What Do You Know About Social Security?

Most everyone thinks of social security as a retirement plan for those who are 65 or over. Actually the program benefits many other groups, especially children. You may be skeptical as was an employee of a small Rappahannock county concern with whom I talked several weeks ago who said, "How will social security help my children?" I'll tell you as I told him. That around number card you carry with you amounts to much more than just your name and a long number. It represents an insurance policy on which you make payments every time your employer hands you a pay check.

You have probably asked yourself a dozen times. "If something happened on me, how would my family get along? How far could my wife stretch the monthly payment from my life insurance?" Here is an actual case where social security benefits are a great help to a small family. I won't use the real names. Mrs. Stevens told me that her husband had died, leaving three small children. After talking with her awhile, I realized that I had seen her husband often on trips to that section of my area. He was an attendant at a gas station where I stopped regularly for service and for directions to various parts of the county.

I helped Mrs. Stevens complete an application for social security benefits for herself and the three children. I could not tell her at the time how much she would receive, but assured her that there would be monthly payments. After securing a record of her husband's earnings from our central office in Baltimore, I wrote her that she would get $50 a month for herself and children. Later I saw her. She said that when she first talked with me, she had no idea how she was going to get along on the small monthly payments from the insurance policy her husband carried; but with the $50 from old-age and survivors insurance, she could get by if she budgeted carefully. This is only one of the many cases of this kind handled each week by the Alexandria Social Security office and others throughout the country. Your government provides this method for wage capture to build protection for themselves and their families.

A representative of this office is at the Employment Service in Culpeper at 503 South Main street at 10 a.m. If you have any questions, come by to see as when we are in Culpeper or write to the office in Alexandria at 519 First street.