Your post is logical, too bad you don't work for the SSA!
"After all Americans who fail to qualify under the rules don't get anything. Why should foreigners? "
This is a hard one to swallow and there are going to be a lot of shocked people, but here's another sad fact of the SSA. Say you are 45 years old. Paid into SSA for 30 years. Your parents are sick and old, so you take 5 years off to care for them. Boom!! Hit by a bus, crippled for life. Guess what......ONLY approximately the last 5 years (NOT the last 5 years worked....the last few years period ), count toward disability benefits....NONE of that 30 years count. NONE of it.
"ONLY approximately the last 5 years (NOT the last 5 years worked....the last few years period ), count toward disability benefits....NONE of that 30 years count. NONE of it."
That's a total lie!
I quit paying into SS in 1978 after paying maximum for 26 years and started collecting SS when I was 65. The amount that I receive is less than some people get but still quite substantial, $1,163/mo..
"This is a hard one to swallow and there are going to be a lot of shocked people, but here's another sad fact of the SSA. Say you are 45 years old. Paid into SSA for 30 years. Your parents are sick and old, so you take 5 years off to care for them. Boom!! Hit by a bus, crippled for life. Guess what......ONLY approximately the last 5 years (NOT the last 5 years worked....the last few years period ), count toward disability benefits....NONE of that 30 years count. NONE of it."
Not quite right.
There are two seperate issues here. The first is establishing "insured status" for the disability benefits. To do that, SSA looks 10 years back from the date you became disabled. If you have at least 20 quarters in those 10 years, then your disability insured status is met. Second, SSA looks over your LIFETIME of earnings and takes between 2 to 20 (approx) years of earnings, (depending on how old you were when you became disabled) adjusts for inflation, averages them out, applies a formula to them, and comes up with your benefit amount. SSA will not use your most recent earnings to detemine the AMOUNT of the benefit but will use recent earnings to determine insured status only.