Social Security Story Archives - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

‘I’m retiring. I’m not quitting’: Cecil Roberts Looks Back On UMWA Career

He says that in his 30 years at the head of the union, no achievement was more important than saving the health care and pensions of tens of thousands of retired coal miners.

Cecil Roberts will step down as president of the United Mine Workers of America in October.

He says that in his 30 years at the head of the union, no achievement was more important than saving the health care and pensions of tens of thousands of retired coal miners.

Roberts spoke last week with Curtis Tate about that effort and his coming retirement.

Tate: I’m just wondering if you have any reflections on that, any thoughts about that effort and the folks who participated?

Roberts: Oh, absolutely. There has never been a more dedicated group of people than those retirees who made the trip to Washington, D.C., lobbying for their pensions and health care. I’ve had senators and House members alike tell me, both Republican and Democrats, by the way, that they never saw a more effective group of people coming on Capitol Hill and lobbying with those camouflage shirts that they wore time and time again to Capitol Hill.

They went for about eight bucks a shot, and when you buy them in mass, they out-lobbied people on K Street that had a $10,000 suit on, so yes, those are the most, they are, and they were the most dedicated people that you ever meet. And I’m, I worry about all of the effort that they put into saving their pensions and health care.

Where we stand with that, everywhere you look, there’s been cuts made, and this billionaire, the richest man on earth telling other people who work for a living, well, we don’t need Social Security. And people say, he never said that. And he said, when you say it’s a Ponzi scheme, you don’t have much faith in Social Security. Social Security is something that people depend on. People have paid into. They deserve to keep it and along with their Medicare and this issue of doing away with Medicaid to people who are the poorest people in the country.

The question it really is to me, is, what kind of nation are we? And I think when we do analysis of that, I think we need to keep Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid. I think we need to keep the pensions and health care people have earned in this country. Remember, people work for these benefits, and people pay for these benefits, and they ought to retain them.

Tate: I wanted to ask you about your recent announcement that you’re stepping down later this year. How are you feeling about that?

Roberts: Well, I think the same way most people have been doing something they love for a long time. It’s somewhat mixed emotions, but I’m dealing with reality here, unless I plan on living to 120 now. Is probably the best time to consider retiring. I will miss this job every day, but I also realize that John L. Lewis left here and the union continued to move forward. Mother Jones left the union, and the union continued to move forward.

This union will be fine, because Brian Samson is going to make a great president. I’m proud of the many things that we’ve gotten done here. People talk about this legislation we passed in 2019 for 180,000, probably in that neighborhood, people’s pensions and health care.

I don’t think it’s something that’s been done by anybody else, but back in 1989 during the Pittston strike, the issue on the table in that strike was pensions and health care. They just said they weren’t paying for it anymore, and we ended up winning that strike. And in two years we passed legislation, the first coal act incorporated into the law that 107,000 people would have health care guaranteed by the government.

Then, unbelievably, a few years later, we’re back in the middle of that fight again. So we’ve been fighting here for pensions and health care since I’ve been an officer. Ironically, when I was born in 1946, 15 miles up Cabin Creek Road in a company house, delivered by a company doctor. My dad was on strike for pensions and health care.

Tate: Wow.

Roberts: Yeah, the first 1946 legislation that passed, my dad was striking at that time, and the first day I walked into the district office. It’s an amazing thing. Health care had been cut in July, the first across this country by health retirement funds, and that happened the day I walked in the door in the district. So this has been with me since the day I was born, and I hope that Brian doesn’t have to contend with this anymore, because this is a crowning achievement of the United Mine Workers going all the way back to 1946.

But look, I’m 78 years old. Most people know that I’ve got a form of leukemia that I brought back with me from Vietnam and didn’t know it, and was diagnosed with it about two years ago. I’m in remission now, and I’m thinking, ‘Well, I’m blessed.’ I’ve got my health back and where it should be doing this job as president. For 30 years. I was vice president for 13. I was in vice president district 17 for five and a half years, I worked in a coal mines five and a half years, I was in the army for two years in Vietnam for a year.

I think it’s a career that needs to be in the rearview mirror. More than likely, and most likely, I’ll be available to do anything Brian Samson needs me to do, and I’ll lobby for if he wants me to. I’ll get arrested if he wants me to, I’ll picket if he wants. I’ll do whatever he needs me to do. I’m retiring. I’m not quitting.

Looking Back At 2024 Legislative Sessions

The 2024 West Virginia legislative sessions may be an indication of what’s to come in 2025: contentious debate, bills that unexpectedly die in committee, and others signed into law.

