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 ...
These payments are almost always over $650/mo in rural Arkansas.
“These payments are almost always over $650/mo in rural Arkansas.”
I have been told I will receive over $1100.00 per month to go along with my TDUI for the VA at nearly $3000.00 per month. Yes, double dipping is allowed. Not sure I need it financially but it’s either me or some illegal alien, right?
I dunno, it just feels like this nation is on a one way trip to hell with no sign of help in the offing.
I can see how social seurity will be tapped even more because more baby boomers will lose their jobs, and collect early.
“”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.””
What on earth does being unemployed have to do with being able to draw disability from Social Security? I realize the entire government is run by the “disabled” but this does not make any sense at all.
It doesn’t make sense to give SS to illegals either.....but they do.
yeah, a bunch of spoiled people who are NOT disabled from doing some sort of job taking a freeloader way out! Tired of being ripped off through the income tax.
If I had an extra $1100.00 per month, I would donate it to my favorite charities, rather than have the govt. waste it.
They might not necessarily lose their jobs; they might just be opting for early retirement out of fear that SSI won't be there should they retire later in life. Either way, it will crash the system.
“If I had an extra $1100.00 per month, I would donate it to my favorite charities, rather than have the govt. waste it.”
Yeah, I’m thinking of doing just that.
they give ssi to all residents, legal or not. medical issues put you on it. my husbands psychiatrist wanted to put me on it after I broke my spine and had surgery. my surgeon said I could return to work, lol try to find a job? people are giving up and going on it if they have anything wrong with themselves.
“Either way, it will crash the system.”
For sure, unless we get some better and tougher leaders.
I know a man, who received a buy out from his workplace, plus a pension, and was living comfortably. When he became 62, he decided to collect his S.S. right away, rather than wait for full retirement, because he thought S.S. might not be there for long.
Another man, I know, planned to work until his full S.S. kicked in, but was afraid he would lose his 401K in the stock market, so retired a year early.
We are living in an uncertain and scarry time.
I worked for nearly 2 years as a Social Security Claims Rep before transferring to another agency. This was way back in the early 70’s but I doubt the system has changed.
Very few people are approved when they first apply. Next you have to file for a reconsideration. Practically no one was approved on reconsideration. The next step was to ask for a hearing by an administrative law judge. That is where most people got approved. I guess they wanted to discourage people by making the first two extremely difficult.
Social Security Disability is one of the most difficult disability claims there is. SSI is basically the same system.
Civil Service disability is by contrast very easy to have approved. Basically all you have to do is have your Dr. say you are disabled.
Social security is also running a deficit, so I don’t know how you can reallocate from social security.
And of course, Obama wants to reduce the payroll tax.
..GET THE ILLEGALS OUT..period!
For all those arguments you hear about illegals not getting SSI AND MEDICARE..........
READ THIS: http://www.usborderpatrol.com/Border_Patrol100_4.htm
Smart move, rather than have the current govt., we’re now stuck with, use it for some left-wing agenda.
Mentally stressed. Damn. I just have a spinal cord injury....I don’t stand a chance of getting it, lol.
Therefore, I looked it up again.
Sure enough, here's what the government itself writes:
Supplemental Security Income (SSI) is a Federal income supplement program funded by general tax revenues (not Social Security taxes):
- It is designed to help aged, blind, and disabled people, who have little or no income; and
- It provides cash to meet basic needs for food, clothing, and shelter.
Basically, the classes I took said that SSI was named SSI so it could be called "social security" (although wrongly) and take away the stigma of Welfare.
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