Social security

Trump issues surprise endorsement of bipartisan paid leave bill in State of the Union address

President Trump, for the first time, endorsed a bipartisan proposal in Congress to extend paid leave to families after the birth or adoption of a child.

The bill Trump backed in his State of the Union address Tuesday night, the Advancing Support for Working Families Act, would allow parents to draw on future child tax credits to pay for leave.

It leverages a portion of the 2017 Republican tax overhaul, which doubled the child tax credit for parents to $2,000 a year. The bill would give parents the option to receive $5,000 from the child tax credit upfront and then would lower their tax credit to $1,500 a year for the next 10 years. Parents otherwise get $2,000 a year for each of their children under the age of 17.

The bill has the backing of several members of Congress and was led by Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, a Democrat. The backing from the president is likely to encourage more lawmakers to sign on. Before last summer, Democrats and Republicans had never aligned before on providing for paid parental leave, but interest in the issue has been growing with the encouragement of senior White House adviser and first daughter Ivanka Trump.

...The United States stands in contrast to other industrialized nations in that it has not set a mandatory or subsidized leave policy, though Trump signed a spending bill into law that will extend paid leave to federal workers later this year. Under the 1993 Family Medical Leave Act, employers with 50 workers or more must allow 12 weeks of leave every year so employees can care for a new child or an ill relative, but in most cases, the leave isn't paid.

Social security

China's technology revolution is leaving its senior citizens behind

Zhang Zhixia is sitting in a black metal chair, flipping through handouts about telecom fraud prevention with her reading glasses on. She is back in class after leaving school almost five decades ago.

The 62-year-old former Beijing kindergarten teacher is all ears. She is determined not to be left behind by China's technology revolution.

In Zhang's lifetime, China has gone from an economic backwater to one of the world's largest economies, with a population that has, for a large part, embraced the rapid pace of technological change.

There are already 890 million users of mobile phone payment apps across China, for example. In urban China, many people have gone almost completely cashless, at a faster pace than many more advanced economies.

Everything from coffees to cars can be purchased with a simple tap on the mobile screen. But that has left some elderly people feeling left behind.

Every week, Zhang attends "cell phone classes" run by a volunteer group, See Young, in Panzhuang, an area of Soviet-style residential compounds in northwestern Beijing...

Social security

Americans' Ideal Retirement Age -- and Why It's Not Realistic

Many of us dream about retirement, and that includes younger workers who have yet to really pay their dues. Now, there's nothing wrong with looking forward to retirement and even planning an early exit from the workforce. But Americans on a whole may be a bit misguided when it comes to this particular milestone. In a new Bankrate survey, U.S. adults across the board said that the ideal age to retire is 61. But whether that's realistic is a different story.

Can you live without Social Security in retirement?

Though the typical American can't live on Social Security alone in retirement, those benefits currently help millions of seniors keep up with their bills. Eligibility for benefits, however, does not begin until age 62, so the fact that those surveyed think 61 is the perfect age to retire means they either don't know that that's too soon to collect Social Security, or they assume they can get by without those benefits.

Social security

Vladimir Putin's popularity dips amid retirement age proposal

President Vladimir Putin's popularity has taken a hit amid a controversial proposal to raise Russia's retirement age.

The plan was unveiled against the backdrop of host country Russia’s exciting run to the quarterfinals of soccer's World Cup, with some critics accusing the Kremlin of trying to bury the news by announcing it during the tournament.

Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said the government wants to raise the retirement age for men up to 65 from 60 by 2028, and for women up to 63 from 55 by 2034.

The announcement came on June 14, the same day that Russia beat Saudi Arabia 5-0 in the opening game of the World Cup.

The proportion of Russians who said they would vote for Putin fell by eight percentage points within a week — with 54 percent supporting him, compared to 62 percent beforehand, according to the FOM pollster.

FOM said Putin's approval rating also dropped six percentage points to 69 percent from 75 percent. State pollster VTsIOM showed a 5 percentage point drop.

Social security

Military overhauls retirement system in biggest shift since World War II

The military is overhauling its retirement system next year, and members should be prepared for the biggest structural changes since World War II.

“[The reforms] came about over the last seven years or so, both to try to continue to retain outstanding people in the military while reducing the overall costs of military retirement for taxpayers,” retired Brig. Gen. Michael Meese, current COO of the American Armed Forces Mutual Aid Association (AAFMAA), told FOX Business.

The new so-called “Blended Retirement System” (BRS) goes into effect on Jan. 1, 2018.

Here’s what will change and how members can take advantage of those changes.

What’s changing?

Under the legacy retirement system, military members receive no retirement benefits unless they serve for 20 years, at which point they get a pension that’s equal to 50% of their last pay.

