Speaker 1: It's Night Side with Dan Ray I WBS Costs Radio.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you very much. Welcome back everyone to hour
Speaker 2: number two. Delighted to be joined by Jim Roosevelt. James
Speaker 2: Roosevelt who's been a friend for many, many years, and
Speaker 2: last night we were supposed to have him, but he
Speaker 2: was on a train that ran some transportation problems and Jim,
Speaker 2: I trust your off that train. How are you tonight?
Speaker 3: I'm off that train and I slept in my own
Speaker 3: bed last night. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Let me tell you. We spoke last night for about
Speaker 2: an hour about Social Security, which has obviously had a
Speaker 2: lot of a lot of conversation lately dealing with Social Security.
Speaker 2: You probably know more about Social Security than anyone that
Speaker 2: I know, as the grandson of Franklin Roosevelt, who signed
Speaker 2: the Sociecurity Act in five and you've been involved in
Speaker 2: insurance and been served as as a commissioner on the
Speaker 2: so Security Board. I'd just like to start off with
Speaker 2: a couple of questions that I think are foundational. And
Speaker 2: I'm not sure most people really understand Social Security, and
Speaker 2: I think it's important for people to understand it. I
Speaker 2: do social Security system as an insurance program. How far
Speaker 2: how far wrong am I on.
Speaker 3: That, and you've got it right. Actually, a lot of
Speaker 3: people think of it as a retirement investment program. Apparently
Speaker 3: our friend Elon thinks of it that way. That's not
Speaker 3: what it is. I'm all for people saving money and
Speaker 3: having all kinds of investment accounts, but particularly for one
Speaker 3: case and health savings accounts and so on, that's not
Speaker 3: what social Security is. Social Security, as my grand father said,
Speaker 3: is insurance against destitution in old age, or in disability,
Speaker 3: or from the loss of a parent. It's fundamentally it's
Speaker 3: just like your homeowner's insurance, your auto insurance, or even
Speaker 3: your health insurance. You buy insurance, you spread out the
Speaker 3: risk when you need to need payments, either of your
Speaker 3: age or because of a disability or something like that.
Speaker 3: The people who currently are paying premiums.
Speaker 4: Pay for that.
Speaker 3: But it's not a Ponzi scheme. As Elon decided to
Speaker 3: call it. That indicated he either doesn't understand what Social
Speaker 3: Security is or he doesn't understand what a Ponzi scheme is.
Speaker 2: I also look at it as a besides being an
Speaker 2: insurance program, it's also a contract. I don't want to
Speaker 2: take it to the level of it being a social contract.
Speaker 2: But I think it's a contract where if you pay
Speaker 2: in and you work the requisite number of years, which
Speaker 2: is ten years or forty quarters upon a certain time,
Speaker 2: you then are able to receive some retirement benefits. So
Speaker 2: I see it as kind of twofold insurance and contractual. Yes.
Speaker 3: No, so, yeah, social security. A lot of people kind
Speaker 3: of shigh away from the term social contract, but it's
Speaker 3: a contract between you as a worker and other workers
Speaker 3: represented by the government. Basically, you pay your fair share,
Speaker 3: you expect to get your fair share of benefits.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so there's sort of these dual elements of it.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: I know that a lot of people are pretty freaked
Speaker 2: out about some of the stories that have been written
Speaker 2: into the newspaper. In the newspapers recently, I referenced last
Speaker 2: night not only your experience, but also the piece that
Speaker 2: now I guess is I'm not sure if it's hit
Speaker 2: the Globe yet or not, but there's there's a piece
Speaker 2: with you in the in the Globe, and I'm not
Speaker 2: sure if it's in the digital edition or if we'll
Speaker 2: get it tomorrow.
Speaker 3: Was updated, it's only been in the in the digital edition.
Speaker 3: You're right, you know that I know that because we
Speaker 3: still look at the great edition, right.
Speaker 2: Yes, of course, of course, of course we're of the
Speaker 2: same uh, the same vintage Jim Roosevelt. So uh that.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Robert Reisman of the Globe staff, uh has has this
Speaker 2: piece which I suspect will be in the paper tomorrow.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: Sean Murphy wrote a piece yesterday, uh, digging into Social Security,
Speaker 2: which which looked at a lot of these these issues.
Speaker 2: And what troubles me is I I did an hour,
Speaker 2: well I did two hours last night on it, and
Speaker 2: there were a lot of people who had questions. And
Speaker 2: I'm not the expert on soci security. I think I
Speaker 2: understand it, but I was trying to sort of assuage
Speaker 2: people's apprehensions. I mean, I think people need to be alert,
Speaker 2: People need to be aware of what's going on. You yourself,
Speaker 2: you know, not only again you served you're an Associate
Speaker 2: Commissioner for retirement policy at the Social Security Administration. It's
Speaker 2: been headed by Republicans and Democrats. Jim Astrew is a
Speaker 2: friend of mine who was the Social Security Commissioner cast
Speaker 2: My Gaster. I apologize, I apologize. I was thinking of
Speaker 2: his son. Actually they went to school together at Roxbury
Speaker 2: Latin School. So that's what happened. You you you missed,
Speaker 2: but he's uh, he was a George Bush forty three appointee,
Speaker 2: if I recall.
