into existing federal space.

DOGE closures affect regions in the Southeast, Midwest, Northeast, and Western US.

The Southeastern US has been the most affected, with nearly half of all closures occurring in Georgia, Alabama, North Carolina, Mississippi, and Arkansas.

I believe those states have counties with large minority populations. They pull the same with voting.

Nm

Elizabeth city is plurality AA, Roanoke Rapids is over 1/3 AA, To be fair, Franklin and Greenville are whiter cities but Greenville is a college town.

is that to gain entry into a Federal Building after May of this year (I think) one MUST have a REAL ID card. Regular driver's license will no longer be accepted as a valid form of citizenship identity. So... if you can't do it over the phone, and you can't get a REAL ID, you're shit out of luck.

I bring this up because I went through my second go-around trying to get a REAL ID card at my DMV. The whole system is slanted against women. I'm about to have to face Texas via phone calls and who knows what else to try to "fix" a white-out problem on my last marriage certificate. This is absolutely ridiculous. But this REAL ID card will become the de facto identifying paper where you identity is concerned. Damn GW Bush for this, and all the submissive women who said "no problem." Besides having to trace every aspect of your lineage where men are concerned with you, you end up paying money you may or may not have. As well as contend with clerks who seem to get their logic from the Twilight Zone.

This actually happened a couple years ago when my DL was (temporarily) suspended. The mechanism for getting a Real ID wasn't that difficult. It was actually easier than getting a drivers license, since there's no drivers test you have to pass. Luckily for me, I had a copy of my birth certificate, and my IDs are still in my maiden name. If a married woman can show a marriage license that documents her maiden name and married name, it shouldn't be too difficult.

Pro tip for women: If you should be divorced, I recommend changing your married name back to your maiden name to avoid difficulties.

To those that did, live and learn, to those that didn't, going to be a tough row to hoe.

so I had to schedule an appointment to make sure my payments would start as soon as possible. I moved to the Bay Area last year and looked up where the office was and there wasn't one. I had to schedule a phone appointment weeks in advance. Then when I spoke to the agent, he was working from home. They don't have an office in the East Bay. at all. I'm tech savvy so I knew what was needed and have had an account with SS for several years online.

I got my spouse's started entirely online without any delay in the start of payments. Unless they dismantle the system, I plan on doing the same for mine when I turn 70 in 2 years.

Or the month you turn 70 that you can apply or receive benefits?

Are you worried and thinking about getting it sooner? I am.

I don't plan on taking them earlier.

I retired 3 months before my spouse turned 70, so we had income to cover expenses while I was working - and no real reason to start drawing hers earlier. Once I retired, I started receiving a defined benefit plan (roughly 67% of my final average salary). We also each had about $30,000 in annuities that we could draw down in the period between retirement and when I turn 70 - so we spread the withdrawals from those two accounts over the period between my retirement and when I turn 70. And we're both pretty frugal. So money flow isn't an issue - and my parents are still alive at 93, so it is likely that I will live long enough to make waiting for maximum benefit a better option.

Since it is Congress that has to change Medicare, I'm relatively comfortable that it is not going to significantly change. And since I'm 18 months from turning 70, I'm pretty confident that any changes will roll in so that I won't be impacted. (Normally when Congress makes big changes they are rolled in over time so that the impact doesn't hit people who don't have time to plan for it - like when they rolled in the change to normal retirement age.)

I didn’t want to wait to collect and created a profile online 20 some years ago. I did it all online because it’s been available that long. I think that anyone younger than me being offline is something I never considered. Even my late mother had an email account she used on her computer.

Which is pretty similar to Social Security. When I called their number the canned message said there was a 1-2 hour wait but by pressing 1 they will call back when it is my turn. I am in the middle of that 1-2 hour wait. My guess is that it will be more than 2 hours.

It's a glitch in the computer,a fuck up or whatever but fraud? No fucking way.

Pretty simple,people need to pay back the overage and that's it.

Complex interaction of multiple retirement accounts - some of which were left with the trustee, some of which were converted to privately managed retirement funds, and a SS questionnaire that doesn't cover all of the scenarios that should (or at least should have) triggered a WEP reduction. And no clear statement of what the payment would have been without WEP, the reduction, and which retirement accounts triggered the WEP (to serve as a check on whether the payment was calculated properly)

As soon as one of the accounts that WAS reported triggered an inquiry and request for more information when it converted from money sitting out there to money being paid, the follow-up communication made it clear they intended to ask about a second retirement account (even though none of their questions actually asked about it). No intent to defraud - which is required for fraud. But an overpayment nonetheless.

Fortunately, the inquiry came within a year. Unfortunately, the adjustment was made in November, the overage has been partially repaid, but thanks to elimination of WEP most of it wasn't actually an overpayment. So now we're stuck in limbo because the new adjustment has to be hand-processed.

Trump is following the Project 2025 playbook to privatize Social Security, something my sister-in-law never took the time to read.