By the third time that Margaret Swoboda’s calls to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management were dumped into the agency’s voicemail system, the 100-year-old resident of Northeast Portland said she’d reached a slow boil.
As detailed in a story in The Oregonian/OregonLive last month, the centenarian’s federal pension benefits were summarily cut off on Sept. 1 after she failed to respond to an officious sounding agency letter demanding that she prove she was still alive.
Not just any proof, but a notarized copy of an attached form, a copy of her state ID, and a picture of her holding a recent newspaper with the date showing. Within 30 days.
Swoboda is legally blind, so she missed the June letter. And by the time she handed it to her son, and they realized the bureaucratic missive was genuine, the deadline had already passed. That set off a mad scramble to get her a new state identification card, get the form notarized, and send the package, along with the required photo, off to the feds by certified mail.
She called the pension office. No answer. She left a voicemail.
Yes, she was alive. She needed her $2,400 a month. That’s her only income, save a small social security check.
Too late. After decades of receiving benefits uninterrupted, they cut her off.
It’s not clear how Swoboda ended up on the list of federal beneficiaries needing to provide proof of life, how many individuals find themselves in similar circumstances each year, and whether the practice has been stepped up amid President Donald Trump’s efforts to slash spending.
Regardless, the Swobodas kept on it. They spoke with a reporter in the newsroom, who called U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden’s office, which quickly rang them back and offered to get involved. Meanwhile, Margaret Swoboda kept calling the feds, kept leaving messages, and kept getting no response.
She told the voicemail it was the agency’s responsibility to prove she was dead, not the other way round. “‘You evil people stole my money,’” she said she told them in another message. “‘You have no business touching my money. I was alive. I still am. And I’m ready for a good fight.’
“Actually,” she admitted Wednesday, “I’m 100 and I can’t fight. But I’m not through yet.”
Swoboda spent nearly 20 years working for the federal government, starting as an 18-year-old stenographer for the Navy during World War II, moving on to a stint at the Bureau of Land Management, and retiring from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 1985. She’s been receiving retirement benefits without interruption for four decades, now including survivor benefits from her deceased husband, who also worked for the federal government.
Perhaps the paperwork she submitted moved the bureaucracy. Perhaps the voicemails. Maybe it was pressure from Wyden. Maybe bad publicity in the newspaper.
No one from the agency ever contacted her, nor did officials respond to requests for comment from the newsroom. But when she checked her bank balance Wednesday, there was a newly deposited $4,800, two months’ worth of pension benefits.
Swoboda said she’s thankful for all the attention her case received but still wonders how other elderly and disabled recipients of similar letters cope with them. She’s also frustrated that agency employees “never faced the music.”
This whole episode “was just ludicrous. It was a huge inconvenience,” said her son Gary Swoboda.
And neither son nor mother are fully confident the situation has been resolved.
“We’ll see,” he added, repeating the advice he’d received from a member of Wyden’s office. “November will be the final proof they haven’t screwed this up.”
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