Executive
Waste of the Day: Social Security Withholds $132 Million From Widows
Social Security is telling widows they must file for all eligible benefits, though the law doesn’t say that – and are shortchanging widows.
The Social Security Administration is perpetrating a scam on some of society’s most vulnerable — recently widowed senior citizens — and withholding millions of dollars of earned benefits.
Economist and Boston University professor Larry Kotlikoff, partly responsible for the Auerbach-Kotlikoff model widely used by economists, recently wrote in Substack that SSA staff aren’t informing recently widowed senior citizens of their true benefits.
“When you are eligible to collect a widow’s or divorced widow’s benefit, you don’t have to file for your own retirement benefit at the same time, and vice versa,” he writes. “Since the system will pay you only the larger of the two benefits, it’s always best to take one benefit first while letting the other grow.”
But that’s not something he encountered on a recent call with SSA and a client who was trying to determine her benefits shortly after her spouse died.
Instead, the widow was told she must file for all benefits at the same time for which she is eligible.
Based on Kotlikoff’s calculations, doing so would cost her over $400,000 in present value.
Sadly, this was not an isolated case, it happens all the time. Kotlikoff asked the agent “whether she had been trained to automatically file everyone for whatever benefits they could immediately receive. She said yes.”
In fact, the Social Security inspector general issued a report in 2018 that found the agency wasn’t informing widow(er) beneficiaries of their option to delay their application for retirement benefits, a move that would have allowed them to collect the higher payouts to which they are entitled.
The report estimated 11,123 people “would have been eligible for a higher monthly benefit amount had they delayed their retirement application until age 70.” Of that group, they estimated SSA underpaid about $131.8 million to 9,224 beneficiaries who were age 70 and older.
They also estimated SSA “will underpay an additional 1,899 beneficiaries who were under age 70 about $9.8 million, annually, beginning in the year they attain age 70.”
“We did not find any evidence SSA had informed claimants of the option to delay their retirement application when they applied for benefits, as required,” the inspector general wrote.
The almost six-year-old report clearly didn’t put an end to the problem and, based on the inspector general’s estimates, beneficiaries are being underpaid almost $10 million every year.
The #WasteOfTheDay is brought to you by the forensic auditors at OpenTheBooks.com.
This article was originally published by RealClearInvestigations and made available via RealClearWire.
Adam Andrzejewski (say: Angie-eff-ski) was the CEO/founder of OpenTheBooks.com. Before dedicating his life to public service, Adam co-founded HomePages Directories, a $20 million publishing company (1997-2007). His works have been featured on the BBC, Good Morning America, ABC World News Tonight, C-SPAN, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, USA Today, FOX News, CNN, National Public Radio (NPR), Forbes, Newsweek, and many other national media.
Today, OpenTheBooks.com is the largest private repository of U.S. public-sector spending. Mission: post "every dime, online, in real time." In 2022, OpenTheBooks.com captured nearly all public expenditures in the country, including nearly all disclosed federal government spending; 50 of 50 state checkbooks; and 25 million public employee salary and pension records from 50,000 public bodies across America.
The group's aggressive transparency and forensic auditing of government spending has led to the assembly of grand juries, indictments, and successful prosecutions; congressional briefings, hearings, and subpoenas; Government Accountability Office (GAO) audits; Congressional Research Service (CRS) reports; federal legislation; and much more.
Our Honorary Chairman - In Memoriam is U.S. Senator Tom Coburn, MD.
Andrzejewski's federal oversight work was included in the President's Budget To Congress FY2021. The budget cited his organization by name, bullet-pointed their findings, and footnoted/hyperlinked to their report.
Posted on YouTube, Andrzejewski's presentation, The Depth of the Swamp, at the Hillsdale College National Leadership Seminar 2020 in Naples, Florida received 3.8 million views.
Andrzejewski has spoken at the Columbia School of Journalism, Harvard Law School and the law schools at Georgetown and George Washington regarding big data journalism. As a senior policy contributor at Forbes, Adam had nearly 20 million pageviews on 206 published investigations. In 2022, investigative fact-finding on Dr. Fauci's finances led to his cancellation at Forbes.
In 2022, Andrzejewski did 473 live television and radio interviews across broadcast, major cable platforms, and radio shows. Andrzejewski is the author of The Waste of the Day column at Real Clear Policy. The column is syndicated by Sinclair Broadcast Group, owners of nearly 200 ABC, NBC, CBS, and FOX affiliates across USA.
Andrzejewski passed away in his sleep at his home in in Hinsdale, Illinois, on August 18, 2024. He is survived by his wife Kerry and three daughters. He also served as a lector at St. Isaac Jogues Catholic Church and finished the Chicago Marathon eight times (PR 3:58.49 in 2022).
Waste of the Day articles published after August 18, 2024 are considered posthumous publications.
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