Bank executives take home outrageously high pay cheques. However, according to CBS News: "One-third of bank tellers receive some sort of public assistance, ranging from Medicaid to food stamps, the financial industry employee advocacy group found, citing research from the University of California-Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education.
Years ago I was having dinner with a bunch of rich republicans and I said that no one should make over $24 mil/year (an arbitrary number) and I was called a "pinkie-commie."
I was raised by a single mom with three children. We lived in a project and she supported us first as a waitress, living on tips, and then as an analyst in a bank working for $1 an hour.
She trained men, who were then promoted over her and come time for the Xmas raise, the men got it, she didn't. when she complained the was told that they had families. I do as well she replied, the response ("find a husband")
They probably make even less in FL and TX. Here we have a "sunshine tax" as wages are usually less here than in most blue states.
Plus in NY there is a state safety net that we don't have. We didn't extend Medicaid to working families. We don't have general assistance, i.e. tradiktional welfare, like they still have in NY and CA.
People on SSI, the only federal "welfare" program already live in a fishbowl.
SSI stands for Supplemental Security Income -- administered by the Social Security Administration that provides monthly cash benefits to individuals and families with limited income and resources who are aged, blind, or disabled. The funds are from the budget, not the social security trust funds. SSI a "means-tested" program, as income and resources must be below certain limits to qualify. https://www.ssa.gov/ssi.
Resources include stuff like cash, savings accounts, and certain property, that could be used to meet basic needs. In 2025, the SSI resource limit for an individual is $2,000, and for a couple, it's $3,000. Income limits vary based on factors like the individual's status (student, blind, etc.) and whether they are working.
Many people are eligible for both SSI and Social Security benefits which confuses a lot of people, especially Congressional Republicans. The pitch for the Big Beautiful budget includes removal of fraud and abuse in Medicaid as if the government isn't aready on the case.
Income and resources can vary so that a peron may be eligible one month and not the next. That creates problems with overpayments and underpayments. The process is tiome consuming for SSA employees who could be better allocated to the Ttitle II, retirement and disability program and protect the 3 trillion in trust funds.
When I worked for SSA, the IG and local US attorneys loved to bring charges of fraud, as an object lesson for beneficiaries. Many of the defendats had received SSI on the basis of mental impairments like organic brain syndrome and schizophrenia.
The biggest frausters I knew included our current senator who had to pay the hightst fine in Medicare fraud history and people like
*Philip Esformes: Convicted of a $1.3 billion Medicare and Medicaid fraud scheme, he was freed after serving about 4 1/2 years of a 20-year sentence.
*Salomon Melgen: A Florida eye doctor serving a 17-year sentence for defrauding Medicare out of $42 million through unnecessary procedures, he received a commutation of his sentence.
John Estin Davis: A Tennessee healthcare executive sentenced for over $4.6 million in fraudulent claims to Medicare, he was also granted clemency in the final days of Trump's presidency.
Other individuals who received clemency include:
*Todd Farha, Thaddeus Bereday, William Kale, Paul Behrens, and Peter Clay, former executives of a healthcare maintenance organization convicted of defrauding Medicare or Medicaid.
*Judith Negron, a former owner of a mental health company involved in a $205 million Medicare fraud scheme, whose 35-year sentence was commuted.
* Daniela Gozes-Wagner, who helped falsely bill over $28 million to Medicare and Medicaid.
Paul Walczak, who failed to pay over $10 million in taxes related to nursing homes he controlled.
AI provides: 1. Strengthening Identity Verification:
In-person verification:
Individuals seeking to change direct deposit information or apply for benefits (excluding Medicare, Disability, and SSI) may need to visit a local Social Security office to verify their identity.
Online verification:
The SSA's my Social Security account allows for online identity verification.
New fraud detection system:
The SSA has implemented a new fraud detection system that flags potentially suspicious claims, requiring in-person verification.
2. Penalties for False Statements:
The SSA can impose penalties for knowingly making false or misleading statements or omitting material facts.
Penalties can include fines and even imprisonment.
The SSA will consider all evidence, including any physical, mental, or linguistic limitations, when determining whether to impose a penalty.
3. Fraud Prevention and Reporting:
SSA OIG: The SSA Office of the Inspector General (OIG) investigates and provides recommendations for improving fraud prevention and reporting.
Reporting fraud: You can report suspected fraud to the SSA OIG through their website.
Protect yourself from scams: Be wary of suspicious emails, texts, or phone calls that claim to be from the SSA.
4. Transparency and Accountability:
The SSA is increasing transparency by sharing more information online and making it easier to access services.
The SSA is also working to improve its systems and processes to prevent improper payments.
In essence, the SSA is taking a multifaceted approach to ensure the integrity of SSI benefits. This includes strengthening identity verification, imposing penalties for dishonesty, promoting fraud prevention, and increasing transparency and accountability.
I wish that someone could fully explain the Florida mentality to me.. Why does that state consistently vote for and elect charlatans, grifters, thieves like Rick Scott, Rhonda Santis, Byron Donalds, Marco Rubio.
What's with Florida. Is it the heat and chiggers of the pan handle, the swamp gas of the everglades, the salted air?
The plurality of people are also locked into servitude by debt. Medical debt, mortgages that are near or underwater and of course student loan debt. This last one is the kicker for controlling new graduates. There is now $1.75 trillion in total debt with the average individual loan of $30,000. These debts, which cannot be relieved in bankruptcy court, continue to hunt many throughout their lives.
