According to a Wall Street Journal article published yesterday the Social Security Administration has begun answering questions posed by the public with warnings that it can no longer guarantee issuance of Social Security benefits after October 17, 2013 if no action is taken to increase the debt ceiling. Apparently this message was crafted after consultation with the US Treasury. There are currently no statements posted on either SSA's or Treasury's websites about the matter, we will update this post as soon as more information becomes available.
To get an idea of the potential impact in our state of this possibility, here are a few stats: in 2011 24% of West Virginians received benefits from Social Security, nearly 444,000 people. It was 9.3% of our state's annual GDP. Many of those beneficiaries have no income other than Social Security. 198,000 people were lifted out of poverty by Social Security benefits.
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