Speaker 5: Yeah, correct and R and so this is this has
Speaker 5: become this political issue with you know, Elon Musk having
Speaker 5: been injected.
Speaker 2: Into the middle of it. And I'm just wondering if uh,
Speaker 2: I don't know anybody who is in favor of waste
Speaker 2: and uh and you know, wasteful spending and fraud. So
Speaker 2: I'm assuming everyone would like to see any waste of
Speaker 2: fraud that is identified cleaned up. But how much waste
Speaker 2: of fraud? I've read enough of your piece yesterday. You
Speaker 2: don't think there's a lot of waste and fraud. There
Speaker 2: may be mistakes, there may be some people who are
Speaker 2: on the system who shouldn't be, but the Republicans have
Speaker 2: made and matter of fact, President Trump in his speech
Speaker 2: to the Joint Session of Congress made that comment that
Speaker 2: they were like, I don't know, three five thousand people
Speaker 2: over the age of one hundred and fifty did you
Speaker 2: watch that speech? And if you did, I'd love to
Speaker 2: know what your reaction was to it, because I think
Speaker 2: what the President was saying clearly clearly was misleading.
Speaker 3: Well, I did watch the speech, and I'm not going
Speaker 3: to comment on my views overall. I'll just on Social
Speaker 3: Security mislet someone misled him on that what he was taking.
Speaker 3: He seemed to say that there was this large number
Speaker 3: of people over getting benefits over the age of one
Speaker 3: hundred and fifty. There is nobody getting benefits in that category.
Speaker 3: First of all, when you reach out when the records
Speaker 3: show that you reached one hundred and fifteen, your benefits
Speaker 3: automatically stop and they will reach out to you and say,
Speaker 3: show us that you're still alive. Okay, So it's just
Speaker 3: mechanically impossible. But secondly, the reason it appears that way,
Speaker 3: and this is the problem with what the kids and
Speaker 3: I do mean kids. If you consider a nineteen twenty
Speaker 3: twenty one year old a kid, which I do. When
Speaker 3: the kids go in and don't really understand something, they
Speaker 3: make mistakes and they have not had enough experience to say,
Speaker 3: wait a minute, that doesn't compute. They also don't takes
Speaker 3: the time. You know, the Silicon Valley is saying work
Speaker 3: fast and break things. Well, they work fast and they
Speaker 3: don't ask, well, why would it show up that there's
Speaker 3: that many people that old. Well, it's because so Security
Speaker 3: had one of the first totally computer based systems for
Speaker 3: doing people's benefits. It's written in a computer language that
Speaker 3: was invented fifty or sixty years ago, invented actually by
Speaker 3: a team led by the first female admiral ever, Grace Hopper,
Speaker 3: and there was no setting in that language to insert
Speaker 3: the date when people when people were born. So they
Speaker 3: made up a date as a default and they picked
Speaker 3: a date sometime in the eighteen eighties so that people
Speaker 3: wouldn't get confused. Yeah, there was no default date. If
Speaker 3: you had a date, it was okay, But there was
Speaker 3: no default date.
Speaker 2: So one would characterize that, and I've characterized it to
Speaker 2: the dismay of some of my listeners as in effect
Speaker 2: what would be called a coding error.
Speaker 3: That's exactly what it will was. And it's not that
Speaker 3: it was somebody's fault. It's that the code at that
Speaker 3: point did not allow for a default date, and so
Speaker 3: that all the people who had signed up for SOCI
Speaker 3: Security before there was computer code were listed on this
Speaker 3: data in eighteen eighty okay. And it doesn't impact benefits
Speaker 3: at all, because, as I say, there's automatic cutoffs, and
Speaker 3: in general, Social Security has the Master Death List, where
Speaker 3: almost every death that occurs in the United States is
Speaker 3: reported to Social Security.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 2: I learned that the other day as I was doing
Speaker 2: some research on it. I did not realize as an
Speaker 2: obligation of funeral homes to file a report of someone's passing.
Speaker 2: I was unaware of that.
Speaker 3: That is absolutely right, Yeah, that's absolutely right. That is
Speaker 3: a major source. But state medical examiners and departments of
Speaker 3: public health are also required to report.
Speaker 2: Now, I assume that if there's some people living in
Speaker 2: the wiles of Montana and someone passes away and there's
Speaker 2: no I guess it's conceivable that someone could be buried
Speaker 2: out on the back forty and a nice you headstone there,
Speaker 2: but the government would not know that. So there could
Speaker 2: be theoretically a handful of people here or there. But
Speaker 2: those people, if they were getting so Security checks every
Speaker 2: month for someone who had not been reported had passed,
Speaker 2: and if they were crazy enough to cash those checks,
Speaker 2: they're involved. They're committing fraud against the government, cashing a
Speaker 2: check on behalf of someone other than themselves.