Among many other issues, the 2024 legislative sessions – both regular and special – saw tax cuts made, book bans argued over, school discipline debated and moonshine distilling allowed at home.

A special legislative session called last fall saw then-Gov. Jim Justice get a 2% state income tax cut pushed across the finish line. It means a decrease in state revenue of about $46 million.

That goes along with a 4% personal income tax that went into effect in January 2025 because the state hit an economic trigger.

Single West Virginia tax filers who made over $50,000 per year, and joint filers who made over $100,000 per year used to have to pay taxes on social security income. In 2024, the legislature passed, and the governor signed, House Bill 4880, a bill that will eliminate the social security tax for all earners.

A contentious proposal regarding schools, libraries and obscene material sparked a legislative culture war battle in 2024. The fight was over removing public and school libraries and museum exemptions to West Virginia’s law against displaying or disseminating obscene material to minors. One side said the bill would better protect students and teachers. The other side said working standards were already in place, calling the measure a book ban and censorship bill. The bill died in a Senate committee.

In 2024, the legislature heard alarming testimony from West Virginia preschool through sixth grade teachers. Speaking in several legislative interim committees, educators statewide told chilling stories of physical dangers from violent grade school student classroom behavior.

Those teachers implored legislators to address the desperate need for heightened school discipline measures. Two issues heavily debated in 2024 – to address grade school discipline and a teacher bill of rights – both died before the final gavel.

A Constitutional amendment regarding euthanasia and a bill aimed at curbing youth vaping were among pieces of legislation completing their journeys on the last day of the 2024 legislative session

Voters passed House Joint Resolution 28 in November. The amendment says, “No person, physician, or health care provider in the State of West Virginia shall participate in the practice of medically assisted suicide, euthanasia, or mercy killing of a person.” It allows for administering medicine to alleviate pain and discomfort for a dying patient, and allows withdrawal of life-sustaining treatment.

The vaping bill (House Bill 5394) added electronic smoking devices to the list of tobacco products prohibited to sell to anyone under age 21. The list now includes e-cigarettes, e-cigars, e-pipes, vape pens and e-hookahs, and accessories such as filters, rolling papers, blunt or hemp wraps and pipes.

The legislature passed (House Bill 5294) that liberalizes how West Virginia breweries, distilleries and farm wineries sell and give away samples, on and off site. The measure makes this growing industry more competitive with neighboring states.

After some either intoxicating or sobering floor debate, House Bill 4793 passed. The new law allows for private home distilling of moonshine – five gallons for a household with one adult; 10 gallons for a household with two or more.

W.Va. Joins 39 Other States Without Social Security Tax

Single filers who made over $50,000 per year, and joint filers who made over $100,000 per year used to have to pay taxes on social security income. However the legislature passed, and the governor signed, a bill that will eliminate the tax for all earners.

Gaylene Miller, state director for AARP says this will affect the more than 50,000 West Virginians who were paying Social Security tax.

“We heard loud and clear from our members that that’s double taxation,” Miller said. “They paid on that income when they were in the workforce. Social Security, thankfully, was never intended to fund the state government.”

The cut will take place over the course of three years, progressively cutting down how much Social Security earners pay each year. The law is backdated to cover all of 2024.

Some lawmakers raised questions around the bill asking if it was a worthy expenditure on the premise that retirees are not as beneficial to the state’s economy as working age individuals. And that this money could be used elsewhere to attract and retain working age West Virginians to the state. However, Miller said this tax cut will likely be recycled back into local economies.

“Those folks who get this meaningful tax relief will spend it in the community. So, it’s being reinvested,” Miller said. “It’s an attraction for retirees to come to West Virginia as well.”

The cut will put West Virginia in line with all of its border states of Virginia, Ohio, Maryland, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania that have no tax on Social Security.

Senate Education Chair Weighs In On Bills To Address Educational Problems In W.Va.

On this episode of The Legislature Today, from staffing to security, West Virginia’s schools are facing a variety of issues. Bills introduced this year have ranged from associate degrees for vocational students to reducing barriers to teacher certification. Chris Schulz spoke with Senate Education Chair Sen. Amy Grady, R-Mason, about legislative action to address the state’s educational problems.

On this episode of The Legislature Today, from staffing to security, West Virginia’s schools are facing a variety of issues. Bills introduced this year have ranged from associate degrees for vocational students to reducing barriers to teacher certification. Chris Schulz spoke with Senate Education Chair Sen. Amy Grady, R-Mason, about legislative action to address the state’s educational problems.

