Recent searches
Search options
#socialsecurity
Feigenbaum points to the harm incurred by the states who allow #BirthrightCitizenship would have to institute SSNs for children coming from a state that doesn’t allow it. #SocialSecurity is a federal program & is national.
He also points to the chaos #immigration enforcement would face. e.g. Do removal proceeding started in one state stop if the person crosses into a state where they have citizenship?
Poor Show Swinney
“People almost invariably arrive at their beliefs not on the basis of proof but on the basis of what they find attractive.” – Blaise Pascal
This blog post previously appeared in Common Weal’s weekly newsletter. Sign up for the newsletter here.
If you’d like to support my work for Common Weal or support me and this blog directly, see my donation policy page here.
John Swinney claims to support the elimination of child poverty from Scotland, but he has admitted that he also believes – without actual evidence – that social security payments discourage poor people from working.
John Swinney’s only tangible policy on which he was elected as leader of the SNP and then First Minister of Scotland was a promise to eliminate child poverty. Note that he didn’t promise to reduce poverty or even to move faster than previous reduction targets (that he is so far failing to meet). He didn’t even, as his predecessor did, celebrate that child poverty in Scotland was merely a little lower than in England. He promised to eliminate child poverty. He has yet to explain “how”.
At the weekend, Swinney appeared to close down one of the tools that the Government has been using effectively to bring down child payment. The Scottish Child Payment is offered to adults who look after one or more children (the payment is on a per child basis – without the two-child limit seen in England) and who qualify for certain social security payments such as Universal Credit (if you think you might qualify you can check here). Frankly, the payment was brought in at a time and in a manner that stretches the devolved Scottish budget to its limits without the introduction of new taxes (such as our Land Tax) to pay for it but its impact on child poverty has been significant. The Scottish Government claims that the payment has contributed – along with their other poverty reduction policies – to lifting 100,000 children out of poverty.
Last weekend, Swinney announced that he was not considering further increases to the payment. Not, as might actually be reasonably defensible, on the grounds of budget constraints but because he believed that the payment was now high enough that a further increase would “reduce the incentive to actually enter the labour market.”
In other words, he believes that increasing the child payment to £40 per week – something that the IPPR believes would lift another 20,000 children out of poverty – would discourage poor people from working.
This is, in short, complete crap. It is a claim that is not backed up by any data. In fact, if you have read my UBI article from the other week, you’d know that it is a claim that is completely countered by the facts. Giving people enough money to live on regardless of their life circumstances does not discourage people from working. In the most recent long-running study it was found that the total number of hours worked by UBI recipients did not change compared to their peers in the control group but that may did take the opportunity of the financial safety net to take a chance on a better paid, more worthwhile or more enjoyable job. Where studies have noticed UBI recipients dropping out of work it is almost universally not because “poor people are lazy and want to sit on the sofa” but because people use their safety net to study, to reduce hours as they run up to retirement or – pertinent to this article – to spend more time looking after their children.
With his comments, John Swinney is repeating the Conservative prejudice that the poor only work because it is marginally preferable to starvation and so any attempt to increase the number of workers in the economy can only be done by ramping up the costs of not working.
What Swinney is essentially saying is that while we shouldn’t have child poverty in Scotland, just bringing people to a penny over the poverty line would be enough for him, regardless of what that means for the people involved.
Cutting off the possibility of increases to social security because of self-imposed fiscal limits or rules (self-imposed even in this case not just because of slavish adherence to the philosophy of the 2018 Sustainable Growth Commission but due to a refusal to look at alternative mechanisms within devolution to increase revenue – see, again, our Land Tax) would be bad enough, but Swinney is making his case based on poverty being somehow the consequences of a lifestyle choice or moral failing. The poor, he apparently thinks, deserve their poverty unless they prove they are willing to not be poor.
This is a far cry from just a few years ago when there was a demonstrable majority across the Scottish Parliament for a guaranteed minimum income for all or a true Universal Basic Income (which probably explains the lack of push to bring in those policies).
The 2016 Holyrood elections are looming to the point of candidates being selected and manifestos being written. Swinney is obviously concerned enough about the rise of the far right to hold a summit about it (ineffectual as it was) but he surely must realise that the means of defeating the far right does not lie in gaming the political system to lock them out (see Germany), or in adopting their policies to try become them (see the UK) but in offering a real, credible alternative to Centrist Austerity and policy failure that leads to those populists gaining a base.
Instead of poor showmanship, Swinney could be providing leadership and actually taking action to meeting the goals he has set himself. The Scottish Government already has a poor track record of cancelling “inconvenient” government targets like climate emissions or reductions in car miles. Let’s not see the target of eliminating child poverty in one of the world’s richest nations become another one.