Here is a breakdown of debt by age from Forbes:
24 or younger $110 billion 7.6 million borrowers
25 to 34 $500 billion 14.9 million borrowers
35 to 49 $622 billion 14.4 million borrowers
50 to 61 $282 billion 6.4 million borrowers
62 and older $98 billion 2.4 million borrowers
Imagine being 65, at an age when you might think about retiring but still having a student loan debt that that has been with you for 40 years.
All of this debt needs to be deducted from the amount of wealth by the bottom 99% because it is a transfer to the 1%. The goalposts for poverty keep getting moved back.
Educational institutions in this country are thieves.
"As Senate majority leader John Thune said yesterday, “The best health care is a job…” What he failed to note was that that’s true of Denmark but not America."
Excellent point!
I know a professor at a college in Finland who loves paying 49% in taxes because she receives excellent free medical care. Education is also free. Not only that, Finish corporations also like paying taxes because they like having smart and healthy employees. How novel....
I am 73 and just found out that I owe 39k for student loans. At 37 I was injured on the job. My back pain was so severe I couldn’t work. I gave my doctor paperwork to sign for relief of student loans. Apparently he never signed them. I didn’t hear a peep about the loan until weeks ago. I have a student loan I have been paying and thought that was all.
I am now retired own a house and receive a small pension, enough to live on. Now I have to worry about paying back the 39k. I don’t know how I am going to handle that! Why didn’t they. Send me any notice for 40 years!
IT'S MESSY! That's because each state has their own methods and practices.
The stats seem to be that 64% of medicaid recipients are already working. That breaks down to 44% full-time and the other 20% part-time workers. Much of the rest are senior and disabled that simply cannot work with about 8% having reasons unknown. That 8% is in for Republican hell, because they won't care about hearing them out on their situation. They like to shoot first and ask questions later.
Republican brains don't do nuance. They want everything to be cut and dry. Cruelty and the resulting pain is what the Trumpsters seem to love.
There's so many stories just like yours. In our case, Mom and Dad divorced but both worked. We needed some help from time to time. Eventually, like your family, the kids became TAX PAYERS, unlike the free-loading rich bitches and corporations that don't pay anything. That's another question.
This article just revealed the secret. We are the richest nation in the world. Republicans and their suckers do not know that, or they have been trained to forget it when it is convenient. Do not forget also that suffering is morally cleansing and beneficial, as well as godly. But most of all, remember that humans (except for the rich and pathologically ambitious) are indolent, self-indulgent, and selfish. It's all just part of "original sin" and human fallibility. Righteous indignation and self-righteousness are at the core of Republican propaganda. Education and information are the issue, which is why they are hell-bent on undermining those things and keeping everyone in the dark and in a state of anxiety.
Follow the money. It literally flies up, like a rocket to the top of the food chain. Top 1%. Some of it showers over and floats downward, where it is quickly gobbled up by scavengers. Next 9%. The seconds and thirds of scavenging then are netted by the next 40%, with the help of the capitalist double-down system called 'credit.' This is where the wannabes live. From their detritus come the leavings for the bottom 50%, who do almost all the dirty work of cleaning up after the top 50 and their waste, fraud and abuse. They borrow all they can, and the interest flies back up to the top. The average CEO compensation is something like 3000 times more than a full-time wage earner. Then come 'inflation,' a clever blaming word that engorges the top even further at what little expense remains to spend at the bottom.
On what? Mostly self-medication - booze, drugs, more drugs, media, sports, gambling, delusional entertainment that dazzles the mob, for a price. Now education, real stuff, threatens the top, because you would not want 60 percent or more of your slaves to see that you have no clothes. Now as to the farce of zero-sum politics, whoever wins gets to play with the funny money. Both 'sides' have their power structures that fawn and bow and scrape to the top 1% and their bankers and insurers. Within this group of savages is the real struggle for survival - who is the nastiest and least honorable and most cunning of the crowd. All this pretense costs crazy sums of money and energy, yielding grotesque pollution and toxicity.
There is no real plan or goal here that logically creates sustainability. The only answer to the impossibility of sustainability is that more of the bottom have to die, yes die. Of any means necessary. AI, robotics, gadgets, huge numbers of police, kangaroo courts, private prisons, homeless encampments, stragglers behind dumpsters or sleeping under bushes somewhere.
Enter Joni Ernst and Black Widow Noem and Mace and Boebert and the like. Trashy fems with haughty rage and guns and advice for the bottom 60 to just 'die.' Motherly love meets too much testosterone. Note that the visible hit men are women, femme fatals for the most part. Scolding all the white males with black and brown males, ginning up the hate and fear and ignorance.
All this 'news' is the pathos of guerilla theatre, or maybe Kabuki theatre. The Wizards of Oz behind the curtain of respectability and rightful arrogance, the gods among men. Barf.
Without the ability to save money, form a group of adventurers (investors) who then invest their own resources, in the expectation of a gaining a return on their investment, we would still be living in hovels, in mud and wattle huts with earthen or straw roofs.
That is pretty much the life of the peasant, the commoner even during the Tudor era.
The problem is not the system, and that system is called capitalism, but of unregulated capitalism. Anything that has or promotes power has the same problem, anti human excess.
Be it the USSR, Russia today, China, Hungary, Turkey, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Rwanda, Chad, anywhere you have unchecked power you have the same problems. And to the list we can add, the USA, at least it is stepping into the fetid swamp.
No William, I cannot agree. Nothing is wrong with a mud hut. The system IS the problem. It is a no sum game, all lose. Let us not lose sight of the fetid swamp by claiming that some goo is better than others.
