Struggling With the Social Security Bureaucracy

No, this is not the name of a book, a ballet or a movie, just a reason why I have not been posting as much as I would like lately:  I have been struggling with the Social Security bureaucracy in my attempts to get my children's benefits restored.

In 2013 I turned 66 and filed for social security.  I was asked at the time I filed whether I had children under 18 and I said yes, I have two.  They said each of them was entitled to $1000 a month until they turned 18, though originally they only received $750 a month in order to keep the total for the three of us at the maximum of $3500.  I was told only that the money had to be used for the children's benefit, so we put the money in mutual funds for their eventual use in college.  The children's benefits were sent with mine each month and in 2014 I filed copies of the mutual fund reports with Social Security.  Then in 2015 I continued to put money in the mutual funds and when I filed my report that year I was told, by mail and phone, that the money had to be in federally insured accounts and the payments to the children were suspended.  I promptly asked where that was in the Social Security laws and was cited Program Operations Manual System for SS PR 07240.035, regulations that apply to New York State and say nothing about requiring federally insured accounts (one can look them up online). Social Security kindly sent me a printed copy of "Kansas City Area Regulations" which does require a federally insured account!

At this point we decided to just move the children's money to federally insured savings accounts and we sent copies of that bank information. "return receipt requested," to Social Security offices in both Jamaica and Brooklyn, since we had heard from both offices, and included an appeal to restore the children's money.  For a month we heard nothing and I could not reach anyone at Social Security who could tell us the status of our appeal.  So then, in early January, it was time to contact Senator Chuck Schumer's office.  In January 1996 we had taken Amtrak to Washington D.C. to see the Vermeer show at the National Gallery; we had tickets to the sold-out show.  When we arrived in Washington the National Gallery was closed because of the snowstorm, which had just started when we left New York, and we pounded on doors of the Gallery, to no avail.  So we turned around and went drearily back to New York, walking from Grand Army Plaza to Windsor Terrace because the F train, which goes aboveground, was no longer running.  A couple of days later I called Chuck Schumer's office -- he was our Congressman at that time -- to see if there was anything he could do to get us tickets to the sold-out show.  Unfortunately there was nothing he could do, though he did at least try (and eventually we saw all the Vermeers at shows here and in Holland, except for The View of Delft, which was in the US when we were in Holland and back to The Hague when we returned to America!) 

I was by no means sure that Senator Schumer could help me with Social Security but his website has a form I filled out, detailing my struggles with SS.  Two days later I received a call from Social Security to ask if I could fax them the information about the children's bank accounts.  I said I had sent that information four times to two different addresses and her response was "well, maybe it's here somewhere but please fax it anyway to my attention," which I proceeded to do.  Then I received an e-mail from Schumer's office asking if I had received that call from Social Security and I said "yes I have but I can't confirm that they have restored the money."  So Schumer's office checked with their "source at SS" and wrote back to me that I should have the money restored this week;   it is now in the bank!  Schumer's office told me to contact them if I had any other problems with SS.

Interestingly, I had talked with a financial adviser and directly and indirectly with two different lawyers about my problems with Social Security and no one suggested contacting my elected representatives.  I think many of us have become too cynical about Congress -- with good reason -- and the idea of "writing to your Congressman" has become rather a joke. But I strongly recommend one contact a Senator or Representative before one becomes enmeshed in the bureaucracy of a government agency.