In the House, lawmakers considered bills on third reading that included cutting the Social Security tax, getting broadband fiber optic cable on poles, and making it easier to visit certain gravesites. Randy Yohe has the story.

In the Senate, the chamber looked at bills on missing children, SNAP benefits, and Oil and Gas property taxes. Briana Heaney has more.

Also, the House Education Committee moved to address a critical shortage of special education staff, while the Senate Education Committee took a rarely seen action in their meeting. Chris Schulz has the story.

Finally, war hero Hershel “Woody” Williams was honored at the U.S. Capitol following his death. Now, a statue of him could be on permanent display there. Curtis Tate has more.

And, scientific and social research has to start somewhere. On Undergraduate Research Day at the Capitol you can learn how theory and hypothesis develop into pragmatic information meant to help people.

Having trouble viewing the video below? Click here to watch it on YouTube.

The Legislature Today is West Virginia’s only television/radio simulcast devoted to covering the state’s 60-day regular legislative session.

Watch or listen to new episodes Monday through Friday at 6 p.m. on West Virginia Public Broadcasting.

Organization Connects Seniors With Retirement Savings Services

A real problem facing many older adults is having enough money for their retirement. News Director Eric Douglas spoke with Josh Hodges, the chief customer officer for the National Council on Aging, to learn about the help that is available for retirees and caregivers.

A real problem facing many older adults is having enough money for their retirement.

News Director Eric Douglas spoke with Josh Hodges, the chief customer officer for the National Council on Aging (NCOA), to learn about the help that is available for retirees and caregivers.

This interview has been lightly edited for clarity.

Douglas: Do me a favor, start out by giving me a quick introduction of who you are and what you do.

Hodges: Josh Hodges, I’m the chief customer officer at the National Council on Aging, or NCOA. We’re a national nonprofit, have been around for about 75 years, focusing on helping people age well. That can mean a bunch of different things. We have programs on the health aspects, focusing on helping people live healthy, planning for that stage of their life. We have employment opportunities.

We also have a lot of opportunities around economic security to help people have the money they need in retirement, help them stretch their dollars. I’ve been at NCOA for about four and a half, almost five years. Before that I spent over 10 years with the federal government doing aging programs.

Douglas: What are some of the tips that people need to know, as they’re getting older, as they’re getting into retirement age, to care for themselves and plan for the future?

Hodges: Well, they are two major drivers of running out of money. First, longevity. People live longer than they expect. For a 65-year-old, there’s a decent chance you’re gonna live to be 85. That’s especially true for women. There’s also long-term care costs of longevity, and then the cost of care later in life.

As any caregiver knows, long-term care is a series of caregiving opportunities that you need to help older adults continue to live in a home, or in an assisted living facility type place. And long-term care can be extremely expensive. It’s one of the things people don’t like to talk about, we don’t like to talk about the fact that we may need help getting around our community, we need help getting around the house, or making meals. We don’t, as a society, like to talk about those things.

Long-term care is really driving the fact many older adults age into poverty, again, especially true for women. So, one thing we like to do in NCOA is really focus on — how do we help you stretch your dollars? There are federal programs out there and state programs out there to help you really make your money work every month. These are programs that you can apply for that have certain qualifications about their age, or income qualifications, that really help people make those daily expenses possible.

Douglas: Let’s talk about some of those programs, some of the ways that seniors can stretch their dollars to survive 20 or 30 years without a direct income stream other than retirements and social security.

Hodges: I would use some of these programs as supplements, opportunities to help you make those dollars do more. For example, Medicare is not free. Many people think it’s free, it’s this free program at the end of their life where they have access. There are premiums, there are co-pays, there are drug costs to it, and each of those areas have programs to help low-income older adults pay for those things.

One program to help pay for prescription drugs can save somebody an average of $5,000 a year. Now imagine you’re an older adult living in poverty, living at, you know, $12, $14, $15, $20,000 a year — $5,000 in your pocket is pretty significant and it gives you access to the drugs. What we don’t want is what happens in this society, is that people trade off their medication for their food, for their housing, they’re making these incredibly challenging tradeoffs. Having the opportunity to actually connect to these programs to help pay for food, pay for housing, pay for electricity, pay for your Medicare, are our opportunities that we really want to make sure older adults understand.

Douglas: What’s the scale? I mean, when you see TV advertising, you see happy senior citizens out traveling the world and going on vacations. I think we all know in the back of our heads that, that’s not reality for most people. But do you have any sense of the scale of how many people are just kind of eking by versus the ones who are living their best retirement?

