By Marcari, Russotto, Spencer & Balaban | Published August 30, 2018 | Posted in Veterans Benefits | Tagged Tags: earned credits in military service, Social Security benefits for vets, SSA | Leave a comment
If you are a service member or a veteran planning for retirement or applying for Social Security disability, you should be aware that your active duty service earns you extra wage credits. Since wage credits are used to calculate Social Security benefits, your retirement and/or disability benefits may be higher than you think. Not all Read More
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Marcari, Russotto, Spencer & Balaban recently received an award for Agent Orange benefits for a veteran stationed in Thailand. This veteran was stationed at the Nakhon Phanom Air Force Base. Based on the presumptive conditions laid out by the VA, Vietnam veterans who served along the perimeters of military bases in Thailand anytime between February Read More
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On Wednesday, February 21, President Trump nominated U.S. Army veteran Paul Lawrence to be the next Undersecretary of Veterans Affairs for Benefits, filling a seat warmed only by interim officials since October 2015. Lawrence, who retired from the service as a captain, would seem to be a strong choice based on his background as a Read More
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Asserting that it doesn’t make sense to average Americans to pay unemployment benefits to persons 80 years of age and older, Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin has proposed cutting the Individual Unemployability benefit for disabled veterans once they qualify for Social Security. According to the Daily Courier, the mere suggestion of cuts to IU has Read More
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On May 23, the U.S. House of Representatives voted in favor of H.R. 2288 — the Veterans Appeals Improvement and Modernization Act of 2017. This came weeks after DAV (Disabled American Veterans) national service director Jim Marszalek appeared before Congress to call for the bill’s passage. As Mr. Marszalek testified, “The new appeals framework developed Read More
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On Sunday, May 21st, the House Committee on Veterans Affairs (HVAC) passed H.R. 2288, the Veterans Appeals Improvement and Modernization Act of 2017. If passed into law it will mean many changes for the VA and for our veterans. One notable revision is the options in which veterans may appeal their rating decision. The bill Read More
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Veterans appealing a denial of VA benefits are currently waiting about five years for a determination, and if the present pace continues, vets 10 years from now could be waiting as long as 25 years for an answer. That’s the bottom line from a recent article by Luanne Rife of The Roanoke Times. Ms. Rife Read More
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Why has the VA claim backlog grown from 76,000 cases in May 2016 to 101,000 cases this February despite a new paperless process that was supposed to speed claims decisions? At a recent hearing before the House Veterans’ Affairs Subcommittee on Disability Assistance and Memorial Affairs, Ronald S. Burke, Jr., the assistant deputy undersecretary for Read More
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In February, Dr. David Shulkin, the new Secretary of Veterans Affairs, spoke publicly for the first time on his plans to reduce red tape and make the VA more responsive to veterans’ needs. As reported in Stars and Stripes, Dr. Shulkin told an audience at the annual Disabled American Veterans conference in Arlington, Virginia, that Read More
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By: Ryan Spencer, Veterans Disability Benefits Attorney Periodically, I have some veterans who would like to be service connected for obesity because of another service connected condition that prevents them from exercising. For example, being handicapped or having a bad back can substantially impede on the ability to maintain a healthy lifestyle for most. Even Read More
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