SLEDGE: How real are the issues addressed in this column?

Ned Sledge is a Social Security Public Affairs Specialist in Richmond. Questions about Social Security issues may be directed to him by e-mailing .
Published: September 17, 2008

Q: Are your published questions real, or simply part of some PR campaign from the main office? — Charles C., Waynesboro
A: You’re the first person to write to me since the column started — and wouldn’t you know it, it’s to question the authenticity of the column! But I like, shall we say, probing questions. To be honest, I’m just thrilled with this confirmation that I have readers at all. So I’ll try to do justice to your question.
The questions that have been published since the column started are “real” in the sense that they deal with actual SSA issues that I feel are likely to be of interest to many readers.
Some are, and will be, of a timely nature, dealing with new developments in our rules and service delivery, just as you alluded to in your first paragraph. Some are going to be drawn from my many years of fielding questions about Social Security matters.
To get the column started, I had to pose questions myself and then answer them. Until I begin getting “real” questions from readers, what else can I do? But I told the editor to go ahead and give my contact information (hence this exchange) with the hope that questions from readers can serve as the basis for future columns.
Ideally, those questions would take over the column entirely, but I don’t know if that’s realistic. If I don’t get enough inquiries from the reading public, or enough that will be of general interest, I’ll just have to keep answering my own questions.
But the questions I’ll ask will deal with issues that I know — from more than 30 years with SSA — to be important ones.
I hope this answers your question. Thanks for your e-mail!
— Ned Sledge