Because of the collapse in the real estate market, experts say that thousands of seniors who need assisted living or nursing home care are remaining in their homes longer because they can't sell or get the price they need to cover their long term care. According to Harris Meyer, in an article for Kaiser Health News, the situation is leaving families under pressure to either pay for their parents' placement with their own money, or to provide care themselves. .Instead, locality pay increases are intended to keep the salaries of current federal workers competitive with private sector jobs in the same locality pay area. The Bureau of Labor Statistics measures non-federal compensation in a particular market and compares it to federal pay for federal employees who perform similar work in the same region. The gap between the two helps determine the locality pay adjustment for a specific area in a given year. .It is anticipated that one of the orders will be to shift drug and medical production to this country by suddenly cutting off federal agencies from those offshore supply chains. .The Social Security Trustees estimated last year that SS payroll taxes in 2020 would be about 3.8 billion under average economic conditions. Thus the 6 billion cost of the payroll tax provision in the CARES Act appears to be as much as 42% of all anticipated Social Security revenues for 2020. .The last thing we need to happen to our healthcare system is to limit access to quality care. Already, 1-in-3 physicians are limiting the number of Medicare patients they see, and 1-in-8 physicians are refusing Medicare patients all together. Furthermore, the Affordable Care Act created the Independent Payment Advisory Board to control Medicare cost. This would place 15 bureaucrats, appointed by the president, in a position to control the future of Medicare and is another example of the Federal Government forcing themselves into your health care decisions. .Each month, due to the Social Security Act Amendments that were signed into law in 1977, more than 3.7 million Notch babies receive Social Security checks that are lower than the benefits they originally anticipated. Last year, Representative Mike McIntyre (NC-7) introduced the Notch Fairness Act, a bill that would provide modest compensation to those who were born in the Social Security Notch, or those years between 1917 and 192Even though TSCL lobbies aggressively in favor of the Notch Fairness Act, many Members of Congress believe that the bill's passage is unlikely this year because it would add approximately .9 billion to a growing deficit. To offset the cost of the Notch Fairness Act, we've come up with three fair and responsible options that we hope Congress will consider. First, Congress could increase efforts to reduce waste, fraud, and abuse. .With over 1 million supporters, The Senior Citizens League is one of the nation's largest nonpartisan seniors groups. Located just outside Washington, D.C., its mission is to promote and assist members and supporters, to educate and alert senior citizens about their rights and freedoms as U.S. Citizens, and to protect and defend the benefits senior citizens have earned and paid for. The Senior Citizens League is a proud affiliate of The Retired Enlisted Association. .Have you calculated how much you might need? How much income would be lost if you or your spouse were to pass away? There's a loss of retirement income, particularly when the higher benefit spouse dies. The couple's Social Security benefit is cut by one-third to one-half, and a couple's private pension benefit (if any) is either cut in half, or disappears completely if you have not opted for a joint-and survivor annuity. If you have a large estate, thriving business, valuable real estate and savings, would there be estate taxes to pay? Some families choose to keep life insurance because the death benefits are tax free to heirs, and can give the surviving spouse a financial cushion. .TSCL has filed three lawsuits under the Freedom of Information Act requesting copies of the agreement and other information and has placed ads in The Washington Times in opposition to the proposed agreement. We will continue to closely monitor the totalization matter.