Social Security and Black History Month
Reading Time: 2 MinutesLast Updated: September 29, 2021
In February, our nation honors African Americans by celebrating Black History Month. Recognizing our shared history is one way we can affirm our belief in freedom and democracy for all. For more than 80 years, Social Security has helped secure today and tomorrow with financial benefits, information, and tools for people of countless backgrounds and ethnicities that make up our richly diverse country.
One of our popular tools is the online Retirement Estimator. With it, you can plug in some basic information to get an instant, personalized estimate of your future benefits. Different life events or choices can alter the course of your future, so try out different scenarios such as higher and lower future earnings amounts and various retirement dates to get a good prediction of how it can change your future benefit amounts. You can access it online.
If you find that helpful, we have a number of calculators to help you prepare for retirement.
We also pay disability benefits to people with medical conditions that could prevent them from working for 12 or more months or result in death. If the disabled person has dependent family members, they may also be eligible to receive payments.
We pay disability through two programs: the Social Security Disability Insurance program, for people who have worked and paid Social Security taxes long enough to be eligible, and the Supplemental Security Income program, which is a means-tested program for people who are 65 or older, as well as people of any age, including children, who are blind or have disabilities.
Widows, widowers, and their dependent children may be eligible for Social Security survivors benefits. Social Security helps by providing income for the families of workers who die. In fact, 98 of every 100 children could get benefits if a working parent dies. And Social Security pays more benefits to children than any other federal program.
You can learn more about retirement, survivors, and disability benefits, on our website. Social Security is with you through life’s journey, helping secure today and tomorrow for you and your family. Visit us today.
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About the Author
Jim Borland, Acting Deputy Commissioner for Communications
Jim Borland, Acting Deputy Commissioner for Communications
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Robert A.
If you are going to address Social Security and Black History, you should acknowledge that SS initially excluded many blacks by excluding farm workers and domestic workers.
A. E.
Thank-you! for honoring the rich contributions through investment ,and sacrifices black citizens have made towards our history.
mauricio j.
The White / BLACK Consciousness
novembro 20, 2018
The White / BLACK Consciousness
What I remember is the games, knife, goalkeeper, sky & hell, marble, burned the poor grow in a suburban neighborhood in total racial unconsciousness, freedom and always some spanking because it was also love that is always educate.
Television in the neighboring school my mother said and the way.
I do not remember seeing many black children near my house a family never thought of the dichotomy white or black.
I remember my mother’s saying that my grandfather was better off marrying a poor Black than a bad white.
And so my white conscience only began to notice the black when around the age of 18 there began to be a distancing of some with their awareness and positioning Malcolm X, Dr. Martin Luther King, Mandela, Zumbi what I hope and I think these people read or do not know they looked like they were no longer White objects.
When I think of the substantiated word Black Consciousness I also remember all the adjectives belonging to these terms the consciousness (black of sin, impurity, psychologically the black side of people), and still stigma, rejection and prejudice as opposed to the other white , the wedding dress, the medical profession, the pure, clear, white waters of the angelic white tiete, the Swiss and Antarctic. Divine purity and the sky of clouds
And still the dark mass of my brain as opposed to another
The negritude of Coal and the white and unequaled brilliance of diamonds, that is, pairs of opposites that we can always consider, but we can never conclude because life has no conclusion, it has and requires acceptance.
So I understand and understand the struggle the search for this day of black conscience to remind all those who died for being different due to their color, all the slavery and poverty not only material, but intellectual, cultural and social that the said White Consciousness transmitted and diffused to exist and that despite so many examples I have never been able to absorb either by my own unconsciousness or the white paper that always weighed on me in this society or by not seemingly making part of the groups I participated in or even damaging.
Now I found myself in Morgan Freeman (American African American actor), who seeing his interview under the theme revealed what would be my own perspective did not seek to seek blacks or whites in society, but see in the alter humanity or maybe the greater work is beyond color to see the HUMANITY, DIGNITY, of those who are and are in this place because there is no other possibility for nature can not it ceases to be white, black, mulatto, Indian, Caucasian, yellow, albino etc. .
Unfortunately you can not sing Tom Jobim if everyone was the same as you, what bullshit does not give. Simple as we are not part of linear poetry we can not be, we can not disregard the rainbow, the chameleon.
In addition to what we might think good if we were all Einstein, Illuminated, Buddha / Jesus, Saint Benedict saints, great athletes Owen Johnson, Pele, Magic Johnson, etc., A but we are not small Hitler, Idamim Dada, Mussolini, illiterate, poor miserable.
So in front of the infinite and imperfect beauty of nature and colors, I surrender I am a left handed to my preconception, my social class to my status quo.
Unworthy of being or having a conscience I surrender myself to the anthropophagy of eating reason, conscience, and equilibrium, and I launch into the sea of my solitary anguish, white, mediocre, suburban, and prejudiced.
There is still my black Consciousness of shame and full of excuses, I ask for it. Rui Barbosa was not yet this time that I met my Humanity in the other.
@mauriciopartyguy
Judy P.
Are social security benefits paid to children of elected officials?
V.V.
Thank you for using our blog, Judy. When a parent gets Social Security retirement benefits or disability benefits, his or her child also may get benefits. Children also can get benefits when a parent dies if the parent paid into Social Security. The child can be a biological child, adopted child or stepchild. A dependent grandchild also may qualify.
To get benefits, the child must be unmarried and:
• Younger than age 18;
• A full-time student (no higher than grade 12) 18 to 19 years old; or
• Have a disability that started before age 22 and is 18 years or older.
See our factsheet on Benefits for Children for more information.
Some federal employees and employees of state or local government agencies may be eligible for pensions that are based on earnings not covered by Social Security. If they didn’t pay Social Security taxes on their government earnings, they may not be insured for benefits.
essam e.
thank you so much for keeking me up dated through your letter
Lillian L.
I am trying to do online for my husband for retirement. He will be turning 65 yrs in June 2019. While filling up the form for him, the country (Malaysia) where he was born is not on the drop down box. What can I do as I cannot continue. Calling SSI is of no help. There is a 2 hr wait and I can’t do that.
I am still working, therefore I am able to cover him now. How do I inform SSI so he can be registered as eligible for Medicare Part A but not deduction ?
Pls help. Tks
Walt
Your husband should filing online by himself….not you!!
V.V.
Hi Lillian, thank you for using our blog to ask your question. If the place where your husband was born is not listed, please make sure he is using the name of the country at the time of his birth. The names of countries or places of birth may change over time. For example, an applicant should select “Soviet Union” if they were born in a country that is not in the list but used to be part of the “Union of Soviet Socialist Republics” (USSR). Hopefully he will find this information helpful.