If you wish to live in a mud hut with no paved roads, modern conveyances, no medical care save that of mid wives and blood letters,and hunting or raising your own dinner. Good of you Mick, But frankly I am a bit spoiled.
Who the eff said that some goo is better than others. I really get pissed when someone puts words in my mouth.
Calling it "the minimum wage" says it right there. It's all parrei.t of the same package that brought us right-to-work laws, a 21st century extrapolation of Arbeit Macht F
The only reason the rich are rich is because of the workers. The only reason the workers are poor is because they don't give a damn about the workers; the rich want all the money themselves. They believe this will work because they hav successfully set the workers against themselves. have successfully ssetbelieve the workers aren't going to do anything about it;
Oh Professor, you knocked the issue right out of the park. I believe you’ve described explained this issue exactly right. People working full time should not need assistance, but they do. And you’re exactly right about the reason. The billionaires are being subsidized by our current effing regime and our too low wages. This whole scheme favoring the morbidly wealthy just sickens me. The propaganda they use to keep this charade going is monstrous. Thank you for telling it like it is. Man are you smart.
Our middle class is is shriveling exponentially, now. We all feel it one way or another.
The middle class developed directly because of well paying jobs and growth. Both of these factors are also shrinking. Billionaires are holding on to their wealth, a practice that seemed to only to increase since the 2009 housing debacle due to greed in the banking industry.
Strong unions are necessary in this country, and remain one of the few protections the middle class has, now. The corporate mindset who control wages and benefits for a vast amount of jobs do not seem to equate the very existence of their companies as employers directly due to the labor that supports them.
Immediate profit and shareholder returns have created a mindset in the corporate world focused on control, cutbacks in wage and raises, and massive layoffs implemented without decent severance or even warning now, being common practice.
The American people are being manipulated and getting whiplash from labor cuts now from Trump’s attempt on blaming waste for the only help the American worker can turn to, now, without strong unions, which is government help. No one wants to turn to getting supplemental help from the government. It’s humiliating. People want to support themselves and that ability is being siphoned off by corporate greed.
Unfair wage practices are sloughed off by big business and the uber-wealthy people who control them and without strong unions or a strong government who passes laws to protect the American worker from these unfair practices, we are helpless against the insatiable avarice of corporate structure.
When hard working intelligent people must work long hours or hold down 2 jobs in order to support themselves and families, and educate their children, we know we’re in trouble.
The American dream is dying and this country feels it. Most of this is directly due to corporate greed and billionaire dreams of an oligarchy. They hoard cash and buy back stock, and control our very political system in order to protect and insulate themselves instead of spreading their wealth and producing a healthy population and economy.
Recently it has become very evident to most of us that the mythology of democracy and rule by the citizens is not self-sustaining and is always under threat by the genetic evolutionary mandate of alpha males who always quest for individual wealth and power. As a small faction accumulates ever more proportions of a society’s wealth it usually comes at the expense of the ordinary citizen. It is then the mythology of democracy crumbles and autocracy takes back control of a society. This has happened before in recent history, but we now witness it anew in an administration elected by a
What does history tell us about this dialectic between evolutionary psychology and mythology? History tells us that this struggle between the mythologies of democracy and egalitarianism and the evolutionary mandate of alpha males to seek power has been in play for thousands of years. The mythology of Christianity itself at its very beginnings was about recognizing and helping the underclass, the least among us until it was suborned by the emperors, the kings, the rich and powerful and power-seeking politicians. Democracy in all its forms has always been venerable to swinging towards autocracy when it is seen by the citizenry as ineffective and taken over by the elites. When the wealth of a society is shunted towards the very powerful as it is wont to do, then democracy is in a perilous position. Then the autocrats can use the very levers of democratic power, elections, to exploit the resentments of the citizenry to take back control. But when the autocrats overstep, when they become totally corrupt, when they endanger the livelihoods and lives of ordinary citizens, in some cases they are run out by popular uprising or sometimes end up on the guillotine and democracy returns in some form. It is a dialectic that has been happening for the last 2000 years and will probably continue for the next. JRH 4/23/25
Thom's point is clear. Welfare subsidizes billionaire profits. Billionaires own or at least feed off most of the health insurance industry - especially given that insureres are increasingly in cahoots with these new HMOs sprouting up everywhere that generate annual fees plus enable overcharging for services that gobble up a chunk of everybody's paycheck.
Higher education too is a scam. Although I worked full-time college through PhD. Debt-free, my return on educational investment caught up to my HS-only and BA age peers quickly once I started working. Most Americans are clueless about money management, and indenture themselves in school debt for years after graduating with a loan that cannot be escaped via bankruptcy.
Of course, Social Security today is a sad joke. Nobody can live on those little monthly checks without an income subsidy derived from private-sector pensions and IRAs. Problem is, most Americans are not taught in HS that building wealth requires living below your means from Day 1 so they can invest unspent income in stocks that take decades to bear enough fruit to live on. Our P2P culture today is ample evidence that most Americans are clueless about money management and preparing for old age.
Since our billionaire oligarchs benefit from a healthy, well-educated workforce, they receive a huge subsidy from our "rigged" economy. Why not tax them to pay for that subsidy?
I've ate a few pounds of those American cheese blocks too. Thank goodness for public assistance when people need it. We must restore Democracy and keep it. What have we learned from this greedy, criminal, billionaire coup? We will have to repair all the damage they have done and improve our democracy.
