Thank you Mr Secretary Concerning Social Security paymen...
“Thank you Mr Secretary Concerning Social Security payments, my contributions were made for over 40 years on every salary I received. Those jobs may not have always been the work I wanted to be doing at the time, BUT I always had a job. The Social Security check is now (or soon will be) referred to as a "Federal Benefit Payment?" I'll be part of the one percent to forward this. I am forwarding it because it touches a nerve in me, and I hope it will in you. Please keep passing it on until everyone in our country has read it. The government is now referring to our Social Security checks as a "Federal Benefit Payment." This isn't a benefit. It is our money paid out of our earned income! Not only did we all contribute to Social Security but our employers did too. It totaled 15% of our income before taxes. Congress took our money and used it elsewhere. They forgot (oh yes, they knew) that it was OUR money they were taking. They didn't have a referendum to ask us if we wanted to lend the money to them. And they didn't pay interest on the debt they assumed. And recently they've told us that the money won't support us for very much longer. And now, to add insult to injury, they're calling it a "benefit", as if we never worked to earn every penny of it. Just because they borrowed the money doesn't mean that our investments were a charity! Let's take a stand. We have earned our right to Social Security and Medicare. Demand that our legislators bring some sense into our government. Find a way to keep Social Security and Medicare going for the sake of that 92% of our population who need it. Then call it what it is: Our Earned Retirement Income. 99% of people won't Cut and Paste this to their timelines. Will you? Please, for the sake of our country, Copy & Paste. It's important!”
Summary
The term “federal benefit payment” is a generic classification used for many government entitlement disbursements, including Social Security, and has been in use for years. There is no recent official renaming of Social Security checks to “Federal Benefit Payment,” and fact‑checking organizations have confirmed the claim is false. The payments remain officially called Social Security benefits.
Sources 57 searched
- Payments from the Government | Bureau of the Fiscal Service
Mandatory Spending (Direct Payments): Funds entitlement programs mandated by law, such as Social Security (retirement, disability, survivor benefits) and Medicare (hospital, home health, etc.). COVID-19 Relief: Economic Impact Payments (stimulus checks) and enhanced Unemployment Compensation.
- Social Security Transitions to Electronic Payments | News | SSA
... Effective September 30, in accordance with Executive Order 14247, Modernizing Payments To and From America’s Bank Account, federal benefit payments will primarily be issued electronically, with paper checks being phased out in most cases.
- FICA & SECA Tax Rates
Social Security's Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance (OASDI) program and Medicare's Hospital Insurance (HI) program are financed primarily by employment taxes. Tax rates are set by law (see sections 1401, 3101, and 3111 of the Internal Revenue Code) and apply to earnings up to a maximum amount for OASDI. The rates shown reflect the amounts received by the trust funds. In certain years, the effective rate paid by employees, employers, and/or self-employed workers was less than the rate received by the trust funds, with the difference covered by general revenue.
- Contribution and Benefit Base
Cost of Living Adjustment
- Benefit Payment | TFX: Treasury Financial Experience
Green Book: As defined in Title 31 CFR part 210, a benefit payment is a payment for a federal entitlement program or for an annuity, including, but not limited to, payments for Social Security, Supplemental Security Income, Black Lung, Civil Service Retirement, Railroad Retirement annuity and ...
- Topic no. 751, Social Security and Medicare withholding rates | Internal Revenue Service
The current tax rate for Social Security is 6.2% for the employer and 6.2% for the employee, or 12.4% total. The current rate for Medicare is 1.45% for the employer and 1.45% for the employee, or 2.9% total.
- No, Social Security payments were not renamed 'Federal Benefit Payments' | Snopes.com
The Social Security Administration has long classified its disbursements in such a manner and there is no evidence that this is a recently implemented or official name change. As such, we rate this claim as false.
- FACT CHECK: Social Security as 'Federal Benefit Payments'
The terminology is also not unique to Social Security, as the phrase "federal benefit payments" applies to a broad class of payments made to (or on behalf of) individuals under federal government programs — everything from Social Security ...
- Social Security payments have always been called “benefits”
Part of that text says: “The government is now referring to our Social Security checks as a ‘Federal Benefit Payment.’ This isn’t a benefit. It is our money paid out of our earned income!
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