Social security

European welfare benefits help fund ISIS fighters


Governments across Europe have accidentally paid taxpayer-funded welfare benefits such as unemployment funds, disability pensions and housing allowances to Islamic State militants who have used the money to wage war in Iraq and Syria, authorities and terrorism experts say.

Danish officials said this week that 29 citizens were given $100,000 in public pension benefits because they were considered too ill or disabled to work, and they then fled to Syria to fight for the radical group.

Denmark has one of the world's most generous social-welfare systems, which provides eligible unemployed people up to $120 a day. In addition to trying to reclaim the benefits accidentally disbursed, the government is trying to tighten legislation for welfare claims made by suspected militants.

Social security

British nuclear weapons workers to go on strike over Atomic Weapons Establishment pensions dispute

Employees responsible for manufacturing and maintaining the UK’s nuclear weapons are to go on strike.

Workers at the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) are to stage two 48-hour walk-outs as part of a long-running dispute over pensions.

Unite said 600 of its members, who work as managers, craft and manual workers at the AWE’s two sites at Aldermaston and Burghfield in Berkshire, will strike on 18 and 30 January.

A spokesperson said workers felt “deeply betrayed” by promises made decades ago guaranteeing their pensions, when they were transferred from the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to the private sector, being broken.

Social security

Veterans Day brings some relief from a negative political campaign

Trump promises every veteran will have “the choice to seek care at the VA or at a private service provider of their own choice.”

Obama also had good news, including an 85 percent increase in funding for veterans. “We’ve cut veteran homelessness almost in half.  Today, more veterans have access to health care and fewer are unemployed,” he said. “We helped disabled veterans afford prosthetics.  We’re delivering more mental health care services to more veterans than ever before because we know that not all wounds of war are visible.”

The White House listed other accomplishments, including 1.7 million people getting $68.9 billion in education benefits since 2009 under the Post-9/11 GI Bill. The administration also has launched a multi-agency military apprenticeship program to help service members “improve job skills and obtain industry-recognized credentials and certificates while on active duty.”

Social security

Trump to propose deduction on childcare spending: aide

U.S. Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump will propose allowing parents to deduct spending on childcare from their income taxes in a speech on Monday meant to challenge the economic policies of Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, a campaign aide said.

The aide, who asked not to be identified, said on Sunday in outlining the plan: “We don’t want it to be an economic disadvantage to have children.” The aide said the campaign would have a more detailed childcare plan in the future.

A wealthy businessman seeking his first public office, Trump seeks to counter Clinton's argument he is out of touch with the problems of working families. He will also say that, unlike Clinton, his business policies would encourage companies to remain in the United States, a concern of blue-collar workers he has tried to court, the aide said.

Social security

Report: VA mistakenly classified 4,200 veterans as dead

More than 4,200 veterans were mistakenly declared dead and had benefits cut off by Veterans Affairs officials over a five-year span, according to new department data that shows the problem was much bigger than previously believed.

The issue came to light after a congressional inquiry in 2015 by Rep. David Jolly, R-Fla., who for the last few years has been tracking multiple constituents’ complaints about premature death notices.

After initially estimating the total veterans affected as around a dozen each month, VA released new information on the problem this week, pegging the mistakes as harming more than 70 veterans a month.

“These numbers confirm our suspicion, that mistaken deaths by the VA have been a widespread problem impacting thousands of veterans across the country,” Jolly said in a statement.

Social security

Why Your Social Security Benefits Aren't Secure

The Congressional Budget Office has warned that Social Security's $2.8 trillion trust fund will run dry within 13 years. The reality is that this scenario, or something close to it, is pretty much a foregone conclusion. At this point, even major benefit cuts won't be able to avert a big budget hit.

Despite decades of presidential commissions plotting Social Security reform, Congress is still going full tilt toward that iceberg, seemingly oblivious. Democrats are debating whether to raise benefits for everyone or just for the poor, even as the program's sizable cash deficits are about to multiply.

Social security

Trustees rating financial health of Social Security, Medicare as problems loom from baby boom

The federal government's two largest benefit programs face short- and long-term financial problems as they close in on milestone anniversaries. The magnitude of those problems will become clearer when the trustees for Social Security and Medicare issue their annual report cards.

Last year, the trustees said the trust fund that supports Social Security's disability program would run dry in 2016. Unless Congress addresses the shortfall, it would trigger an automatic 19 percent cut in benefits right in the middle of a presidential election.

Social security

Watchdog finds ex-Nazis got $20.2 million in Social Security

Elfriede Rinkel's past as a Nazi concentration camp guard didn't keep her from collecting nearly $120,000 in American Social Security benefits.Rinkel admitted to being stationed at the Ravensbrueck camp during World War II, where she worked with an attack dog trained by the SS, according to U.S. Justice Department records. She immigrated to California and married a German-born Jew whose parents had been killed in the Holocaust.