The loss of purchasing power has been in an ever decreasing rate to the point of impoverishment. Nations grow to end their innovation push by conservative mindsets. They want to keep from changing and or slows it down as much as possible. Religion has many roles they hold to keep exactly the same because of its past successes real and pretended. If the workers have enough to pay for a high standard of life, the nation does well. The great muslim empire had great innovation and standard of living which the later fundamentalist ended. This is happening to America.
How does gold strengthen anything. There is not enough gold in the world to serve as a medium of exchange, and gold as a standard of value is a popular fiction. Gold as a medium of exchange is based on nothing but faith.."fiat" is a Latin word meaning "let it be done" or "yes", fiat is also faith.
The USSR had a 100% gold standard, in which one ruble was equal .9851 grams fine gold. And the number of rubles in circulation was limited to the amount of gold on hand, hence a perpetual depression, which by the most convenient of circumstances, the exigencies of the "cold war" happened to provide a an excuse.
At the time Nixon put the gold standard to rest, all the gold in the Fed and Ft Knox was valued at $42 an ounce. Yet the market price of gold was more than twice that.
If you had surrendered your dollars to a Federal Reserve Bank and demanded gold, for $35 you would get 1 ounce of gold, you could then take it to an exchange and sell it for
over $40 an ounce, hang onto it for a year and you could sell it for over $50 an ounce
hang onto it for two years and you would get $150 an ounce.
And the price of gold is subject to market fluctuations. You don't hear anything or read anything in text books or history books, for that matter, about Gold inflation, or silver inflation.
The exploitation of Mexico and Peru, caused a sudden gold inflation, and it also spurred the renaissance., and it also caused some serious expansionist wars by the Holy Roman Empire, including the conquest of the Low Countries.
Then came the exploitation of the silver mines of Potosi, Bolivia. So much silver was carted out of the mines, that a silver inflation followed, so serious was it that Spain could no longer hold dominion over the low countries
The newly created United States of America, used, at first, the Spanish Real as a medium of exchange cut it into two parts and you have a doubloon, into eight parts and you have pieces of eight. And so it was until the new government, established it's own mint and began minting it's own coins
And the economy hummed along, until the discovery of the Comstock Lode in Nevada.
So much silver was pulled out of the ground, that almost overnight the silver dollar because worthless. Inflation was so bad that in 1893 (which is called the Crime of 83), silver was demonized and gold became the medium of exchange
And the US endured the longest depression of it's history, a seven years depression, with recurring spikes after 1900
It was during that period that Garfield ran for President on a platform of bimetallism, and was shortly assassinated after this election, then McKinley, in his second term decided to go for bimetallism and he too was shortly assassinated. Bimetallism is using both gold and silver as a medium of exchange.
This was the same period in which that racist, theocratic right wing populist, William Jennings Bryan gave his famous Cross of Gold Speech (and in that he was correct, though a proto fascist in all other means.
For those who have watched. This is a Wonderful Life, bankruptcies (where banks were actually ruptured by a run on the banks gold), were as common as a house cold then
Banks would take in deposits of gold, and then issue their own bank notes, and the competitor up the street would start a rumor (actually it was a fact) that the bank had more notes (a note is a liability of the bank) in circulation than it had gold in the vault, and it was the truth, always has been.
The first run on a bank was The Bank of England, shortly after it was granted a monopoly charter by Charles II. The bank stopped the run by hiring the alchemist of the realm, Isaac Newton, as it's 1st Warden of the Mint.
If you want to buy gold, then you have to pay a premium, a commission, if you want to sell gold, again you have to pay a premium, a commission.
A big problem, till Nixon demonetized gold, was that some well heeled vested interests would buy up all the gold they could on the market, thus driving up the price,then when the price hit the peak, they would dump their hoard, take the profit and leave those who didn't have the hoard, screwed.
The profit is always taken in dollars, those worthless fiat products of a printing press, not gold,not silver,not diamonds or platitinum, but dollars.
And eventually , Crypto becomes dollars (or yuan or Euros)
Thom, outstanding article .. you continuously but the nail on the head . These words are so true “Ask them why they think the richest nation in the history of the world can’t afford to guarantee that a full-time job comes with a living wage.”
I’ve been saying this for a long time .. the issues here are between the wealthy and the working people .. THEY ARE NOT RED VS BLUE OR ETHNICITY .. the wealthy keep us fighting with each other through the use of wedge issues .. but beware musk like people .. see what the population of people can do when they get united behind a cause .. burning Tesla’s isn’t the answer .. yet it’s coming to your area soon !!
Bank executives take home outrageously high pay cheques. However, according to CBS News: "One-third of bank tellers receive some sort of public assistance, ranging from Medicaid to food stamps, the financial industry employee advocacy group found, citing research from the University of California-Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education.
In New York state, almost 40 percent of bank tellers and their family members are enrolled in public assistance programs, costing the state and federal governments $112 million in benefits." https://www.cbsnews.com/news/one-third-of-bank-tellers-rely-on-public-assistance/
Years ago I was having dinner with a bunch of rich republicans and I said that no one should make over $24 mil/year (an arbitrary number) and I was called a "pinkie-commie."
I was raised by a single mom with three children. We lived in a project and she supported us first as a waitress, living on tips, and then as an analyst in a bank working for $1 an hour.
She trained men, who were then promoted over her and come time for the Xmas raise, the men got it, she didn't. when she complained the was told that they had families. I do as well she replied, the response ("find a husband")
The NY example doesn't reflect states like FL and TX that did not extend Medicaid and do not have general assistance.
I don't know this as a fact but I bet there are no (0.00) bank tellers in either FL or TX who get public assistance.
It seems that you were saying the tellers need assistance but there's none available for them, correct?
