Mr. Shiman said at Wednesday's hearing: "There is a special bond between grandparents and their grandchildren. The scammers knew this well and took full advantage of it with my wife and myself. They knew that when a grandchild is in trouble, grandparents go all out to help.".Increasing the payroll tax rate gradually by around 1 percent for both workers and employers. Doing so would amount to an additional 50 cents per week for the average American worker an amount that TSCL feels is reasonable..If your year has been like mine, you've had a number of Medicare aggravations during which you promised yourself to look into different health and drug plan options at your first opportunity. Medicare's Fall Open Enrollment is underway, and this is your opportunity to compare plans make changes to your coverage..Based on consumer price index data through May of this year, TSCL's Social Security policy analyst and study author, Mary Johnson, estimates that the COLA for 2018 may indeed be significantly higher than in recent years - around 1.9% - 2.1% - but that could change since there are still several months to go before the COLA is announced in October..The Social Security taxable maximum is tied to the wage index, but according to the Congressional Budget Office, the limit on the amount of wages that can be taxed has not kept up with the growth of wages of the most highly paid workers. Because wages for high - income earners are growing faster than for other workers, the taxable share of the nation's earnings subject to Social Security payroll taxes is falling - from 90 percent in 1983 to 82 percent in 201The trend is forecast to continue, with the CBO projecting the share of earnings subject to payroll taxation to drop to below 78 percent by 2026..The hold harmless provision kicks in when the dollar amount of an individual's Medicare Part B premium rises more than the dollar amount of an individual's COLA adjustment to prevent a reduction in Social Security benefits. The provision applies to individuals with incomes below ,000, and whose Medicare Part B premium is automatically deducted from their Social Security benefits. Johnson estimates that about 35.5 million Social Security recipients were held harmless in 2016 and 201"People who have been held harmless in both those years are paying premiums that are roughly 8 per month in 2017 on average, a difference of about from the current 4 premium. However, for many of those people, especially those with below - average Social Security benefits, the 2018 COLA won't be high enough to cover the full 4 Part B premium..We must work together to increase the support for this legislation that currently has over 200 cosponsors for the first time in years. Help me by calling your own member of Congress and asking them to cosponsor H.R. 141..Recently the TREA Senior Citizens League Board of Trustees traveled to Capitol Hill for a week filled with meetings. The Board was able to meet with 7 Congressional offices, including one drop-by visit with Chief of Staff Kevin Kimble and Legislative Assistant Yadira Castellanos in the office of Rep. Charles Gonzalez. Among the topics discussed were Notch Reform, anti-totalization measures, prescription drug costs, and the consumer price index for elderly..As part of efforts to strengthen the Social Security system, Congress included the Windfall Elimination Provision and the Government Pension Offset in the Social Security Act of 198While intentions were noble, these changes did little to protect the Social Security system. Instead, they unjustly penalized millions of public sector employees.