Speaker 3: Correct, they would end up in federal court charged with
Speaker 3: a crime. Absolutely so Okay. Another little known fact people
Speaker 3: don't know, and another reason that there is so little
Speaker 3: fraud at Social Security is so Security has its own
Speaker 3: police force that goes after things like this. It works
Speaker 3: out of the Inspector General's office, but they're actually Social
Speaker 3: Security police that investigate things like this. And there are
Speaker 3: a few people who try to defraud the system. The
Speaker 3: most notorious one is when people try to have checks
Speaker 3: diverted to their bank account by stealing people's bank account
Speaker 3: and social security numbers. When I was, as you remember, Dan,
Speaker 3: when I ran tough self planned, one day a couple
Speaker 3: of Social Security police officers showed up at the front
Speaker 3: desk and they called me from down there and said,
Speaker 3: we've got a couple of people here who say there
Speaker 3: are Social Security police officers. And I said, yeah, I
Speaker 3: know what that is. You do, Yes, I do from
Speaker 3: when I worked to work there, And so we talked
Speaker 3: with them about My general counsel joined me in talking
Speaker 3: with them, and they said, we think three of your
Speaker 3: employees are taking screenshots of people's health plan records to
Speaker 3: get their day to birth, their social Security number, and
Speaker 3: their and their bank account numbers and diverting checks there.
Speaker 3: And they investigated they had arrested three health plan employees
Speaker 3: on the spot and ultimately prosecuted them and they went
Speaker 3: to prison. Okay, this is not like, you know, like
Speaker 3: just let it go.
Speaker 2: No, I just did it because obviously, if money is misdirected,
Speaker 2: or if there are those engaged in fraud, that means
Speaker 2: that So Security has less funds available to pay out
Speaker 2: to people who either have a disability, you know, or
Speaker 2: the surviving spouse of someone who hadn't worked, or a retiree.
Speaker 2: My guest is Jim Rosell. As you can tell, he
Speaker 2: knows a lot about this subject. And I have tried
Speaker 2: to cut through the statements that has been made that
Speaker 2: have been made by the Trump administration, and I have
Speaker 2: not taken any of them on face value, and every
Speaker 2: one that I have tried to investigate. The latest one
Speaker 2: that they have, which I'm going to ask Jim if
Speaker 2: if he's heard about it, is that some of the
Speaker 2: folks who have come in in the last few years
Speaker 2: have been given Social Security numbers even though they are
Speaker 2: not US citizens. Now, those comments were made by Musk,
Speaker 2: I believe over the weekend in Wisconsin. Jim, I don't
Speaker 2: know if you're up to date on those or not.
Speaker 2: But I wanted to ask you about those on the
Speaker 2: other side because it seems to me that the burden
Speaker 2: of proof does risk rest with the Trump administration. And
Speaker 2: when I as go back to the to the speech
Speaker 2: the President made to the Joint Session of Congress, when
Speaker 2: he was going on with those numbers, I thought to myself,
Speaker 2: this cannot be true. It just cannot be true, or
Speaker 2: people would know about it, because if people were ripping
Speaker 2: off the government, they would tell their friends. Hey, it's easy.
Speaker 2: So if you like to ask Jim Roosevelt a question
Speaker 2: about Social Security, and I want to get into some
Speaker 2: of the plans. There are our offices that are going
Speaker 2: to be closed. There's going to be a couple of
Speaker 2: changes that are significant regarding a telephone access, when you
Speaker 2: have when you want to change your depositor bank. We'll
Speaker 2: go through all of that and take your questions along
Speaker 2: the way. My name is Dan Ray. This is Nightsime.
Speaker 2: My guess is Jim Rosevelt, who knows probably more about
Speaker 2: Social Security than anyone I know. Six one, seven, two, five,
Speaker 2: four ten thirty, six one seven, nine, three, one, ten
Speaker 2: thirty Those are the numbers that get you through. Jim
Speaker 2: will stay with us until ten o'clock and he's he's
Speaker 2: agreed to do an hour and take some phone calls.
Speaker 2: So if you want to ask a question, now is
Speaker 2: the time I learned in law school. As I've told
Speaker 2: you many times, there are no such things as dumb questions.
Speaker 2: The only dumb questions the ones you don't have the
Speaker 2: courage to ask, because those are the ones that show
Speaker 2: up in the midterm of the final exam. Trust me, back,
Speaker 2: couldn't That's through Jim, It's through back, couldn't that side?
Speaker 1: Right after of this, you're on Night Side with Dan
Speaker 1: Ray on Boston's News Radio.
Speaker 2: My guest is Jim Roosevelt, the grandson of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Speaker 2: He certainly understands the Social Security system. He worked as
Speaker 2: an Associate Commissioner for Retirement Policy for soci Security Administration
Speaker 2: before joining Tough's Health Plan as their senior vice president
Speaker 2: and general counsel. Now, I don't want to put you
Speaker 2: on the spot here, but there was some comments made
Speaker 2: I think at a campaign rally in Wisconsin. They're having
Speaker 2: a fight out there for one of these they elect
Speaker 2: their state Supreme Court justices. In response and putting that aside,
Speaker 2: and over the weekend, either Elon Musk or one of
Speaker 2: his associates claimed that they had found a lot of
Speaker 2: people who were getting Social Security benefits who had been
Speaker 2: given Social Security numbers by the bidenministration, but people who
Speaker 2: are here illegally. Is there any substance to that. If
Speaker 2: you haven't heard about it, there's no reason for you
Speaker 2: to comment on it.
