by guest blogger John Aebi
A bill has been introduced to increase the social security death benefit:
From The Sun of San Bernardino, CA:
Americans who lose a spouse would get
more money from Social Security under a bill introduced by Rep. Joe Baca, but critics worry the plan would put more pressure on an entitlement system already on the verge of going broke.
When a Social Security recipient dies, their surviving spouse receives a one-time payment of $255, but they miss out on their spouse’s regular Social Security check for that month.
Baca, D-San Bernardino, wants to change that, giving surviving spouses a larger “death payment” and a check for the deceased’s final days. …
Baca’s bill – called the Benefit Adjustment of Social Security Income Compensation, or BASIC – calls for increasing the size of the death payment from $255 to 47 percent of the deceased person’s typical monthly Social Security income, with $255 as the minimum payment.
The bill also calls for paying Social Security benefits for each day – not just each whole month – a recipient lives. At present, Baca’s office said, the spouse of a Social Security beneficiary who dies May 15 will not receive their spouse’s check for May. Baca’s plan would send a check for half the month, on top of the death payment.
I doubt whether this bill has a chance of passing in this economic climate but we need to do something about the death benefit – either abolish it or make it more meaningful. At the moment, it probably costs about as much to administer it as it does to actually pay the benefits. If we are going to have a death benefit that it ought to be several times the Primary Insurance Amount (PIA), that is the monthly amount paid to the primary beneficiary on an account. The present amount ($255.00) just isn’t very helpful and costs too much to administer.
