creditor’s garnishment order is enforced and these federal funds withheld, the lives of a vulnerable segment of the population are placed at risk.”

Last summer, Sens. Herb Kohl (D-Wis.), Max Baucus (D-Mont.) and Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) asked the inspector general to investigate what they thought was a widespread practice of improperly deducting service fees and garnishments from beneficiaries’ direct-deposit accounts. See full story:

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The Chicago Tribune reports on Sunday Story in the Indianapolis Star:

Indiana residents unable to work because of medical or psychiatric ills are forced to wait far longer than most Americans for disability payments, putting them at greater risk of losing their cars or homes.

Indiana has one of the nation’s worst records for processing disability claims that on average provide recipients with $1,000 a month in financial assistance, The Indianapolis Star reported in Sunday’s editions.

The state’s applicants for Social Security disability or Supplemental Security Income wait an average of 749 days between filing for disability until they get a hearing before an administrative judge.
See Indianapolis Star story here:

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…Even at the peak of boomer retirement, around 2030, most of the population will still be of prime working age, between 20 and 64. The percentage — about 55, according to the Social Security Administration — will be lower than it is today (59), but above the levels of the 1960s and ’70s, when it ranged between 51 and 54 percent. Not only will a larger portion of the population be of working age than in the past, but a much higher percentage of that group will be available to provide goods and services. Forty years ago, most women didn’t work outside the home; these days, about 60 percent do. See full article here:

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