Caregivers in the U.S. are paid just under $26,000 a year on average for the most important work there is. And this June, we learned the government drew up a plan to mark many of them dead.
Let’s back up: When someone who receives Social Security dies, the government owes nothing for the month of the death, even if she lived to its final day. Benefits run a month behind, so her last payment lands after she’s gone, and the bank is told to send it back. We have a system that can find a dead woman’s last dollar and claw it back inside a month. It’s made to ignore the living woman who bathed her, fed her, and sat with her at the end.
