welfare economics Archives

I’ve been waiting for this day to come for a long time (actually, it came a few months ago)! Effective May 1, 2011, applicants filing for Social Security and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefit payments must choose either direct deposit or the Direct Express® debit card. There will be no option to receive your Social Security benefits by check.

This means that the Social Security Administration will not have to bear the cost of printing, mailing, and replacing checks for beneficiaries and recipients. Those that were already receiving their benefits by check before May 1, 2011, will have until March 1, 2013 to switch to direct deposit or the Direct Express® debit card.

How To Receive Your Social Security Benefits Through Direct Deposit

Since you no longer have an option to receive your Social Security benefits via a live check, there isn’t much for you to do. If you already have a bank account, you can set up direct deposit of your Supplemental Security Income or Social Security benefit payments through your bank.

You can also call the Social Security at 1-800-772-1213. Just have your bank information and Social Security number available when you call, and they can set things up for you. Since there are more stringent regulations on when a creditor can garnish Social Security benefits, those who avoided direct deposit as a means to ‘hide’ their benefits, should no longer have to do so.

Are There Any Exceptions To Receiving Your Social Security Benefits Electronically?

Those who are 90 years of age or older may still choose to receive paper checks. This also goes for those who are able to document a disability.

In my mind, these are the people who would benefit from electronic payments the most – they may have trouble getting to a bank to cash their checks, and then trying to buy things in person with cash.

What Is The Direct Express MasterCard?

If you are set to receive Social Security benefits, and you do not enter direct deposit information, your benefits will be paid through the Direct Express Debit MasterCard instead of by a paper check. The card is just what it sounds like, a debit card that you can use wherever MasterCard is accepted.

Your monthly benefits will be deposited onto your debit card, instead of deposited into your bank account. You will receive a personal identification number (PIN), that will allow you to withdraw cash from an ATM or merchant who provides cash back.

You are allowed one free cash withdrawal per deposit at ATMs in the Direct Express network. Also, you are able to make free withdrawals at the teller window at any MasterCard member bank (most banks).

You can even sign up for low balance alerts by phone, email, or text message. Unfortunately, if you wish to receive regular monthly statements, you will have to pay $0.75 per month. Although, you are able to view the last 90 days of activity online (which may be enough for most people).

There are other fees associated with the card, which you can find here.

The Bottom Line Regarding Electronic Social Security Benefits

According to the Social Security Administration, 85% of those receiving benefits do so electronically. Therefore, this new regulation will have no effect on the majority of beneficiaries.

I wasn’t able to find an estimate regarding the amount of money that will be saved by moving everyone to electronic payments, but with only 15% of recipients receiving paper checks, the numbers can’t be that great. This isn’t going to be the move that saves Social Security!

As with any of the social welfare programs, there is a real danger of it not being around in it’s current form in the not-to-distant future. Therefore, it is imperative that we take full advantage of the IRA contribution limits, 401k contribution limits, and a 401k employer match, while there is still time.

The decision on how to receive these payments is a major issue for those with no other forms of income. For others who still have time, we need to do everything we can to avoid depending on Social Security benefits to fully support us in retirement! For those who believe that they have run out of time, here are a few late retirement planning tips to help you catch up.

photo by DonkeyHotey

The Post Was Featured In The Following Carnival(s):

Carnival of Personal Finance #327 – The Pirate Edition!

According to a recent article by CNBC, various government welfare payments account for more than a third of all salaries and wages across the entire population of the United States! That is an amazing statistic when you stop to think about it what a social welfare program really is.

Welfare Payments Gone Wild

Now, when I speak of welfare payments, I am not just referring to payments made to the poor. Social Security, Medicare, and another popular social welfare program – unemployment – are all included! Here is what the article had to say about the numbers:

Even as the economy has recovered, social welfare benefits make up 35 percent of wages and salaries this year, up from 21 percent in 2000 and 10 percent in 1960, according to TrimTabs Investment Research using Bureau of Economic Analysis data.

