Posted on 08/21/2011 5:01:13 PM PDT by DeaconBenjamin
Laid-off workers and aging baby boomers are flooding Social Security's disability program, pushing the financially strapped system toward the brink of insolvency.
Applications are up nearly 50 percent over a decade ago as people lose their jobs and can't find new ones in an economy that has shed nearly 7 million jobs.
Much of the focus in Washington has been on fixing Social Security's retirement system. The trustees who oversee Social Security urge Congress to shore up the disability system by reallocating money from the retirement program, just as lawmakers did in 1994.
This year, about 3.3 million people are expected to apply for federal disability benefits. That's 700,000 more than in 2008 and 1 million more than a decade ago.
The disability program is also being hit by an aging population — disability rates rise as people get older — as well as a system that encourages people to apply for more generous disability benefits rather than waiting until they qualify for retirement.
Retirees can get full Social Security benefits at age 66, a threshold gradually rising to 67. Early retirees can get reduced benefits at 62. However, if you qualify for disability, you can get full benefits, based on your work history, even before 62.
Today, about 13.6 million people receive disability benefits through Social Security or Supplemental Security Income. Social Security is for people with substantial work histories, and monthly disability payments average $927. Supplemental Security Income does not require a work history but it has strict limits on income and assets. Monthly SSI payments average $500.
Last year, Social Security detected $1.4 billion in overpayments to disability beneficiaries, mostly to people who got jobs and no longer qualified, according to a recent report by the Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress.
www.ssa.gov/disability/
www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=12375
www.gao.gov/products/GAO-11-724
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Generally a person who becomes disabled looses income within a few weeks. It usually takes from six months up too several years to go through the SSDI approval process depending on the number of appeals if approved at all. Most persons applying are turned down several times. During this time the person can draw SSI.
However upon approval of SSDI the SSI previously paid must be paid back and will come from the back pay of SSDI due on the first SSDI check.
Some persons with extreme low incomes on SSDI can also draw SSI. I can say from experience if your combined household income is above $10K per year for two persons you will not qualify for SSI. Both my wife and I are on SSDI drawing combined almost $1300 a month. We are no where near SSI qualifications but still well below the poverty level. Our SSDI is our total income.
Thanks for the clarification, cva.
Obama has wanted a crappy economy so these programs are pushed to the brink. It creates a crisis - and so, to him, an opportunity not to be wasted. Crisis allows transformation.
Meanwhile folks like me that are disabled... sigh.
Perform a 100% re-evaluation and the shortage will disappear. Too many 18 year olds with bad backs that have not worked buy a doctor and sleazy lawyer. Lotto win consists of two singles, living together with children, each getting SSI and claiming their children separately as dependents. It’s not uncommon for these “families” to be drawing $2,000 - $3,000 or more not including the food stamps, Medicaid/Medicare, subsidized housing, heating subsidies and anything else they can possibly qualify for. If you really have a disability, you’ll pay hell trying to get SSI.
How many people in rural Arkansas have never worked and paid FICA? Or whose spouse never worked and paid FICA? (W-2, 1099, or self employed.)
They do not qualify for Social Security and get SSI (which is NOT part of Social Security)?
Mostly immigrants I guess?
To wit, prior to the 1996 welfare reforms "noncitizen use of Supplemental Security Income (cash welfare for the aged and [the] disabled [who are NOT eligible for SDI]) rose by 80 percent between 1990 and 1995." That was in large part elderly reuniting with their children here in the U.S.
SSI is not part of SS and SDI though some states used to supplement SS and SDI with SSI payments.
Different problems require different fixes.
Ones that don't want to apply because they can't stand the idea of being lumped in with the party-time crowd, I take it.
I could go somewhere with this, but it'd be too perverse for FR.
Turning people into dependent animals - like the rioters in England - is NO favor - to them or the system. Liberals aren't helping these people, they're helping themselves. Dependent frightened people will vote to keep their checks coming. Dems want there to be more of them than of the workers... It's sick.
I have a good job and I’m thankful to the Good Lord for it.
But it breaks my heart to hear this.
