Social Security Insurance – Availing Health and Pension Benefits in the United States

The United States government provides assistance to the unemployed, retired, disabled and impoverished through the Social Security Administration. Its supplemental security income provides financial support to more than 8 million Americans to date.

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Social Security Insurance - Types and Benefits

The Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance provides primarily retirement benefits based on a worker’s Primary Insurance Amount, which is calculated by averaging the highest 35 years of covered earnings. Social security insurance can also be in the form of unemployment compensation, regulated under the Federal Unemployment Tax Act. The funds come from the Department of the Treasury, through tax collections of the Internal Revenue Service. Created in 1996 by the Bill Clinton Administration, the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program provides social security insurance for indigent families that have dependent children for a maximum of 60 months. Supplementary security income, meanwhile, offers stipends to low-income people aged 65 or older, or are deemed disabled. The U.S. Treasury also funds this program, which was established in 1974.

Social Security Money - General Management

A representative payee of the Social Security Administration literally pays for the client’s needs through the monthly benefits issued by the government. Expenses include food, housing and utilities, rehabilitation for the disabled as well as medical and dental costs. Beneficiaries who are checked into a hospital, nursing home, or other health care institution are also assisted financially by the representative payee. The remaining social security money may be used to pay past due bills, and the rest are given to or saved for the beneficiary. This representative documents every spending and reports it to the SSA. The responsibility of the client is to disclose changes or major events such as unemployment, marriage, hospitalization, disability or imprisonment. Excess social security money should be returned, otherwise the benefits will be stopped.

Social Security Claim - Considerations

One of the best ways to claim social security is to either postpone it until the age of 70 despite retiring at 60, or to continue working until the normal retirement age and overlap the last years of employment with collecting social security. These options make the beneficiary eligible for Medicare at the age of 65. The normal retirement age for Americans born between 1943 and 1954 is 66, and when they make a social security claim at 62, they only get 75% of the normal benefit they would get in their age group. Those who wait until 70, however, earn 32% more than the normal age benefit because of an 8% annual “delayed retirement” credit.