New Social Security Requirements Pose Barriers To Rural Communities

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Huff Post/AP

Mar 22, 2025, 10:25 AM EDT | Updated 2 hours ago


WELCH, W.Va. (AP) — Veronica Taylor doesn’t know how to turn on a computer, let alone use the internet. The 73-year-old can’t drive and is mostly housebound in her mountainous and remote West Virginia community, where a simple trip to the grocery store can take an hour by car.

New requirements that Social Security recipients access key benefits online or in person at a field office, rather than on the phone, would be nearly impossible to meet without help. “If that’s the only way I had to do it, how would I do it?” Taylor said, talking about the changes while eating a plate of green beans, mac and cheese and fried fish with a group of retirees at the McDowell County Senior Center. “I would never get nothing done.”

The requirements, set to go into effect March 31, are intended to streamline processes and combat widespread fraud within the system, according to President Donald Trump and officials in his administration. They say that’s why it’s vital for people to verify their identity online or in person when signing up for benefits, or making a change like where the money is deposited.

But advocates say the changes will disproportionately impact the most vulnerable Americans. It will be harder to visit field offices in rural areas with high poverty rates. Often these are the same areas that lack widespread internet service.

Read more: https://www.huffpost.com/entry/new-social-security-requirements-pose-barriers-to-rural-communities_n_67dec654e4b0ea299d083b0e

[BOSSHOG]

1. Pose barriers to trump supporters

He is an equal opportunity cluster fuck. Imagine going through thinking of ways to hurt people and forcing people to like you.

[riversedge]

2. damn. Musk is very rich and could care less about the less well off financially.

[Scrivener7]

3. 71% of WV voted for Mump,

[AmericaUnderSiege]

5. Don't worry, they've already got their minority scapegoat picked out.

People like that always have one or two handy for when their vile choices righteously come back on them. And if they don't, their Glorious Leader is always quick to offer one.

[Scrivener7]

6. No doubt you're right.

[progree]

4. Other residents aren't concerned.

Other residents aren’t concerned. Barbara Lester, 64, said she wishes she could sit down with Trump and Musk and tell them they’re doing a fantastic job.

“And with all the money they’re saving from the fraud, they could afford to give their senior citizens an increase,” said Lester, who is retired from construction work.

A RWNJ anecdote from the article for entertainment value. Don't hold your breath waiting for the increase.

[Prairie Gates]

8. What a perfect example of how snowed these people are

They know that they have been fucked by the system: they know that they should receive an increase in their payments. But they think that will happen through precisely the people and vehicles that are doing the opposite: reducing their payments. And even when it starts to happen in earnest - when their lives get harder rather than easier, when the very people they trusted betray them, as they always would, they double down. Incredible ideological blindness. Yes, Trump "finding fraud" will result in increased SS payments to the poor in rural West Virginia! Imagine actually thinking and believing that. It's remarkable, actually.

[Skittles]

21. the sheer ignorance of these folk is STAGGERING

OMFG

[progree]

24. 'It's going to get worse before it gets better. Take surgery. You have to experience the surgical pain of removing . .

Last edited Sun Mar 23, 2025, 05:36 PM - Edit history (1)

Anybody expecting the world to get better instantly with this political change is in for a big disappointment.
It’s going to get worse before it gets better. Take surgery. You have to experience the surgical pain of removing something that is bad for you before you begin to heal and and go through physical therapy to a final healed state. And then it might not work. We’ll see.

I don't remember hearing anything like that during the campaign. All's I heard was bringing prices down on day 1. And now the embarrassing part. This is from a March 8 post on the Facebook page of somebody I work with. He's a devout Trumpist and RWer and big flag waver. And Hispanic-surname with Mexican roots, born in California (I don't know what he thinks about [1] or the mass deportations, including sending Venezuelans with about any kinds of tattoos and without investigation to a dystopian hell-on-earth Salvadoran prison), just to name a couple of outrages. Or plain ordinary detention hell-on-earth in the U.S., and not just for supposed gang members, and not just Venezuelans.