On this Day in Social Security History:
#SocialSecurityat90
#StrongerTogether
5/15/1948 Puerto Rico passed a law providing unemployment insurance benefits for workers in the sugar industry. https://academicworks.cuny.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1174&context=si_pubs
5/15/1952 Public Law 343 was signed. It increased unemployment and sickness benefits for railroad workers by 30% to 60%--financed by a payroll levy on the railroads. https://rrb.gov/The_Railroad_Unemployment_Insurance_Act_of_1938_and_Later_Amendments
5/15/1978 SSA began requiring evidence of age, identity, and citizenship/alien status from all applicants for original SSNs, and evidence of identity for replacement Social Security cards. https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v69n2/v69n2p55.html
5/15/1995 The first calls of the Salinas teleservice center (TSC) came through on May 15, 1995. https://www.ssa.gov/history/ssa/ssa2000chapter5.html
5/15/2002 Congress enacted the “Notification and Federal Employee Antidiscrimination and Retaliation Act of 2002,” which is now known as the No FEAR Act. https://www.ssa.gov/legislation/FY20_NoFEAR_report.pdf
5/15/2006 In 2003, SSA assumed another Medicare-related responsibility when the Medicare Prescription Drug (Part D). Initial enrollment for Part D ended May 15, 2006. https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v70n3/ssb-v70n3.pdf
More Social Security history: https://www.ssa.gov/history & #SSAHistGWC
On this Day in Social Security History:
#SocialSecurityat90
#StrongerTogether
5/14/1960 A measure was signed by President Eisenhower permitting an individual who was paying the medical expense of dependent parents 65 or over to disregard the usual limitation that only amounts in excess of 3% of adjusted gross income could be deducted.
https://www.taxnotes.com/lr/resolve/tax-notes-today-federal/crs-report-on-history-and-rationale-of-medical-expense-deduction/10g5h#:~:text=%5B23%5D%20With%20passage%20on%20May,parents%20of%20the%20taxpayer%27s%20spouse.
5/14/1965 Died on this day in 1965, Madame Secretary Francis Perkins. "I came to Washington to work for God, FDR, and the millions of forgotten, plain common workingmen." https://www.ssa.gov/history/fperkins.html
5/14/1966 The Johnson Administration published in the Federal Register, proposed regulations incorporating the condition of participation in Medicare for home health agencies and extended care facilities.
https://www.ssa.gov/history/ssa/lbjmedicare4.html
More Social Security history: https://www.ssa.gov/history & #SSAHistGWC
#SocialSecurity #History #Disability #Retirement #Medicare #Unemployment #insurance #heatlhcare #NewDeal #OTD #SSDI #OASDI #equity #justice Social Security Administration
https://www.europesays.com/uk/102597/ Majority Of Americans Fear Financial Insecurity In Retirement More Than Death, Study Finds #AllianzLifeStudy #Business #Finance #FinancialInsecurity #GenerationX #Inflation #PersonalFinance #RetirementPlanning #RetirementSavings #SocialSecurity #UK #UnitedKingdom
https://www.alojapan.com/1274241/expert-panel-suggests-japans-government-make-childbirth-free-2/ Expert Panel Suggests Japan’s Government Make Childbirth Free #asia #design #economics #government #Japan #JapanNews #JapanTopics #lifestyle #news #policy #SocialSecurity #TaxRevenue #women; The Japanese government should cover out-of-pocket childbirth fees, an expert panel said, as the aging nation seeks to reverse its declining population and shrinking pool of tax-paying workers. The government should “design a specific system by around fis…
The #CFPB has cancelled plans to introduce new rules designed to limit the ability of
#DataBrokers to sell sensitive #information about Americans, including #financial data, #credit history, & #SocialSecurity numbers [#SSN].
CFPB proposed the new rule in early December under #Biden’s fmr director Rohit Chopra, who said the changes were necessary to combat commercial #surveillance practices that “threaten our personal #safety & undermine America’s #NationalSecurity.”
#Trump #law #InfoSec #privacy
Suozzi: Does this tax bill continue the payroll #tax on tips?
Barthold: Yes it does
Suozzi: Does this #bill continue the payroll tax on overtime?
Barthold: It does not exempt overtime from payroll tax
Souzzi: Does this bill remove taxes on #SocialSecurity benefits?
Barthold: …
https://www.alojapan.com/1273708/expert-panel-suggests-japans-government-make-childbirth-free/ Expert Panel Suggests Japan’s Government Make Childbirth Free #asia #design #economics #government #Japan #JapanNews #JapanTopics #lifestyle #news #policy #SocialSecurity #TaxRevenue #women; The Japanese government should cover out-of-pocket childbirth fees, an expert panel said, as the aging nation seeks to reverse its declining population and shrinking pool of tax-paying workers. The government should “design a specific system by around fis…
On this Day in Social Security History:
#SocialSecurityat90
#StrongerTogether
5/13/1935 The Social Security Bill (H.R. 7260) was reported out by the Senate Finance Committee with amendments, by a vote of 7 to 6.