They probably make even less in FL and TX. Here we have a "sunshine tax" as wages are usually less here than in most blue states.
Plus in NY there is a state safety net that we don't have. We didn't extend Medicaid to working families. We don't have general assistance, i.e. tradiktional welfare, like they still have in NY and CA.
NY has other safety net programs we don't. E.G. https://benefitscheckup.org/program/income_ny_ssi
People on SSI, the only federal "welfare" program already live in a fishbowl.
SSI stands for Supplemental Security Income -- administered by the Social Security Administration that provides monthly cash benefits to individuals and families with limited income and resources who are aged, blind, or disabled. The funds are from the budget, not the social security trust funds. SSI a "means-tested" program, as income and resources must be below certain limits to qualify. https://www.ssa.gov/ssi.
Resources include stuff like cash, savings accounts, and certain property, that could be used to meet basic needs. In 2025, the SSI resource limit for an individual is $2,000, and for a couple, it's $3,000. Income limits vary based on factors like the individual's status (student, blind, etc.) and whether they are working.
Many people are eligible for both SSI and Social Security benefits which confuses a lot of people, especially Congressional Republicans. The pitch for the Big Beautiful budget includes removal of fraud and abuse in Medicaid as if the government isn't aready on the case.
Income and resources can vary so that a peron may be eligible one month and not the next. That creates problems with overpayments and underpayments. The process is tiome consuming for SSA employees who could be better allocated to the Ttitle II, retirement and disability program and protect the 3 trillion in trust funds.
When I worked for SSA, the IG and local US attorneys loved to bring charges of fraud, as an object lesson for beneficiaries. Many of the defendats had received SSI on the basis of mental impairments like organic brain syndrome and schizophrenia.
The biggest frausters I knew included our current senator who had to pay the hightst fine in Medicare fraud history and people like
*Philip Esformes: Convicted of a $1.3 billion Medicare and Medicaid fraud scheme, he was freed after serving about 4 1/2 years of a 20-year sentence.
*Salomon Melgen: A Florida eye doctor serving a 17-year sentence for defrauding Medicare out of $42 million through unnecessary procedures, he received a commutation of his sentence.
John Estin Davis: A Tennessee healthcare executive sentenced for over $4.6 million in fraudulent claims to Medicare, he was also granted clemency in the final days of Trump's presidency.
Other individuals who received clemency include:
*Todd Farha, Thaddeus Bereday, William Kale, Paul Behrens, and Peter Clay, former executives of a healthcare maintenance organization convicted of defrauding Medicare or Medicaid.
*Judith Negron, a former owner of a mental health company involved in a $205 million Medicare fraud scheme, whose 35-year sentence was commuted.
* Daniela Gozes-Wagner, who helped falsely bill over $28 million to Medicare and Medicaid.
Paul Walczak, who failed to pay over $10 million in taxes related to nursing homes he controlled.
AI provides: 1. Strengthening Identity Verification:
In-person verification:
Individuals seeking to change direct deposit information or apply for benefits (excluding Medicare, Disability, and SSI) may need to visit a local Social Security office to verify their identity.
Online verification:
The SSA's my Social Security account allows for online identity verification.
New fraud detection system:
The SSA has implemented a new fraud detection system that flags potentially suspicious claims, requiring in-person verification.
2. Penalties for False Statements:
The SSA can impose penalties for knowingly making false or misleading statements or omitting material facts.
Penalties can include fines and even imprisonment.
The SSA will consider all evidence, including any physical, mental, or linguistic limitations, when determining whether to impose a penalty.
3. Fraud Prevention and Reporting:
SSA OIG: The SSA Office of the Inspector General (OIG) investigates and provides recommendations for improving fraud prevention and reporting.
Reporting fraud: You can report suspected fraud to the SSA OIG through their website.
Protect yourself from scams: Be wary of suspicious emails, texts, or phone calls that claim to be from the SSA.
4. Transparency and Accountability:
The SSA is increasing transparency by sharing more information online and making it easier to access services.
The SSA is also working to improve its systems and processes to prevent improper payments.
In essence, the SSA is taking a multifaceted approach to ensure the integrity of SSI benefits. This includes strengthening identity verification, imposing penalties for dishonesty, promoting fraud prevention, and increasing transparency and accountability.
I wish that someone could fully explain the Florida mentality to me.. Why does that state consistently vote for and elect charlatans, grifters, thieves like Rick Scott, Rhonda Santis, Byron Donalds, Marco Rubio.
What's with Florida. Is it the heat and chiggers of the pan handle, the swamp gas of the everglades, the salted air?
We have no "mentality." That may be the problem.
Thanks, Daniel. Great info.
The plurality of people are also locked into servitude by debt. Medical debt, mortgages that are near or underwater and of course student loan debt. This last one is the kicker for controlling new graduates. There is now $1.75 trillion in total debt with the average individual loan of $30,000. These debts, which cannot be relieved in bankruptcy court, continue to hunt many throughout their lives.
Here is a breakdown of debt by age from Forbes:
24 or younger $110 billion 7.6 million borrowers
25 to 34 $500 billion 14.9 million borrowers
35 to 49 $622 billion 14.4 million borrowers
50 to 61 $282 billion 6.4 million borrowers
62 and older $98 billion 2.4 million borrowers
Imagine being 65, at an age when you might think about retiring but still having a student loan debt that that has been with you for 40 years.
All of this debt needs to be deducted from the amount of wealth by the bottom 99% because it is a transfer to the 1%. The goalposts for poverty keep getting moved back.