I broke my spine in April. Had to have a khyphoplasty. my surgeon told me I can go back to work, he refused me disability, and I have been unemployed for 15 months????? What am I doing wrong?
Lotta scammers out there, and plenty of docs who'll go along with it. I know a woman who's been collecting full disability for years b/c the stress of commuting 60 miles each way from our town to DC for ten years was just too much for her.
"In 2008, noncitizens accounted for 26.9% of all aged SSI recipients, down from a high of 31.8% in 1995. Noncitizens accounted for 5.3% of disabled (or blind) recipients in 2008, down from 6.3% in 1995."
The discussion in the PDF document is for much more than just SSI. Once again SSI is NOT Social Security and SSI is NOT SDI. Different problems require different fixes.
Disabled getting SSI are not eligible to apply for SDI* -- no matter how poorly funded, run or not even should be needed workers pay at least something for SDI along with SS payments (FICA). *Note some states used to supplement SDI with some SSI funds.
SSI requires nothing, until the 1996 reforms people moved their elderly relatives here and signed 'em up for SSI and the myriad other benefits the elderly can get for the asking no matter what language does the asking.
As you can see from the numbers it is still happening but to a lesser extent -- it appears.
Let's just say these are people who didn't draw many paychecks. That's not to say they never work for money.
Mostly immigrants I guess?
No, actually I don't recall an adult immigrant drawing SSI. Food stamps, medicare, and other benefits out the wazoo, but not SSI. Probably don't want to file any thing with "Tio Sam."
I've seen a few immigrant children that draw SSI.
The vast majority are as you described however, I should point out that surviving spouses do not automatically collect SS checks -- they have to be at least 60 years old I am pretty sure. In the meantime I think they may collect SSI if they cannot obtain employment.
At first I thought well there's another one ripping off Sen. Everett Dirksen -- then I saw the NOT. That's a good one!
I heard estimates of as high as 100 trillion world wide -- including what North Korea prints I guess. :)
The argument goes as it relates to inflation.. what's the big deal if the Fed "prints" two or three trillion dollars.. that's only two or three percent inflation.
Beats me. I have applied for SSDI and will likely get turned down but a lawyer friend of mine says to keep at it, 60% of cases are won on appeal before a judge.....I just feel dirty taking the money, but I AM disabled.
I've got a cousin who graduated college with a BA in business administration, and worked for a major financial institution for nearly 20 years. But paranoid schizophrenia began to present itself at about 35 years old. Now, at 52, he's been unemployed for nearly 3 years, and the last job he had (he was fired for an "inappropriate outburst") was as a sacker at a grocery store. It's really sad to see how he has degenerated over the years. He can't get a job, except as a volunteer through a mental health agency. He filed for disability twice on his own, and it was turned down both time, even though he had 3 different doctors stating he was unable to hold down a job or interact with the public. Eventually he went to a law firm and he was finally awarded disability, but the case took nearly a year and a half to go through the system.
Mark
When I first bought my house, I bought a 3 br house even though I didn't need 3, because I figured I would have to take in my paranoid schizophrenic cousin some day. When I had to sell my house due to my own physical problems, I now rent a 2 br apartment, currently using the second br as an office, but knowing that someday my cousin will need to move in with me.
I hope it doesn't happen, but I realize that if he loses his disability, I will need to support him.
Mark
That triggers one of my most heartfelt rants.
Because of all the money and resources wasted on people with bogus, illegitimate or unworthy claims for welfare, disablilty, etc. we have less available to do a first class, proper job for the truly worthy and needy.
I once thought it was just government incompetence and a misguided desire to do well that accounted for much of the government assistance going to people who really don't deserve it.
But I came to believe that there are also other priorities at work here; Social enngineering, wealth redistribution, recruiting people to the government plantation? Who knows for sure?
I just know that in typical government fashion, logic and reason fall by the wayside and, as often happens, the original intent of a government program gets trampled when people find ways to hijack resources for some other agenda.
I once thought it was just government incompetence and a misguided desire to do well that accounted for much of the government assistance going to people who really don’t deserve it.
When it is OPM (other peoples money) those that control it are never as cost conscious as those that earned it.
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