Well it is official got my Social Security email

[Atticus Pizzaballa]

2.5 percent increase in SS.Cheap scrapes they couldn't round that up to 3 percent.

[Clipper]

I haven't gotten mine yet, but my SS is less than most people because federal employees don't pay into it and the majority of the quarters I paid in were from 25 yrs of part time jobs. When most people are looking at $50 or so I will probably get 30 something.

[Atticus Pizzaballa]

I don't get the full amount either. Being in religious life for eight years as a professed Bother who professed poverty plus the extra seven years of study after that seriously impacted what I could get. Plus I had some serious health problems that prevented me from working. I should have taken out disability insurance when I was teaching but didn't want to spend the money now I regret that. It took our beloved government eight years to rule on my Social Security Disability case luckily I was able to get help from County social services in the form of welfare,SNAP and most importantly Medicaid. Sometimes I wonder how I survived even though living at home. The psychiatrist I was going to for those eight years helped keep me sane.I had to have note from my Mom saying I bought my own groceries and cooked my own food in order to get food stamps.Of course I did.

I laughed when I went to apply for SS Disability the first question the person taking my work history when he saw I was in Religious Life was did you take a vow of poverty! Then he began typing that into his computer.

Oddly even with the poverty vow I was poorer when not in vows.

I met a Nun I knew after all this and she left the convent after 27 years of service she said survival is difficult but she felt blessed.

I hope the other Brothers who left my Monastery after 18 to 25 years of service made it through the financial maze. Most of them were LPN's or RN's or Lab techs.

[Atticus Pizzaballa]

I forgot the best part of the whole thing. When I turned 30 years of age a friend and I went out for dinner

I had a muddled Old Fashioned and loved it. So every year for my birthday I have one. So tasty.