Learning about the lump sum death benefit up on the roof
Chapman Museum hosting popular Cemetery tour on Sept. 28
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The Social Security office finally called back when I was on the roof painting the cupola.
When I called an hour earlier I was told there was a 60-minute wait, but if I left my number they would call me back. The message also told me if I was calling to check on a disability claim, the average wait was 200 to 260 days, so an hour's wait didn't seem so bad.
Can you imagine having to wait nine months on a disability claim. Now that is an issue Elise Stefanik should try to fix.
So there I was up on the roof with a paint brush in one hand and a phone in the other.
I explained my wife had passed away three weeks earlier and I was reporting her death as required and wondering if my Social Security would change at all.
The pleasant woman added her condolences and then asked me for the usual identifying information for myself and my wife. But when she asked for my wife's social security number, I confessed that I did not have it at my fingertips because I was on the garage roof.
"Oh my," the pleasant woman exclaimed.
Perhaps, considering the circumstances she thought that the 60-minute phone call wait had pushed my grief to another level that included a leap off the garage.
"Don't fall off," she said as I explained I would have to go into the house to get the numerical information.
She insisted this was the only path forward unless I wanted to call back and get in the 60-minute line again.
"If you can hold on, I'll go inside and get you the information," I told her.
"Please, please be careful," she said and I wondered if she had previously talked callers off the roof before.
"Now, I'm getting very nervous," she said.
I found that response unusual since I was the one up on the roof reporting the passing of his spouse.
After giving her the Social Security number, she explained my benefits would not change, but that I was entitled to a one-time death benefit of $255.
That seemed like an odd number, and since I was safely on the porch now, I asked the woman why was I getting $255. It seemed like an unusually specific number.
"You know, I've asked before about that and no one seems to know," she replied. "It's always been that number as long as I've been there."
"Obviously, it is not for funeral expenses," I replied, "because that would not even pay for the flowers."
She agreed and seemed to have some insight into the cost of flowers for a funeral, but I did not ask.
So I did a little research.
The Lump Sum Death Benefit was part of the original 1935 legislation for Social Security, although it was not intended as a "burial benefit" but as equity for individuals who retired before the age of 65.
By 1939, the Lump Sum Death Benefit was changed into a "survivor benefit" and would be 3.5 percent of the individual's earnings.
By 1952, the maximum payable death benefit was up to $85 - still not enough to pay for a funeral - so in 1954, Congress decided it was appropriate to triple the amount of the death benefit to help cover funeral costs.
Do the math.
Three times $85 brought us to $255.
It's been this way ever since.
By the time I found all this out, the Social Security woman was on to other customers who I imagine were not on a roof.
In 1960, the average cost of a funeral was $706.
By 2019, it was $7,600.
The lump sum death benefit has not changed in 70 years and Congress has not had the foresight to triple at any point since 1954.
I think that is outrageous.
I'm thinking of writing Elise Stefanik a letter and telling her that the $255 for the death of my wife is not enough.
In fact, it is a little insulting.
It's been a week now and I still have not received the $255.
That's fine. I have no idea what I would spend it on anyway.
Cemetery tour
The Chapman Museum is once again sponsoring its popular Cemetery Tour on Saturday, Sept, 28 from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Pine View Cemetery off Quaker Road in Queensbury.
Local actors will bring you the stories of Margaret McEchron Bowden and Katharine Bowden Cunningham, Lucy Montgomery Wooster Chapman, Addison and Marie Colvin, Bill Dineen, Dr. Royal Eddy, and Poodles & Gracie Hanneford.
There will be five Walking Tours: 10 a.m., 10:30 a.m., 11:30 a.m., 12 p.m., 1 p.m. and two golf cart tours for those not up to the walk at 11 a.m. and 12:30 p.m.
Tickets are $20 person ($15 for Chapman Museum members) and you need to reserve a spot by calling the Chapman at 518 793-2826.
Paying the bills
I don't know about you, but I pay most of my bills online and rarely need a first class postage stamp.
While preparing to send out a large number of thank you cards recently, I went to the post office and bought a couple books of "forever" stamps. It occurred to me, I no longer knew the cost of one stamp.
I was kind of shocked to learn it was now 73 cents.
I think I'll stick with paying the bills online.
Ken Tingley spent more than four decades working in small community newspapers in upstate New York. Since retirement in 2020 he has written three books and is currently adapting his second book "The Last American Newspaper" into a play. He currently lives in Queensbury, N.Y.
When I buried my parents several months apart a few years back I learned more than I ever wanted to know about funerals. Down in Philly, where they were from, a basic funeral was well over $10,000. That was without a hearse (people apparently don't do hearses any more) or a wake in the funeral parlor. Or the funeral lunch of course. If you need to buy a plot and headstone, add that on, too. I've heard of budget cremations as low as $3500, but I was pretty shocked overall at funeral expenses. And if someone is in nursing care, all of their money might be depleted by the time they pass, so those preplanning funeral accounts are important; you can set aside a certain amount that Medicaid won't claw back.
The other thing is, money gets locked down in the estate when someone dies. My Dad went first, and he and Mom owned everything jointly, including bank accounts, so the money was not an issue, But when Mom passed, her bank account froze. I had POA while she was alive and knew Mom wasn't going to be with us long so I moved $10,000 into a funeral account a few months before her death. I then moved more money right before she died to pay bills I didn't want to wait two years to pay while they wound down her (very) little estate; like money owed to her caregivers.
All of that is TMI, but I was shocked at how expensive it is to die. I have made no plans for myself,, but I do now have $100 per paycheck go into a set aside bank account I think of as a funeral account. Once that is big enough, I'll put it into a prepaid funeral account.
I found social security to be one of the easiest to deal with. (Verizon Wireless is still trying to bill me for my dead Dad's cell phone; Verizon was hands down the worst of them). I activated the online social security accounts for Mom and Dad (mysocialsecurity) and just did everything through that.
Sorry you are dealing with all of this.
The United States, in many ways, is inhumane to the living and the deceased. I was corresponding with a friend recently and she told that she and her husband plan to move to out of the States while healthy because she wanted to die with dignity. She is not poor, but her experiences with her parents’ end of life care has disgusted her.