Hi everybody Cheryl Ackison here. I hope you enjoy this special from the Archives

edition of Full Measure After Hours.

Hi everybody Cheryl Ackison here.

Welcome to another edition of Full Measure After Hours.

Today a whistleblower's incredible story

about how the Social Security Administration

is cheating elderly widows out of money they're entitled to.

Sunday May 2 Sunday, May 22nd on full measure, an interesting and impactful story from a

whistleblower at the Social Security Administration. He says he's uncovered systemic cheating of

elderly widows. Even worse, he says, when he documented the issue and brought it to the attention

of his Social Security Administration

superiors, he says they warded him off and told him to just do his job.

In today's podcast, we'll hear the story from John McAdams, who is still a Social Security

Claims Authorization at the Social Security Administration.

If you had to synopsize this whole story in a couple of sentences, what would you say this is a story about for people who haven't heard?

About widows, it could be men, but it's typically widows, women, who applied for survivor benefits and their claims were set up incorrectly.

And as a result, they've lost money for years and they continue to lose

hundreds of dollars every month. So I read the background on this and it's very technical and confusing. It almost sounds good that oh they get to apply for both benefits at once that sounds like a positive thing and it turns out it's not to be.

We'll go into some detail in a minute, but in simple terms how would you

frame what happened and I'm talking if you can in just a paragraph or two and then we'll

go into detail. I'm sure it was accidental that they were signed up for both benefits because it gives

them no benefit whatsoever and in some cases it cost them a lot of money because if they

...