Speaker 3: But I did hear about it over the weekend, so
Speaker 3: I did some checking yesterday because the numbers didn't make
Speaker 3: sense to me, and they were large numbers. What I
Speaker 3: found out is these are people who legally got Social
Speaker 3: Security cards because and they would get them now under
Speaker 3: the Trump administration. It's not a political Like almost everything
Speaker 3: within Social Security, it's actually not a political issue. It's
Speaker 3: actually an administrative issue. If you are here legally on
Speaker 3: a visa that lets you work, and you get a
Speaker 3: Green card, you are required to get a Social Security
Speaker 3: number so that when you work, you pay taxes and
Speaker 3: your employer pays taxes. So that's what these numbers are. Again,
Speaker 3: this is a matter of not understanding what they're dealing
Speaker 3: with fair enough.
Speaker 2: I mean, the numbers that they threw out there are
Speaker 2: are astonishing if true. But but again I think you've
Speaker 2: You've given an explanation, and let's we have full lines.
Speaker 2: Let's see what some of our callers want to talk about.
Speaker 2: And what I'm going to do is just take a
Speaker 2: very quick pause. We have to break for the news
Speaker 2: at the bottom of the hour. I wanted to get
Speaker 2: rid of that question. Uh, some of these questions might
Speaker 2: be with their own circumstances. Again, if you can help
Speaker 2: them and guide them, that's great. I do know that
Speaker 2: there will be some Social Security offices closed if the
Speaker 2: DOGE team has their way, And I do know that
Speaker 2: I believe you can help me here on this one.
Speaker 2: That some of the telephone services that were available before
Speaker 2: today no longer can be accomplished over the phone. Most specifically,
Speaker 2: if you want to change the bank that where your
Speaker 2: so security check is deposited directly. My correct on that
Speaker 2: that now people once they want to change their bank,
Speaker 2: theoretically an effort to avoid people becoming the victims of fraud,
Speaker 2: they have to go to the to a Social Security
Speaker 2: office and make that request in person.
Speaker 3: That is the rule that has been announced by the
Speaker 3: Acting Commissioner appointed by Musk and Trump. And actually I
Speaker 3: don't think that's a bad rule if you really want
Speaker 3: to know. Okay, there, it's not so security fraud, it's
Speaker 3: bank fraud. Okay. And yes, you can ask enough questions
Speaker 3: on the phone to eliminate ninety nine point nine percent
Speaker 3: of the fraud. But the point one percent people pretty
Speaker 3: unhappy if someone gets their so security check. So I
Speaker 3: actually think that one's okay.
Speaker 2: Okay, Well again, I think that's when I hear you
Speaker 2: say that, that means a lot to me. So we'll
Speaker 2: take a quick break. We've got a news break coming up,
Speaker 2: and I'm going to ask everyone who wants to get
Speaker 2: on the line if you have a question, great, not
Speaker 2: here to debate Jim Roosevelt. Please, you don't want to
Speaker 2: make that mistake. If you have a question, more than
Speaker 2: happy to entertain the question. And we'll try to get
Speaker 2: to as many callers as we can between now and
Speaker 2: ten o'clock right after this.
Speaker 3: Quickness, and we can talk about the office closures when
Speaker 3: we come back.
Speaker 2: Yes, absolutely, that's that's that's another one that we can
Speaker 2: that we will hit upon, that's for sure. Back on
Speaker 2: night Side right after this.
Speaker 1: Night Side with Dan Ray on Boston's News Radio with.
Speaker 2: Me's Jim Roosevelt. Jim, we wanted to talk about there
Speaker 2: will be some office closures, which I don't know how
Speaker 2: much inconvenience. It's impossible to even anticipate how much inconvenience
Speaker 2: that will cause people. But I guess if they're going
Speaker 2: to cut back staff, and they have there will be
Speaker 2: there will be fewer office closures.
Speaker 3: Your comments on those, so be the doge kids that
Speaker 3: I call them, release a long list of offices that
Speaker 3: are going to be closed. Some of them were regular
Speaker 3: field offices, like you having many cities and towns, including
Speaker 3: Cambridge where I live. Some of them were hearing offices
Speaker 3: where you go when you appeal a denial of disability
Speaker 3: benefits or some problem with your retirement benefits. The list
Speaker 3: as it first came out was very long, many closures.
Speaker 3: Some of them did not make sense geographically. Some of them,
Speaker 3: as you say, are going to be necessary if they're
Speaker 3: going to cut the staff. They have proposed cutting the
Speaker 3: staff by twelve percent, and SOUB Security was already at
Speaker 3: a bare bone staffing, the lowest staffing in the history
Speaker 3: of the agency, while having the highest number of beneficiaries
Speaker 3: in the history of the agency. So if they're going
Speaker 3: to cut the staff. They probably do need to close
Speaker 3: some offices. They've already pulled back on some of those
Speaker 3: that we understand that that would be too much of
Speaker 3: a burden on people. I think there will be more changes,
Speaker 3: but people should stay alert on that.
Speaker 2: Okay, And one final question. I was able to a
Speaker 2: few years ago create my own social security my personal
Speaker 2: social Security account. It's called a free insecure of my
Speaker 2: Social Security. My understanding is that if you have a
Speaker 2: my Social Security account, you have already proven your identity
Speaker 2: to the government satisfactorily that if I were to move
Speaker 2: and have to change my bank deposit, if you have
Speaker 2: a my Social Security account, you can do that electronically.
