News

According to the Senior Citizens League, recipients of Social Security have seen a 30 percent decrease in their buying power since 2000. Additionally, seniors who are enrolled in Medicare Part B programs or own homes have faced particularly large cost increases. This is because COLAs have not kept up with the increase in seniors' expenses and it is simply unacceptable. This needs to change..Are Members of Congress Giving Up Their Health Insurance for Obamacare?.Representative Dan Lipinski introduced H.R. 2787 on May 16, 201It has since been referred to the Committee on Education and Labor..The Senior Citizens League supports legislation called the Fair COLA for Seniors Act that would strengthen the annual COLA by tying it to a "seniors" index, the Consumer Price Index for Elderly Consumers, which over time is expected to provide modestly higher benefits than the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers, which is used to calculate the COLA under current law. In addition, TSCL supports legislation that would provide a minimum COLA of no less than 3%. This would provide extra protection in years when inflation is below that amount..The CBO option would change the taxation of Social Security to be more like distributions from defined benefit pension plans. Those distributions are fully taxable except for the portion that represents the recovery of "basis," or what an employee paid in - that is, his or her after-tax contributions to the plan. Once the recipient has recovered his or her entire "basis" all subsequent pension distributions are fully taxed..In addition, one new cosponsor Rep. Bobby Rush signed on to the Improving Access to Affordable Prescription Drugs Act this week. Rep. Rush is the eleventh Member of Congress to pledge his support for the bill. If signed into law, it would comprehensively reform the prescription drug industry to reduce costs for consumers..The fate of President Obama's controversial executive action on immigration remains tied up in court. Texas and 25 other states, supported by TSCL, 12 other groups, and 113 Members of Congress are challenging the legality of Obama's actions. TSCL and the others argue in an amicus curiae brief, that "the President acted contrary to both the express and implied will of Congress.".Illegal immigrants get jobs using counterfeit, invalid, and stolen Social Security numbers that employers use to withhold payroll taxes and report earnings to the Social Security Administration. Immigration advocates argue that unauthorized workers have little chance of collecting benefits. But once illegal workers gain a valid Social Security that changes. Social Security Administration policy allows noncitizens who have evidence of earnings, even for jobs worked under invalid Social Security numbers, to claim and reinstate those earnings for use in determining entitlement once they obtain their own Social Security number. The earnings are then used to determine the initial retirement benefit amount..This week, the White House held its day-long Conference on Aging and The Senior Citizens League announced its support for one new piece of legislation.