Hodges: Our data shows tens of millions of older adults are barely making ends meet. You’re describing the idealized retirement. You get your gold watch after 40 years in a corporate job, then you move off to the Bahamas and you have a nice drink with an umbrella. That’s not the reality for many, many people in this country, because there are just so many different costs at play here. And because again, people are underestimating how long they’re going to live and definitely underestimate how much things cost.

These programs I’m talking about, there are $30 billion, that’s billion with a B, left on the table every year. These are dollars that older adults do qualify for but aren’t actually applying and getting benefits because many of them don’t even apply.

Douglas: In trying to care for my mom, that was one of the issues that I kept running into as a caregiver, I didn’t have a clue how to even get started with that kind of stuff. Where does somebody go to learn about these programs and get signed up for or get registered to take advantage of them?

Hodges: I think you really identified the first major hurdle, just knowledge of these programs. So NCOA runs a website — benefitscheckup.org. It helps people understand what benefits they may qualify for. We’re a nonprofit, we’re not trying to sell you anything. We’re not trying to collect your information, we’re not going to even ask you for your email address. We’re just going to ask you some basic demographic information about yourself, what zip code you live in, how many people live in your household, whether you’re a veteran or not. Some of these programs are dependent on veteran status.

This website gives you a sense of what coverage you may qualify for, then we connect you to where you actually apply for the benefits, because so many of these benefit programs are actually on state websites, are on third party websites. We want to connect you right to the programs themselves.

Douglas: What are the numbers we’re talking about? What does the average older adult qualify for?

Hodges: Average is a hard thing to do. We see many older adults who qualify for a Medicare savings plan or extra health. These are programs, they’ll pay for your Medicare. Extra Help is a program to help pay for your prescription drugs, we see numbers above $5,000 a year. Now it depends on what prescription drugs you’re on, it depends on your individual situation. But we’re not talking about pennies here, we’re talking about hundreds if not thousands of dollars.

The bottom line for an older adult or a caregiver: take a look. If you don’t qualify, you don’t qualify, but there are many programs out there designed to help older adults. Some of them are not income dependent. There are programs to help in different parts of the country, too, for local transportation that’s age specific, but not income specific; programs like the National Parks Pass to let you get into the national parks. Many people don’t know these things exist, but they’re out there to save you money.

Douglas: What haven’t we talked about?

Hodges: I think there are really two things to stop people from applying for these benefits. The first is knowledge, and so that’s one of our goals, get information out there. The second is this thought that there are people out there who need the benefits more, so I shouldn’t apply, because I’m doing okay. But these programs expand to meet the eligible individuals. If you don’t apply for the benefit that you would qualify for, somebody else doesn’t get more money. So don’t let that stop you, don’t prevent you from applying for these benefits. These benefits are there for people at all sorts of different income levels. And again, it takes about five minutes to see if you’re qualified for them.

If you prefer a one-on-one approach, we run a national call center. And you can give them a call between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. eastern, seven days a week to talk to folks. That number is 1-800-794-6559. You can call them, and they’ll actually walk you through what benefits you might be eligible for or connect you to a local resource.

Social Security Benefits Will Increase in 2023

Citing record high inflation and higher food costs, the Social Security Administration announced Wednesday an 8.7 percent increase in benefits set to begin in 2023.

Citing record high inflation and higher food costs, the Social Security Administration announced Wednesday an 8.7 percent increase in benefits.

In West Virginia, nearly half a million social security recipients will see about $145 added to their benefits starting in January 2023.

This is the largest one-time increase since 1981.

Gaylene Miller, state director of AARP WV, said the announcement was “welcome news” for the state’s social security recipients. The average monthly social security benefit is $1,500 in the state, she said.

“Inflation has hit everyone hard, but people who are on a fixed income, particularly that rely solely on social security, are really having a hard time making ends meet and being able to pay rising utility costs, rising price of groceries and rising cost of prescription costs,” Miller said.

About one fourth of the state’s social security recipients 65 and older rely almost entirely on their benefits, according to Miller.

She also noted that social security recipients use their benefits to inject $7.9 billion into the state’s economy every year.

The announcement comes on the heels of news that Medicare Part B premiums will drop 3 percent next year.

Kilolo Kijakazi, acting commissioner of the Social Security Administration, said the changes “will give seniors more peace of mind and breathing room.”

“This year’s substantial Social Security cost-of-living adjustment is the first time in over a decade that Medicare premiums are not rising and shows that we can provide more support to older Americans who count on the benefits they have earned,” Kijakazi said in a news release.