Speaker 2: You do not have to visit an office. Am I
Speaker 2: correct in that?
Speaker 3: That is the current state of the rules?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 3: That works great for somebody who's computer savvy, even to
Speaker 3: a basic degree like me, and I suspect you.
Speaker 2: Let me tell you it was. It was not a
Speaker 2: walk in the park, but I was able to accomplish
Speaker 2: it myself.
Speaker 3: I feel about things thought on computer right. So if
Speaker 3: you can do that, yeah, you're all set. But not
Speaker 3: everybody can do that. And that's why again, cutting staff
Speaker 3: is going to be a problem.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I hope I hope that some of the
Speaker 2: senior centers and some of the senior organizations with every community,
Speaker 2: we'll learn how to do that and help people and
Speaker 2: walk them through it. Let's go to phone calls, my friend,
Speaker 2: we got a lot of people want to talk with you.
Speaker 2: Let me start it off with and again, I'm going
Speaker 2: to ask everyone please, we're not looking at debates, questions, comments.
Speaker 2: I'm going to move through a lot of callers quickly.
Speaker 2: Let me start it off with John and Boston. John,
Speaker 2: go right ahead, You're on with Jim Roosevelt.
Speaker 4: Yeah, h good evening, good evening.
Speaker 3: Sure.
Speaker 4: I'm wonder if you could just mention what is the
Speaker 4: difference between the three types of social securities? Is A
Speaker 4: d I is as regular social security that I might
Speaker 4: know it as and SSI Because I know on the SSI,
Speaker 4: I am not allowed to leave the country more than
Speaker 4: thirty days. If I do, we'll take it away from me.
Speaker 4: I'm not allowed to have more than two thousands of
Speaker 4: the banks. And okay, let's.
Speaker 2: Explain that before we get to your situation. John. Let's
Speaker 2: get Jimmy. You're familiar with those specific categories. Can you
Speaker 2: comment on those.
Speaker 3: I am yes. A basic part of social Security is
Speaker 3: Social Security Disability Insurance ssd I, and that's you applied
Speaker 3: if you're disabled or injured, and there are a lot
Speaker 3: of rules to follow because you have to demonstrate that
Speaker 3: you are unable to work in order to get it.
Speaker 3: But that's the basic disability coverage. Then there there is SSI,
Speaker 3: which actually is not related to pardon me, yeah, what
Speaker 3: is the difference.
Speaker 2: He's about to explain it, John, Just hold on, okay,
Speaker 2: go ahead, go ahead, Please get this.
Speaker 3: So FFI is something totally different. That's Supplemental Security Income
Speaker 3: and it is essentially an income, an income replacement program.
Speaker 3: It's not an arned benefit like the rest of Social Security.
Speaker 3: It depends on a means test and it's not funded
Speaker 3: out of the Trust Fund of Social Security. It's appropriated
Speaker 3: by Congress out of the general budget. So that's a
Speaker 3: separate thing. And then there is a Supplemental Disability Income,
Speaker 3: which if you are extremely disabled you can get some
Speaker 3: supplemental disability income.
Speaker 4: No, I think you know. I asked if I could
Speaker 4: leave the country to go to school another country, and
Speaker 4: they said I can't because if I do, I would
Speaker 4: lose it.
Speaker 2: Okay, let's see if that's true. Let's see John, Let's
Speaker 2: see if that's true.
Speaker 3: Jim Roselt. So you would not lose sociecurity disabilit the
Speaker 3: income coverage, but you would lose SSI coverage because that's
Speaker 3: to meet your cost of living in this country.
Speaker 4: I wish you would mention there was a woman in you.
Speaker 4: I saw this cabinet that doesn't get credit for Social Security.
Speaker 4: Her name was Francis Perkins. Do you know can you
Speaker 4: mention her?
Speaker 3: I'm actually I actually did a talk last week at
Speaker 3: Temple Israel about Francis Perkins with the author of a
Speaker 3: new book about her. The new book is called Dear
Speaker 3: Miss Perkins.
Speaker 6: UH.
Speaker 3: She was the only she was the first woman ever
Speaker 3: in a presidential cabinet. She was the only person in
Speaker 3: all four cabinets of my of the New Deal administrations.
Speaker 2: UH.
Speaker 3: And she was a real hero. The dear Miss Perkins
Speaker 3: are people who would write about UH, people particularly children
Speaker 3: and Jewish people who were displaced by the Nazis, and
Speaker 3: they would write and say, dear miss Perkins, and you
Speaker 3: help us get refugee status. And she particularly helped those people.
Speaker 3: So she was a wonderful wonderful hero. She was also
Speaker 3: controversial in her time because she tried to expand people's
Speaker 3: access to benefits, even with an attempt to impeach her,
Speaker 3: which failed. Fortunately she but my grandfather did not walk
Speaker 3: away from her. He kept her in the cabinet even
Speaker 3: though people went after her.
Speaker 2: John great questions. Thank you much for your call. Let
Speaker 2: me go next to Kathleen and Melrose. Kathleen, you're next time,
Speaker 2: Nisager right ahead.