Educational institutions in this country are thieves.
"As Senate majority leader John Thune said yesterday, “The best health care is a job…” What he failed to note was that that’s true of Denmark but not America."
Excellent point!
I know a professor at a college in Finland who loves paying 49% in taxes because she receives excellent free medical care. Education is also free. Not only that, Finish corporations also like paying taxes because they like having smart and healthy employees. How novel....
I am 73 and just found out that I owe 39k for student loans. At 37 I was injured on the job. My back pain was so severe I couldn’t work. I gave my doctor paperwork to sign for relief of student loans. Apparently he never signed them. I didn’t hear a peep about the loan until weeks ago. I have a student loan I have been paying and thought that was all.
I am now retired own a house and receive a small pension, enough to live on. Now I have to worry about paying back the 39k. I don’t know how I am going to handle that! Why didn’t they. Send me any notice for 40 years!
Our country is a mess. You shouldn’t have to deal with this. Can you get help from your congressman?
I know! I have been ignoring it so far. Thanks for the post!
Good question Thom
IT'S MESSY! That's because each state has their own methods and practices.
The stats seem to be that 64% of medicaid recipients are already working. That breaks down to 44% full-time and the other 20% part-time workers. Much of the rest are senior and disabled that simply cannot work with about 8% having reasons unknown. That 8% is in for Republican hell, because they won't care about hearing them out on their situation. They like to shoot first and ask questions later.
Republican brains don't do nuance. They want everything to be cut and dry. Cruelty and the resulting pain is what the Trumpsters seem to love.
There's so many stories just like yours. In our case, Mom and Dad divorced but both worked. We needed some help from time to time. Eventually, like your family, the kids became TAX PAYERS, unlike the free-loading rich bitches and corporations that don't pay anything. That's another question.
See you in the streets.
Good description of the Republican brain. Black and white makes it easier to grasp, fewer complications. Also, so true of their supporters.
This article just revealed the secret. We are the richest nation in the world. Republicans and their suckers do not know that, or they have been trained to forget it when it is convenient. Do not forget also that suffering is morally cleansing and beneficial, as well as godly. But most of all, remember that humans (except for the rich and pathologically ambitious) are indolent, self-indulgent, and selfish. It's all just part of "original sin" and human fallibility. Righteous indignation and self-righteousness are at the core of Republican propaganda. Education and information are the issue, which is why they are hell-bent on undermining those things and keeping everyone in the dark and in a state of anxiety.
Not the richest in quality of life per capita. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/standard-of-living-by-country#title
Statistics can lie __ if the top 1% are removed we aren't better off.
Follow the money. It literally flies up, like a rocket to the top of the food chain. Top 1%. Some of it showers over and floats downward, where it is quickly gobbled up by scavengers. Next 9%. The seconds and thirds of scavenging then are netted by the next 40%, with the help of the capitalist double-down system called 'credit.' This is where the wannabes live. From their detritus come the leavings for the bottom 50%, who do almost all the dirty work of cleaning up after the top 50 and their waste, fraud and abuse. They borrow all they can, and the interest flies back up to the top. The average CEO compensation is something like 3000 times more than a full-time wage earner. Then come 'inflation,' a clever blaming word that engorges the top even further at what little expense remains to spend at the bottom.
On what? Mostly self-medication - booze, drugs, more drugs, media, sports, gambling, delusional entertainment that dazzles the mob, for a price. Now education, real stuff, threatens the top, because you would not want 60 percent or more of your slaves to see that you have no clothes. Now as to the farce of zero-sum politics, whoever wins gets to play with the funny money. Both 'sides' have their power structures that fawn and bow and scrape to the top 1% and their bankers and insurers. Within this group of savages is the real struggle for survival - who is the nastiest and least honorable and most cunning of the crowd. All this pretense costs crazy sums of money and energy, yielding grotesque pollution and toxicity.
There is no real plan or goal here that logically creates sustainability. The only answer to the impossibility of sustainability is that more of the bottom have to die, yes die. Of any means necessary. AI, robotics, gadgets, huge numbers of police, kangaroo courts, private prisons, homeless encampments, stragglers behind dumpsters or sleeping under bushes somewhere.
Enter Joni Ernst and Black Widow Noem and Mace and Boebert and the like. Trashy fems with haughty rage and guns and advice for the bottom 60 to just 'die.' Motherly love meets too much testosterone. Note that the visible hit men are women, femme fatals for the most part. Scolding all the white males with black and brown males, ginning up the hate and fear and ignorance.
All this 'news' is the pathos of guerilla theatre, or maybe Kabuki theatre. The Wizards of Oz behind the curtain of respectability and rightful arrogance, the gods among men. Barf.
Without the ability to save money, form a group of adventurers (investors) who then invest their own resources, in the expectation of a gaining a return on their investment, we would still be living in hovels, in mud and wattle huts with earthen or straw roofs.
That is pretty much the life of the peasant, the commoner even during the Tudor era.
The problem is not the system, and that system is called capitalism, but of unregulated capitalism. Anything that has or promotes power has the same problem, anti human excess.
Be it the USSR, Russia today, China, Hungary, Turkey, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Rwanda, Chad, anywhere you have unchecked power you have the same problems. And to the list we can add, the USA, at least it is stepping into the fetid swamp.
No William, I cannot agree. Nothing is wrong with a mud hut. The system IS the problem. It is a no sum game, all lose. Let us not lose sight of the fetid swamp by claiming that some goo is better than others.
