Social Security Update

In my last post I complained about the government recently making it impossible to access your Social Security Statement online if you don't have a cell phone.  This managed to annoy me enough that I sent a complaint (via email) in late August to my US Congresswoman, something I don't recall ever doing before (I did once email my state representatives when I lived in New York).  As if by magic on September 1, I got another email from Social Security stating they were making the new security features optional (at least for now).  And in fact I was able to log in and download my statement.  Which was in English instead of Spanish and had some different numbers as well (apparently because the Spanish statement assumed my future income would be zero while the English statement made the more reasonable assumption that I would continue to earn at the same rate which is what the earlier statements I received had always done).  So I could have saved myself some trouble if I had just waited a month for the government to come to its senses.

The response was too quick for it to be a result of my email and in fact I later received a pro forma reply from my Congresswoman's office which was unaware of the reversal in policy.  However it seems to be a pretty safe assumption that I wasn't the only person complaining.