Speaker 7: Hi, thanks for taking this call. I have a quick
Speaker 7: question at specifics, so tell me if you can answer
Speaker 7: it or not. I'm calling for my mom. She's eighty
Speaker 7: three years old. She lives in California, and my father
Speaker 7: died of a surprise heart attack when she was fifty three.
Speaker 7: She's been a school teacher her whole life, which means
Speaker 7: she paid She doesn't get Social Security because she paid
Speaker 7: into the California state.
Speaker 2: Whatever she does know she does now but glhead.
Speaker 7: Okay, so that's where I'm going with this. So my
Speaker 7: dad was in sales his whole life and had his
Speaker 7: pension was literally like twenty eight dollars a month.
Speaker 8: I mean, it was crazy.
Speaker 7: Anyway, her George for a very poor school district, and
Speaker 7: her retirement plan has been like twenty seven thousand dollars
Speaker 7: a year in total, so she's never gotten SOID security.
Speaker 7: Apparently it's happening now she's over the moon at age
Speaker 7: eighty three. She's going to start getting something like I
Speaker 7: don't know, fifteen hundred dollars a month. And someone just said,
Speaker 7: oh my goodness, I heard about that, and their mother
Speaker 7: same situation school nurse paid into the schools here in Massachusetts.
Speaker 7: She not only is going to be getting like thirteen
Speaker 7: hundred dollars a month, but she got a check for like,
Speaker 7: I don't know, twelve thousand dollars. Is like a catchup
Speaker 7: because her.
Speaker 2: I know a little bit about that. Jim probably knows more,
Speaker 2: but I think those checks were more in the vicinity
Speaker 2: of about five thousand dollars because it was ketchup from
Speaker 2: last January January twenty twenty four, Jim, I'm sure you
Speaker 2: got a better answer, Goretta.
Speaker 3: Well, so, starting in nineteen eighty three, when they made
Speaker 3: a whole lot of changes in the Social Security law,
Speaker 3: people who worked for state and local governments that had
Speaker 3: chosen not to participate in Social Security were penalized, not
Speaker 3: just because they didn't get Social Security since they hadn't
Speaker 3: paid their Social Security tax and their employer had not,
Speaker 3: but they were penalized on not getting their spouses of
Speaker 3: benefits either. With some small exceptions. The law change was
Speaker 3: changed by Congress about six or seven months ago. It's
Speaker 3: great news for people. And that large check is because
Speaker 3: it took so long to pass the law that it
Speaker 3: actually went into effect a year before it passed. It
Speaker 3: was retroactive, and so that's catch up for that year.
Speaker 7: Okay, so the catchup was one year. Her husband happened
Speaker 7: to passed away recently, so they thought it was and
Speaker 7: I thought, oh my goodness, there's no chance they're going
Speaker 7: to give my mom thirty years.
Speaker 3: But the catchup, that's right. The catch up is one year.
Speaker 3: And what it does, it's not it doesn't just give
Speaker 3: people those security benefits who hadn't paid in to Social Security,
Speaker 3: but if they had a spouse, it gives the benefits
Speaker 3: from their spouse, correct, whereas they were deprived of those before.
Speaker 7: Yeah, because my mom was like.
Speaker 2: Keathley, I hate to do this to you, but I
Speaker 2: got a whole bunch of callers and I think we
Speaker 2: got an answer for you. So I got to let
Speaker 2: you go. Thank you, Kathleen, appreciate it. We've got to
Speaker 2: take a quick commercial break back with Jim Roosevelt's going
Speaker 2: to get try to get everyone in. That's why it's important.
Speaker 2: Everybody has to get a couple of minutes. I wish
Speaker 2: I could give everybody twenty minutes. I can't do that
Speaker 2: in fairness. Back on nights Side right after.
Speaker 1: This Night Side with Dan Ray on WBS, Boston's news radio.
Speaker 9: In this week's Marketers Before, Corey Marchisoto, CMO of ELF Beauty,
Speaker 9: partner of I Hurt Women's Sports, talks about partnerships.
Speaker 7: I see brands as antennas, so we send out the
Speaker 7: ELF signal and what comes back is people who want.
Speaker 10: To be a part of this story.
Speaker 3: Why are we partnering with iHeart because we want to
Speaker 3: advance women in sports.
Speaker 9: As the number one audio company, iHeartMedia can get more
Speaker 9: people to hear your message than anyone else. For better
Speaker 9: results for every budget, visit Iheartadvertising dot com.
Speaker 11: Retirement planning is complicated enough without having a formal budget
Speaker 11: to help you maintain your lifestyle during your later years.
Speaker 11: This is Mike Armstrong from the Armstrong Advisory Group. Our
Speaker 11: new guide called how to Build a Retirement Budget was
Speaker 11: written specifically for this purpose. Our goal is to help
Speaker 11: take your financial concerns out of your retirement years. There
Speaker 11: are numerous issues to deal with when creating a retirement budget,
Speaker 11: everything from understanding where your income will come from, to
Speaker 11: setting up a proper withdrawal strategy, to being able to
Speaker 11: remain flexible as market conditions change. This new guide offers
Speaker 11: structural guidance that may leave we eate the pressures of
Speaker 11: creating your budget. You can request your copy right now
Speaker 11: by calling eight hundred three nine three for zero zero
Speaker 11: one and ask for our new guide today once again
Speaker 11: that number eight hundred three nine three for zero zero one.