So 35% of total wages and salaries will be nothing more than government handouts! The fact that this number was only 10% just a mere 40 years ago should alarm many!

What this means is that if you are in a room with 99 other people (say at a supermarket), 35 of them would completely rely on a social welfare program for their wages! There is no way that this nation can continue to function in this state for much longer!

“The U.S. economy has become alarmingly dependent on government stimulus,” said Madeline Schnapp, director of Macroeconomic Research at TrimTabs, in a note to clients.

Instead of being a nation of people who worked as hard as we could in order to support ourselves, and making sacrifices whenever needed, we are now people who depend on the government to support us, without any real effort on our part! I would say that we are not just dependent on government support, but we actually feel entitled to it.

Now, obviously Social Security is different because most of the people who are collecting benefits are retired and are receiving income based on contributions they made while working. The system is set up so that current workers support those who are retired, so this assessment doesn’t really apply to them.

A Social Welfare Program In Trouble

Even though I stated that Social Security should be seen in a different light than the other welfare payments, the thought of it should immediately bring to mind all of the baby boomers that plan to retire within the next decade or so!

Many people are simply not prepared for retirement, which means that they will depend even more heavily on Social Security to support even the most basic needs. Whether you are a baby boomer or not, take a look at the current IRA contribution limits and 401k contribution limits, and prepare yourself for retirement!

One of the proposed ways to fix this problem has been to reduce either Social Security or Medicare…or both! Unfortunately, most people are blindly hoping for another way…

A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll released last week showed that less than a quarter of Americans supported making cuts to Social Security or Medicare in order to reign in the mounting budget deficit.

Those poll numbers may be skewed by a demographic shift the likes of which the nation has never seen. Only this year has the first round of baby boomers begun collecting Medicare benefits—and here comes 78 million more.

So, we are already at 35% of the population receiving welfare payments, and now we are expecting about 78 million more retired baby boomers!?!? I honestly don’t know if there is anything that can be done to turn this around – unless we make some major changes to how our economy functions!

Most people are aware of the fact that we won’t collect enough in Social Security taxes to cover outgoing benefits in the future (and the current payroll tax holiday sure isn’t helping)! Here is how the article summarizes our current crisis:

Social welfare benefits have increased by $514 billion over the last two years, according to TrimTabs figures, in part because of measures implemented to fight the financial crisis. Government spending normally takes on a larger part of the spending pie during economic calamities but how can the country change this make-up with the root of the crisis (housing) still on shaky ground, benchmark interest rates already cut to zero, and a demographic shift that calls for an increase in subsidies?

That’s the key question! Not only will we have a huge surge in the amount of retirees looking for government benefits, but because of the tremendously weak (and it will weaken more in the future) housing market, high unemployment and underemployment, and increasing public healthcare costs, we will surely face an unprecedented amount of citizens looking for complete government support!

Unfortunately, most politicians are only interested in the short term, so the future looks pretty bleak! What’s even worse is that many of the developed nations are facing the same problem! Here is another quote from the article:

At the very least, we can take solace in the fact that we’re not quite at the state welfare levels of Europe. In the U.K., social welfare benefits make up 44 percent of wages and salaries, according to TrimTabs’ Schnapp.

“No matter how bad the situation is in the US, we stand far better on these issues (debt, demographics, entrepreneurship) than other countries,” said Steve Cortes of Veracruz Research. “On a relative basis, America remains the world leader and, as such, will also remain the world’s reserve currency.”

If we existed in a vacuum, then maybe we could feel good about our nightmare not being as scary as others. However, since many of the world economies are so connected, this means trouble for the entire world population! So while we are focusing only on ourselves – thinking about various credit card benefits, finding a cosigner for our loans, and identity theft – the economy could very well be crumbling before our eyes.

photo by renjith krishnan

Join The Discussion:

Are you shocked that 35% of all wages are based on payments from a social welfare program?
Do you think that there should be a limit to these welfare payments?
Do you find comfort in the fact that other nations are doing worse?
How do you think we can return to being a nation full of people who support themselves?