It's not fair!

dfollin, I agree that this is not fair! I am currently having financial difficulty myself and trying to get on disability for medical reasons. I haven't been able to hold a steady job in years and now I can't work at all. I had a job over in China, but I had to leave that to come back to the state for medical treatment for a recurrence of ovarian cancer. I was lucky enough to have enough money to pay for my plane ticket to get home, but now I need to figure out how to get my treatments paid for. I know that the hospital will be billing me for the surgery that was done and it will be the same when they start the chemo. But back to the topic...I don't know what it will take to get the cost of living raise back again. From what I understand, the raise that occurred 2 years ago after the high gas prices caused the problem. I guess they are waiting for the prices to go up to the same rate they were at that time before they offer another raise. I don't think that is fair to anyone since it isn't your fault that the prices went up and then back down again. I wouldn't want the prices to go back up to the rate they were that year anyway. As far as the illegals go, I think that they should lock them up and make them work until they make enough money to pay for their plane ticket and then send them home. I think they need to start having chain gangs or something similar again for any criminal so that people would be forced to earn their keep. On the books, they would be "paid" minimum wage, but they might get $1 of that for personal use and the rest should be applied to their keep and/or their plane ticket home. It might not be a solution for everything, but it might help. What do you think?

You seem to have some very real arguments. I am also on SS and did get a raise this year so I don't know why you didn't. I am an american citizen. I am on SSD and it is due to severe ailments. As far as illegal aliens go they should leave the country. And America has welcomed aliens for centuries. American has been a melting pot for all its history. I live in an a low income apartment complex that over the last two years has become 75% aliens. We had a festival last Summer with foods from all countries and it was very interesting.

My son is on social security disability. His checks have not gone up but they did go down by twenty dollars last year. We called to find out why and were told that it is because the government determined that we do not pay as much for rent as other people do. We live in a mobile home that is owned by my mother-in-law so we pay lot rent. They said that we can not get that twenty dollars back unless we move and are paying more. The twenty dollars was taken out of his money without them even telling us that they were going to do that so we had our bills budgeted to include the twenty dollars that they took away. We had to cancel some of the payments and totally re-do our budget. We keep getting letters saying that costs have not increased but they must not be shopping at the same stores as I am or paying for the same gas I am because it is more expensive now than it used to be. Uncle Sam is only out for himself. If you owed him taxes he would want them yesterday but if you are getting a refund you have to wait.

With any company as big as a government there will always be someone loosing out. At least you get social security. I was told to my face that even though I am a fulltime student who doesn't live remotely close to my parents and managed to support myself on 10 hours work a week whilst paying rent and bill, I don't qualify for any assistance. Also I technically don't exist as I am independent of my family but earning so little I was classed as dependent. I'm an 'alien' in my own freaking country. I can't even get sent back to my family as they live in the same country as me. I work hard and pay taxes out of the tiny amount I get (money that should be buying me food) and I have classmates who have filthy rich parents, live at home AND have more than $20000 in trust funds and they get paid out more than twice what I need to live! It should be all or nothing. Everyone gets assistance until they earn a certain amount each year then they get nothing. None of this you can but you can't cr@p.