Speaker 10: The proceeding was paid for by Armstrong Advisory Group, a
Speaker 10: registered investment advisor. Nothing in the ad or in any
Speaker 10: Armstrong Guide a specific financial, legal, or tax advice. Consult
Speaker 10: your own financial, tax, and estate planning advisors before making
Speaker 10: any investment decisions. Armstrong make contact you to offer investment
Speaker 10: advisory services.
Speaker 12: Tariffs tariffs, tariffs They're everywhere, and more are coming and
Speaker 12: prices are going up soon. Lighting products are imported from
Speaker 12: countries whose s tariffs are being raised. At Nina's we
Speaker 12: want to help. For the next thirty days. Come to
Speaker 12: Nina's and order lighting for your renovation project, the new
Speaker 12: house you're building, or your dream chandelier. Your prices will
Speaker 12: not go up. Nina's is home to the lighting brands
Speaker 12: like Visual Comfort, Hudson Valley, Hubbert and Forge, Louis Pauls
Speaker 12: and Art, Tammedy and Floss to mention a few. Even
Speaker 12: more important are the lighting consultants at Nina's, who are
Speaker 12: second to none who can help you choose the right light.
Speaker 12: Time is short, so please visit Nina's showrooms or Nina's
Speaker 12: Lighting dot Com.
Speaker 1: It's night Side with Boston's news radio.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna try madily to get four callers in for you, toub.
Speaker 2: Let's see what we can do. You're gonna go to
Speaker 2: David in San Francisco. David questioned a comment right.
Speaker 13: Ahead, Yes, Dan, thank you for taking my calls. I
Speaker 13: want to thank you for your grandfather was just He
Speaker 13: did everything he used to put colb the country together.
Speaker 13: Kind of victory in your oppression, Dallas Francis Perkins. However,
Speaker 13: my question, sir, is do you have any suggestive things
Speaker 13: for me so I can get to the handicapped portion
Speaker 13: of Social Security.
Speaker 3: Yes. On the Social Scurity website there is affection regarding
Speaker 3: disability access and you should go to that. If you
Speaker 3: don't find what you're looking for, I do recommend that
Speaker 3: you make an appointment out of SOBI Security Field Office.
Speaker 3: The agents there are trained to help you access the
Speaker 3: disability benefits.
Speaker 13: All right, thank you, thank you very much, Thank you, David.
Speaker 2: Appreciate the quickness of the call. Appreciate it. Let me
Speaker 2: go next to Larry and down to the Cape. Larry
Speaker 2: next on Nightside with Jim Rosevelke right a head talking
Speaker 2: about social security.
Speaker 6: Yes, about ten years ago, my wife and I went
Speaker 6: down to the Hyenna's office to sign up the social security.
Speaker 6: She had her own statement and I had mine, and
Speaker 6: we went in and we signed up for it. And
Speaker 6: that's what we were informed that. Unfortunately, my wife was
Speaker 6: involved with that WEP because she was a teacher, but
Speaker 6: she also had a social security also paid into social Security,
Speaker 6: so she had her own statement. So he said, and
Speaker 6: I don't know if this was the proper advice at
Speaker 6: that time, he said, my wife is better off collecting
Speaker 6: on her social security statement. I collect on mine and
Speaker 6: then when she's seventy switch it over and what happened
Speaker 6: was then COVID came and then I got sick. Long
Speaker 6: story short, I have an appointment now coming up next month.
Speaker 6: I couldn't make I couldn't reach anybody by phone. I
Speaker 6: did it online and I got an email and a
Speaker 6: text saying it's going to be a telephone appointment. Is
Speaker 6: that the case now? And should my wife switch over
Speaker 6: to collect half of mine? That's what I want to do,
Speaker 6: because I'm collecting more than hers.
Speaker 2: I would say, do the telephone thing, Larry, and I'm
Speaker 2: sure Jim will have a better answer. But do the
Speaker 2: telephone thing. Have your wife with you at the time
Speaker 2: of the telephone thing so both of you can be available.
Speaker 3: Jim, yes that Dan, You're exactly right. It has all
Speaker 3: changed with the web as you referred to. It is
Speaker 3: the windfall Elimination provision, and that is part of what
Speaker 3: was changed by Congress about six or seven months ago.
Speaker 3: So it's worth taking another look at it. It might
Speaker 3: still be the same as it was before, but it
Speaker 3: might be better to do it differently. So it's a
Speaker 3: good idea to have that telephone appointment. A telephone appointment
Speaker 3: is probably just as good as an in person appointment
Speaker 3: and they can get the details that I don't have here.
Speaker 2: So make sure your wife, Jim, Jim, Jim Rothera, Larry,
Speaker 2: make sure your wife is there because the time that.
Speaker 6: You get we're both going to be there. But doesn't
Speaker 6: it make sense for me to switch her to half
Speaker 6: of mine? It's another two one do dollars a month.
Speaker 3: Let them run the actual numbers and tell you.
Speaker 2: Let them do the analysis. Okay, thanks mis s calculator,
Speaker 2: good night, real quickly get Marrian Moubern. Gary next on
Speaker 2: Nice How with Jim Rosow. Go ahead, Gary, gotta be quick.