https://www.ssa.gov/history/tally.html
5/13/1953 Oscar Pogge announced his resignation as the Director of the Bureau of Old-Age and Survivors Insurance, effective May 22. I couldn't find a comprehensive biography. Here he is mentioned, https://www.ssa.gov/history/oasis/oasisnews3.html. Milton Freedman speaks of him in his Oral History interview,https://www.ssa.gov/history/miltforal.html, and here is one of his writings, https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v15n1/v15n1p3.pdf
5/13/2002 The President Signs H.R. 2646 Into Law "Farm Security And Rural Investment Act Of 2002"
https://www.ssa.gov/history/briefhistory3.html
5/13/2005 President George W. Bush discusses Social Security with National Association of Realtors.
https://www.ssa.gov/history/gwbushstmts5b.html#051305
5/13/2011 Social Security Board of Trustees long-range projections estimate that the Trust Funds will be depleted in 2036, one year earlier than predicted in last year's report. https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/TR/2011/II_D_project.html#114863
More Social Security history: https://www.ssa.gov/history & #SSAHistGWC
#SocialSecurity #History #Disability #Retirement #Medicare #Unemployment #insurance #heatlhcare #NewDeal #OTD #SSDI #OASDI #equity #justice Social Security Administration
Elon Musk Got Schooled By An Economics Professor Over His Remarks On Medicare, Social Security As Immigration Lure: ‘Complete Fiction’ https://www.inbella.com/1046995/elon-musk-got-schooled-by-an-economics-professor-over-his-remarks-on-medicare-social-security-as-immigration-lure-complete-fiction/ #CelebritiesNews #EconomicsProfessor #ElonMusk #EntitlementPrograms #FOXBusinessNetwork #IllegalImmigrants #Sanzenbacher #SocialSecurity #UnauthorizedImmigrants
@LibertyOverGov #Philantropy is bad and antidemocratic.
Instead, how about he pays as much #taxes as if his #income (#Tesla & #SpaceX shares valued at market prices at the moment of transfer) was from #WageWork?
- The sheer fact #CapitalGains isn't #taxed higher than wagework and subject to the same fees and demands like #healthcare insurance, #SocialSecurity, etc. IS THE INJUSTICE!
Also #ImageDescription is missing. #plzfix by adding #AltText!
Gig companies "leave workers at the mercy of unstable and subminimum wages, little social protection, and in constant fear of termination without recourse" despite meeting criteria for employee status
https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/05/12/us-major-companies-violate-gig-workers-rights
So did you call your mom?
I did not. I am a bad son, don't be like me.
MrsCopilot is a good one though....
for those of you that did...
How many heard a story about their #SocialSecurity getting cut for the last 4 months and only after repeated in person office visits with family members were promises made about correcting their long admitted mistake?
I would not like to be on the wrong side of "They took my momma's money" even if it was a small group and based on her description it ain't.
#SSA: some employees are running out of paper, pens & printer toner bc #DOGE has placed a $1 spending limit on govt-issued credit cards.
#EPA: research at 11 labs has ground to a halt bc the Trump admin hasn't approved most new lab purchases.
#NOAA: key work on weather forecasting has slowed to a crawl bc COMM Sec Lutnick must sign off personally on many contracts & grants.
Fed agencies: are FAILING. The #TrumpRegime is using #sabotage.
#SocialSecurity #Resist #USPol https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/05/11/trump-government-operations-halt-funding-cuts/
On this Day in Social Security History:
#SocialSecurityat90
#StrongerTogether
5/12/1933 The Federal Emergency Relief Administration was created with an appropriation of $500,000,000. https://users.nber.org/~confer/2004/CR04/WallisFishbackKantor_NewDeal.pdf
5/12/1933 The Agriculture Adjustment Act created the Agricultural Adjustment Administration.
https://federalism.org/encyclopedia/no-topic/agricultural-adjustment-act-of-1933
5/12/1952 H.R. 7800 was introduced by Representative Doughton, Chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means. https://www.ssa.gov/policy/docs/ssb/v15n9/v15n9p3.pdf
5/12/1981 "The Administration offered another legislative package, with 13 additional proposals for Social Security programs, virtually all of which were cuts of various types. Several of these proposals were quite dramatic ..."
https://www.ssa.gov/history/studentbenefit.html
5/12/2009 The Social Security Board of Trustees today released its annual report.
https://www.ssa.gov/OACT/TR/2009/
5/12/2015 SSA.gov Frequently Asked Questions Website Enhancement Selected for the ClearMark Award of Distinction.
https://www.ssa.gov/agency/awards/#year2015
Center For Plain Language
More Social Security history: https://www.ssa.gov/history & #SSAHistGWC
#SocialSecurity #History #Disability #Retirement #Medicare #Unemployment #insurance #heatlhcare #NewDeal #OTD #SSDI #OASDI #equity #justice Social Security Administration