[1]Trump announcing his presidential bid in 2015 after descending the escalator,
"When Mexico sends its people, they're not sending the best. They're not sending you, they're sending people that have lots of problems and they're bringing those problems," Trump said in a speech at Trump Tower in New York. "They're bringing drugs, they're bringing crime. They're rapists and some, I assume, are good people, but I speak to border guards and they're telling us what we're getting."

[Prairie Gates]

7. Disgusting writing by the AP journalist

"are intended to streamline processes and combat widespread fraud within the system, according to President Donald Trump and officials in his administration. "

This sentence basically states that there IS, in fact, widespread fraud within the system, something that hasn't been shown at all. It plays a stupid little dodge game through the attribution (I'm not saying there's fraud...they are!), but this doesn't actually buy the writer out of the claim, since grammatically and semantically, the attribution goes to the intention behind the changes, not the factual claim of fraud.

Garbage writing.  

[BumRushDaShow]

9. At least they attributed to the one who made the ridiculous assertion

I have seen who knows how many articles that just regurgitate the RW talking points and will maybe conclude at the end, that it was all "alleged" or they will finally try to clarify with a fact check.

[Grins]

18. No. You read too much into that.

The writer clearly wrote that was “according to President Donald Trump and officials in his administration.”

That’s accurate. It is. It’s bullshit, but it is.

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

10. That's where the GOP base is

Idiots

[DENVERPOPS]

11. With all the recent developments

it could no be clearer that Rural America Voters are no longer needed! They have outgrown the need for any of them......
And boy, can they scream like pigs........It's only gonna get worse for them, and then they will really be screaming......
but too late.............

[Justice matters.]

15. Remember which segment of the population died the most in the pandemic.

Rural American Republicans...

Yet, they are ready for a round 2, and they still believe the lies of the Fascist regime!

[FakeNoose]

12. Chump promised us all jobs in the resurgent COAL MINING industry!

Yeah, that's the ticket.... Coal is coming back!

Nobody needs social security, we're all going to be RICH!

[Demobrat]

13. Wow. Where do they get this stuff?

Trump is going to INCREASE SS payments? WTF? I get that Fox tells them Trump is doing a great job, etc, but even Fox is not saying SS payments will go up as a result, are they? How do the morons extrapolate that, seriously?

[Justice matters.]

16. Well, hair furhair said it will be "America's Golden Age" and...

... these morons automatically translated that into "yay, he's going to increase our payments"

[Skittles]

22. they really believe the cover story about "waste and fraud"

[BidenRocks]

14. Some people need a knock on their door

Hello. I'm from the government and I'm here to help.
That died in 1980. Funny shit, eh?

[progree]

17. No Internet access for so many, no local newspaper, big cutback in rides...

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/new-social-security-requirements-pose-barriers-to-rural-communities_n_67dec654e4b0ea299d083b0e

McDowll County ... Around 30% of the population receives Social Security benefits and 20% lack broadband access.

Non-profit groups like The Commission on Aging receive money from the federal government to provide rides to the grocery store, medical appointments and free lunch at the county senior center, and could in theory add a stop to the local Social Security office said Reed, who is the group’s director.

But the transportation grant money is already not enough to meet the need. Last year, Reed ran out of money during the last three months of the fiscal year and had to dip into the Commission’s savings. This year, he said he won’t be able to do so.

Then, last Friday, he found out the Commission had lost an almost $1 million grant he expected, again because of the federal government’s cost cutting.

Yet all agreed that the recent flurry of executive orders had been difficult to follow, especially since the county’s last local newspaper shuttered, and they weren’t sure what effect they’d have on their lives.

A local paper wouldn't likely provide much useful details, at least my local paper isn't good in that way, but it might at least provide information on what local resources are and where people might learn more in the community centers, library could host some information seminars, something.

By the way, I wonder if the excellent network of help on Medicare issues known as SHIP (State Health Insurance Assistance Programs) is going to get cut to pieces.

[kimbutgar]

19. Oh well you voted for him

Deal with tbe consequences of your being fooled by a known conman.

[cstanleytech]

20. You reap what you sow or in this case you get what you deserve for voting for the motherfucker!