Speaker 8: Yes, I have a quick question. I'll just take the
Speaker 8: answer of the year. I'm going to be taking to
Speaker 8: an application on the phone tomorrow. So sixty one sixty
Speaker 8: two in May. They said my fresh check will be
Speaker 8: in July for fourteen hundred dollars a month. Jim, could
Speaker 8: you tell me all the other benefits are involved where
Speaker 8: I'll be also just getting a check?
Speaker 3: Thank you. So I think you should keep in mind
Speaker 3: that if you start taking benefits at sixty two what
Speaker 3: you're entitled to do, you will get a lower benefit
Speaker 3: than if you wait until your full retirement age, which
Speaker 3: is probably sixty seven and a half in your age
Speaker 3: bracket or a seventy when you'd get the highest benefit.
Speaker 3: But if you want the benefit now, you can take
Speaker 3: that cut and eventually when you hit seventy, they will
Speaker 3: adjust it to get you up with the full benefit.
Speaker 2: All right, I hope you heard that answer. Gary. Thank
Speaker 2: you for the quickness of the call. Quickly, let me
Speaker 2: go to Michael and Attenborough. Michael, you got to be
Speaker 2: quick for me. Got one out of call here. Please
Speaker 2: go ahead, Michael.
Speaker 6: Yeah, sir, I think you answer my question, but I
Speaker 6: want to ask you directly. My wife passed about six
Speaker 6: months ago. She worked for the state.
Speaker 14: They said, if you're not married at the time you're working,
Speaker 14: your husband's not entitled to any benefits. And I didn't
Speaker 14: realize maybe Social she did get a little bit of
Speaker 14: Social Does that only mean my pension?
Speaker 6: I did call Social Security office and they said, no,
Speaker 6: she's not.
Speaker 3: But I suspect that not everyone knows the rules, So
Speaker 3: I'm sorry for your loss. First of all, this is
Speaker 3: really a state pension question more than a Social Security question.
Speaker 3: Getting the Social Security benefit is not dependent on being
Speaker 3: married at the time you were working. Getting the state
Speaker 3: pensure benefit is right right.
Speaker 2: Well, Michael, I can't get into it much more deeply.
Speaker 2: I think when you talk to the people, you've got
Speaker 2: to explain your specific situation.
Speaker 6: Right, Okay, thank you very much, by bye.
Speaker 3: And the change in the law might help you. We'll see.
Speaker 2: Okay, hope you heard that. Let me go to Brenda
Speaker 2: on the Cape. Brenda, you the last call of the hour.
Speaker 4: Go right ahead, Brenda, by Dan, how are you?
Speaker 15: I want to just call? I was listening to you
Speaker 15: tonight and heard the conversation about the Social Security offices closing,
Speaker 15: and I just happened to be online with them the
Speaker 15: other day and they put out a press release dated
Speaker 15: in March twenty seventh stating that none of the offices
Speaker 15: are going to be permanently closing. That all you're hearing
Speaker 15: is false.
Speaker 8: So I would encourage.
Speaker 15: People to go to the site and read what I
Speaker 15: just read.
Speaker 3: That's partly correct. I would say some will be, but
Speaker 3: some of them will be just temporary as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Thinks a political process that's going on, and Congress
Speaker 2: may step into some of this as well. Brenda. Thank you, Bob,
Speaker 2: thank you for that information. We talked a little bit
Speaker 2: about that last night, as well, because I think we
Speaker 2: all need to kind of calm down a little bit.
Speaker 2: And you know, it may not be the Trump administration
Speaker 2: may not get everything they want. Here is what I'm
Speaker 2: trying to say.
Speaker 15: Okay, simplest thanks, that's right, and the more information that's
Speaker 15: out there for everyone to know about it think is better.
Speaker 8: We thank you, appreciate it.
Speaker 15: So nice to talk to you.
Speaker 2: Good to talk with you as well, Jim Roosevelt. Delightful
Speaker 2: to talk with you. Thank you for your time, and
Speaker 2: thank you for what you've done over the years for
Speaker 2: for people you know, in and and out of government.
Speaker 2: I really do appreciate our friendship as well.
Speaker 3: I appreciate it very much as well. And I always
Speaker 3: enjoyed talking with you, Dan and with your listeners.
Speaker 2: And we'll keep in touch, and who knows, a couple
Speaker 2: three months down the road, we may revisit this if
Speaker 2: circumstances change, if that.
Speaker 3: Would work for you, happy to do it.
Speaker 2: Thank you much, Jim Roosevelt, Ladies and gentlemen, a friend
Speaker 2: for many years and someone who is just a font
Speaker 2: of great information, and I hope all of you if
Speaker 2: maybe your question wasn't asked, you might have bet your
Speaker 2: question might have been asked by someone else. We're coming
Speaker 2: back on Nightside, going to talk about the decision of
Speaker 2: the Attorney General today to seek the death penalty against
Speaker 2: Luigi Mangioni. I think you know who he is. He's
Speaker 2: the guy that killed the insurance executive in New York
Speaker 2: City on December fourth. I don't have a big problem
Speaker 2: with that. Left to know what you think. Coming back
Speaker 2: on Nightside,