If you wish to live in a mud hut with no paved roads, modern conveyances, no medical care save that of mid wives and blood letters,and hunting or raising your own dinner. Good of you Mick, But frankly I am a bit spoiled.
Who the eff said that some goo is better than others. I really get pissed when someone puts words in my mouth.
Then stop putting your own in others. You are not the only broken egg in the carton.
I put my words in your mouth? Where?
I don't know about your egg, sounds like it is broken, mine isn't, not that I noticed. Hard boiled, maybe :), broken no. Not that fragile.
So you always say. Your fierceness is always ahead of the damage you leave behind when you plant your flag on some dead ground you call your victory.
Retired former IAMAW steward here. Union strong, Mr. Hartmann!
The right’s mantra: I’ve got mine, look over there, GFY”.
These are fascists. They want ours.
Calling it "the minimum wage" says it right there. It's all parrei.t of the same package that brought us right-to-work laws, a 21st century extrapolation of Arbeit Macht F
The only reason the rich are rich is because of the workers. The only reason the workers are poor is because they don't give a damn about the workers; the rich want all the money themselves. They believe this will work because they hav successfully set the workers against themselves. have successfully ssetbelieve the workers aren't going to do anything about it;
Oh Professor, you knocked the issue right out of the park. I believe you’ve described explained this issue exactly right. People working full time should not need assistance, but they do. And you’re exactly right about the reason. The billionaires are being subsidized by our current effing regime and our too low wages. This whole scheme favoring the morbidly wealthy just sickens me. The propaganda they use to keep this charade going is monstrous. Thank you for telling it like it is. Man are you smart.
Our middle class is is shriveling exponentially, now. We all feel it one way or another.
The middle class developed directly because of well paying jobs and growth. Both of these factors are also shrinking. Billionaires are holding on to their wealth, a practice that seemed to only to increase since the 2009 housing debacle due to greed in the banking industry.
Strong unions are necessary in this country, and remain one of the few protections the middle class has, now. The corporate mindset who control wages and benefits for a vast amount of jobs do not seem to equate the very existence of their companies as employers directly due to the labor that supports them.
Immediate profit and shareholder returns have created a mindset in the corporate world focused on control, cutbacks in wage and raises, and massive layoffs implemented without decent severance or even warning now, being common practice.
The American people are being manipulated and getting whiplash from labor cuts now from Trump’s attempt on blaming waste for the only help the American worker can turn to, now, without strong unions, which is government help. No one wants to turn to getting supplemental help from the government. It’s humiliating. People want to support themselves and that ability is being siphoned off by corporate greed.
Unfair wage practices are sloughed off by big business and the uber-wealthy people who control them and without strong unions or a strong government who passes laws to protect the American worker from these unfair practices, we are helpless against the insatiable avarice of corporate structure.
When hard working intelligent people must work long hours or hold down 2 jobs in order to support themselves and families, and educate their children, we know we’re in trouble.
The American dream is dying and this country feels it. Most of this is directly due to corporate greed and billionaire dreams of an oligarchy. They hoard cash and buy back stock, and control our very political system in order to protect and insulate themselves instead of spreading their wealth and producing a healthy population and economy.
Recently it has become very evident to most of us that the mythology of democracy and rule by the citizens is not self-sustaining and is always under threat by the genetic evolutionary mandate of alpha males who always quest for individual wealth and power. As a small faction accumulates ever more proportions of a society’s wealth it usually comes at the expense of the ordinary citizen. It is then the mythology of democracy crumbles and autocracy takes back control of a society. This has happened before in recent history, but we now witness it anew in an administration elected by a
What does history tell us about this dialectic between evolutionary psychology and mythology? History tells us that this struggle between the mythologies of democracy and egalitarianism and the evolutionary mandate of alpha males to seek power has been in play for thousands of years. The mythology of Christianity itself at its very beginnings was about recognizing and helping the underclass, the least among us until it was suborned by the emperors, the kings, the rich and powerful and power-seeking politicians. Democracy in all its forms has always been venerable to swinging towards autocracy when it is seen by the citizenry as ineffective and taken over by the elites. When the wealth of a society is shunted towards the very powerful as it is wont to do, then democracy is in a perilous position. Then the autocrats can use the very levers of democratic power, elections, to exploit the resentments of the citizenry to take back control. But when the autocrats overstep, when they become totally corrupt, when they endanger the livelihoods and lives of ordinary citizens, in some cases they are run out by popular uprising or sometimes end up on the guillotine and democracy returns in some form. It is a dialectic that has been happening for the last 2000 years and will probably continue for the next. JRH 4/23/25
Thom's point is clear. Welfare subsidizes billionaire profits. Billionaires own or at least feed off most of the health insurance industry - especially given that insureres are increasingly in cahoots with these new HMOs sprouting up everywhere that generate annual fees plus enable overcharging for services that gobble up a chunk of everybody's paycheck.
Higher education too is a scam. Although I worked full-time college through PhD. Debt-free, my return on educational investment caught up to my HS-only and BA age peers quickly once I started working. Most Americans are clueless about money management, and indenture themselves in school debt for years after graduating with a loan that cannot be escaped via bankruptcy.
Of course, Social Security today is a sad joke. Nobody can live on those little monthly checks without an income subsidy derived from private-sector pensions and IRAs. Problem is, most Americans are not taught in HS that building wealth requires living below your means from Day 1 so they can invest unspent income in stocks that take decades to bear enough fruit to live on. Our P2P culture today is ample evidence that most Americans are clueless about money management and preparing for old age.
Since our billionaire oligarchs benefit from a healthy, well-educated workforce, they receive a huge subsidy from our "rigged" economy. Why not tax them to pay for that subsidy?
