Social Security Plans To Provide Even Less Information

  • Forbes | by: Laurence J. Kotlikoff |
  • 01/12/2017 12:00 AM
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The Social Security Administration just quietly noted on its website that it will mail out even fewer earnings and estimated benefits statements to save the agency money. The agency said it had “no choice” because Congress has cut its budget by 10% since 2010 (after adjusting for inflation) despite a 13% increase in the number of beneficiaries.

With the new policy, the paper statements will only be sent to people who: are age 60 and over, are not getting Social Security benefits and don’t have a my Social Security account.

Paper Social Security Statements, Then and Now

Since September 2014, as Kerry Hannon explained in an earlier Next Avenue post, the Social Security Administration had been mailing the statements every five years to workers age 25 and older who weren’t receiving Social Security benefits and hadn’t registered for my Social Security accounts; annually to people over 60.

The cutback in mailing these important statements, the Social Security Administration says, will bring down the costs of processing and mailing them by $11.3 million in FY 2017.

Whether the latest decision to curtail mailing statements is the result of a Republican-dominated Congress that dislikes government programs and government workers or whether it's more evidence that our country is dead broke (something I've been pointing out for years) is hard to say.
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