Social Security Service?

Today, trying to apply for Social Security benefits, or getting direct answers on what your best strategy might be, is annoying at best. Recently, Max Richtman, president and CEO of the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, highlighted the difficulty in front of the U.S. House Ways & Means Committee. At the start of his testimony he dialed Social Security’s toll-free phone number. Twenty-five minutes later, he declared to the legislators that he was still on hold. A message indicated his wait would be about one hour.

Visiting the local office isn’t much better. Since 2010, annual budget cuts have decreased the SSA’s staffing by 3,500 employees, and funding under the FY2019 federal budget would bring an additional decrease of 1,000 more. There has been no confirmed Social Security Administrator for the past five years.

Of course, by extending the team so thinly, our government has compromised the quality of the information that you get about the very complicated claiming alternatives involving spouses, survivors of deceased spouses, and employed people who wonder just how much their annual income will lower their benefits if they claim early.

Mary Beth Franklin, author of a guidebook for fiscal partners entitled “Enhancing Your Clients’ Social Security Retirement Benefits”, suggests many claimants will get better advice from their financial planner than the over-stressed, underpaid employees in the Social Security Administration.

Once a strategy has been identified, reviewed, and discussed, people are able to use the online system to fill out the forms that are needed to apply for benefits. Not all can do this — surviving spouses and surviving divorced spouses need to submit an application for survivor benefits over the telephone or at their local Social Security office.