I've ate a few pounds of those American cheese blocks too. Thank goodness for public assistance when people need it. We must restore Democracy and keep it. What have we learned from this greedy, criminal, billionaire coup? We will have to repair all the damage they have done and improve our democracy.
The loss of purchasing power has been in an ever decreasing rate to the point of impoverishment. Nations grow to end their innovation push by conservative mindsets. They want to keep from changing and or slows it down as much as possible. Religion has many roles they hold to keep exactly the same because of its past successes real and pretended. If the workers have enough to pay for a high standard of life, the nation does well. The great muslim empire had great innovation and standard of living which the later fundamentalist ended. This is happening to America.
Not religion. In 1971 we traded gold for the petrodollar. OPEC has been undermining our economy since 1973. This used to be a bipartisan issue. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Oil_Producing_and_Exporting_Cartels_Act
We are not in the top ten per capita internationally according to World Population review. https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/standard-of-living-by-country#top-10-countries-with-the-highest-quality-of-life-mid-2024---numbeo
Oman is in the top 10.
How does gold strengthen anything. There is not enough gold in the world to serve as a medium of exchange, and gold as a standard of value is a popular fiction. Gold as a medium of exchange is based on nothing but faith.."fiat" is a Latin word meaning "let it be done" or "yes", fiat is also faith.
The USSR had a 100% gold standard, in which one ruble was equal .9851 grams fine gold. And the number of rubles in circulation was limited to the amount of gold on hand, hence a perpetual depression, which by the most convenient of circumstances, the exigencies of the "cold war" happened to provide a an excuse.
At the time Nixon put the gold standard to rest, all the gold in the Fed and Ft Knox was valued at $42 an ounce. Yet the market price of gold was more than twice that.
If you had surrendered your dollars to a Federal Reserve Bank and demanded gold, for $35 you would get 1 ounce of gold, you could then take it to an exchange and sell it for
over $40 an ounce, hang onto it for a year and you could sell it for over $50 an ounce
hang onto it for two years and you would get $150 an ounce.
And the price of gold is subject to market fluctuations. You don't hear anything or read anything in text books or history books, for that matter, about Gold inflation, or silver inflation.
The exploitation of Mexico and Peru, caused a sudden gold inflation, and it also spurred the renaissance., and it also caused some serious expansionist wars by the Holy Roman Empire, including the conquest of the Low Countries.
Then came the exploitation of the silver mines of Potosi, Bolivia. So much silver was carted out of the mines, that a silver inflation followed, so serious was it that Spain could no longer hold dominion over the low countries
The newly created United States of America, used, at first, the Spanish Real as a medium of exchange cut it into two parts and you have a doubloon, into eight parts and you have pieces of eight. And so it was until the new government, established it's own mint and began minting it's own coins
And the economy hummed along, until the discovery of the Comstock Lode in Nevada.
So much silver was pulled out of the ground, that almost overnight the silver dollar because worthless. Inflation was so bad that in 1893 (which is called the Crime of 83), silver was demonized and gold became the medium of exchange
And the US endured the longest depression of it's history, a seven years depression, with recurring spikes after 1900
It was during that period that Garfield ran for President on a platform of bimetallism, and was shortly assassinated after this election, then McKinley, in his second term decided to go for bimetallism and he too was shortly assassinated. Bimetallism is using both gold and silver as a medium of exchange.
This was the same period in which that racist, theocratic right wing populist, William Jennings Bryan gave his famous Cross of Gold Speech (and in that he was correct, though a proto fascist in all other means.
For those who have watched. This is a Wonderful Life, bankruptcies (where banks were actually ruptured by a run on the banks gold), were as common as a house cold then
Banks would take in deposits of gold, and then issue their own bank notes, and the competitor up the street would start a rumor (actually it was a fact) that the bank had more notes (a note is a liability of the bank) in circulation than it had gold in the vault, and it was the truth, always has been.
The first run on a bank was The Bank of England, shortly after it was granted a monopoly charter by Charles II. The bank stopped the run by hiring the alchemist of the realm, Isaac Newton, as it's 1st Warden of the Mint.
Can cash in. https://www.metalsdaily.com/live-prices/gold/
Try cashing in a $TRUMP.
If you want to buy gold, then you have to pay a premium, a commission, if you want to sell gold, again you have to pay a premium, a commission.
A big problem, till Nixon demonetized gold, was that some well heeled vested interests would buy up all the gold they could on the market, thus driving up the price,then when the price hit the peak, they would dump their hoard, take the profit and leave those who didn't have the hoard, screwed.
The profit is always taken in dollars, those worthless fiat products of a printing press, not gold,not silver,not diamonds or platitinum, but dollars.
And eventually , Crypto becomes dollars (or yuan or Euros)
"And eventually , Crypto becomes dollars (or yuan or Euros)."
Requires a suspension of disbelief.
Of which their is no shortage, "Who is President? What do Americans believe? "Jesus saves what?"
Thom, outstanding article .. you continuously but the nail on the head . These words are so true “Ask them why they think the richest nation in the history of the world can’t afford to guarantee that a full-time job comes with a living wage.”
I’ve been saying this for a long time .. the issues here are between the wealthy and the working people .. THEY ARE NOT RED VS BLUE OR ETHNICITY .. the wealthy keep us fighting with each other through the use of wedge issues .. but beware musk like people .. see what the population of people can do when they get united behind a cause .. burning Tesla’s isn’t the answer .. yet it’s coming to your area soon !!