To be able to get SSDI once the application has been filed one has to be able to show and prove that one is unable to work.
Riiiiight. There's a whole legal industry that has sprung up to "prove" inability to work.
Unemployment is down, but why did America set a record 47.8 million on food stamps?
by moshe 70 Replies latest social current
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soontobe
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soontobe
Unemployment is down, but why did America set a record 47.8 million on food stamps?
Unwilling to Work; 25% in Hale County AL Collect Disability, 14 Million Nationwide; A Simple Solution
A NPR report "Unfit For Work" notes the startling rise in those on disability. Here are some interesting facts from the article.
- Every month 14 million Americans receive a disability check.
- In 1961 the leading cause of disability was heart disease and strokes, totaling 25.7% of cases. Back pain was 8.3% of cases.
- In 2011 the leading cause of disability was a hard to disprove back pain, totaling 33.8% of cases. The second leading cause was an equally difficult to disprove "mental illness" at 19.2%. Strokes and heart disease fell to 10.6%.
- In West Virginia, a whopping 9% of the population collects disability checks. In Arkansas, 8.2% are on disability, and in Alabama and Kentucky, 8.1% collect disability. In Alaska, Hawaii, and Utah, the figure is 2.9%.
- In Hale County Alabama 1 in 4 receive disability checks.
- One thing nearly every case in Hale County Alabama has in common is Dr. Perry Timberlake who defines disability in a rather creative way.
- Those on Supplemental Security Income, a program for children and adults who are both poor and disabled is nearly seven times larger than 30 years ago.
- Once people go onto disability, they almost never go back to work. Fewer than 1 percent of those who were on the federal program for disabled workers at the beginning of 2011 have returned to the workforce.
Children on Disability How Easy is it to Get Disability?
Hale county's Dr. Timberlake asks a simple question to all his patients. "What grade did you finish?" If you claim "back pain" and do not have a degree, Timberlake believes you are disabled.
The Disability Deal
Getting disability seems easy enough in some states, and especially easy in Hale County Alabama. But is disability better than minimum wage? The answer is yes. NPR author Chana Joffe-Walt explains:People who leave the workforce and go on disability qualify for Medicare, the government health care program that also covers the elderly. They also get disability payments from the government of about $13,000 a year. This isn't great. But if your alternative is a minimum wage job that will pay you at most $15,000 a year, and probably does not include health insurance, disability may be a better option.
Parents Force Kids to Underachieve
Going on disability means you will not work, you will not get a raise, you will not get whatever meaning people get from work. Going on disability means, assuming you rely only on those disability payments, you will be poor for the rest of your life. That's the deal. And it's a deal 14 million Americans have signed up for.
Disability has become a de facto welfare program for people without a lot of education or job skills.
Joffe-Walt explains the special plight of kids.When you are an adult applying for disability you have to prove you cannot function in a "work-like setting." When you are a kid, a disability can be anything that prevents you from progressing in school.
Clinton Ends Welfare As We Know It
Jahleel's mom wants him to do well in school. But her livelihood depends on Jahleel struggling in school. This tension only increases as kids get older. One mother told me her teenage son wanted to work, but she didn't want him to get a job because if he did, the family would lose its disability check.
Kids should be encouraged to go to school. Kids should want to do well in school. Parents should want their kids to do well in school. Kids should be confident their parents can provide for them regardless of how they do in school. Kids should become more and more independent as they grow older and hopefully be able to support themselves at around age 18.
The disability program stands in opposition to every one of these aims.
In 1996 Bill Clinton signed a welfare reform act, that he proclaimed to be the "End of Welfare As We Know It". It was. People moved off welfare on to even easier to get disability programs.
Part of Clinton's welfare reform plan pushed states to get people on welfare into jobs, partly by making states pay a much larger share of welfare costs.
The incentive "worked" using the term loosely. Welfare rolls shrank but disability rolls soared.
Welfare Costs States Money Disability Doesn'tA person on welfare costs a state money. That same resident on disability doesn't cost the state a cent, because the federal government covers the entire bill for people on disability. So states can save money by shifting people from welfare to disability. And the Public Consulting Group is glad to help.
Disability Fraud
PCG is a private company that states pay to comb their welfare rolls and move as many people as possible onto disability. "What we're offering is to work to identify those folks who have the highest likelihood of meeting disability criteria," Pat Coakley, who runs PCG's Social Security Advocacy Management team, told me.
The company has an office in eastern Washington state that's basically a call center, full of headsetted women in cubicles who make calls all day long to potentially disabled Americans, trying to help them discover and document their disabilities:
"The high blood pressure, how long have you been taking medications for that?" one PCG employee asked over the phone the day I visited the company. "Can you think of anything else that's been bothering you and disabling you and preventing you from working?"
The PCG agents help the potentially disabled fill out the Social Security disability application over the phone. And by help, I mean the agents actually do the filling out.
There's a reason PCG goes to all this trouble. The company gets paid by the state every time it moves someone off of welfare and onto disability. In recent contract negotiations with Missouri, PCG asked for $2,300 per person. For Missouri, that's a deal -- every time someone goes on disability, it means Missouri no longer has to send them cash payments every month. For the nation as a whole, it means one more person added to the disability rolls.
Who is making the case for the other side? Who is defending the government's decision to deny disability?
Nobody.
And that in a nutshell explains soaring disability roles and massive fraud.
Disability fraud also makes a joke out of reported unemployment numbers. If you have a disability, you are no longer in the workforce.
Not in Labor Force With a Disability I would love to show data pre-recession. Unfortunately, the data only goes back to mid-2008. We can see however, that nearly 23 million Americans are not in the labor force because of "disabilities".
I suggest "fraud" is more like it.
Curious BLS Numbers
Here's the curious thing: 14 million collect disability, but the BLS says 22.726 million are not in the labor force (not working), because of disabilities.
What are the other 8.726 million doing? Is the BLS inflating disability numbers making the unemployment rate absurdly low, or are states doing that poor a job getting people off welfare and on to federal government disability programs? Some of both?
Regardless, we need to stop this madness.
Simple Solution
One easy way to eliminate some of the fraud would be to put someone in charge of making a case for the other side. No, we do not need new Federal programs. All we need do is " Un-end Welfare as We Know It ".
If states had any incentive to stop disability fraud, we would not have so much of it. Make states responsible for a large portion of disability claims just as they are for welfare, and the number of people collecting disability will collapse.
I have written many times about disability fraud, its relation to the unemployment rate, and its relation to expiring unemployment benefits. Inquiring minds may wish to consider some Disability Fraud Examples . -
Amelia Ashton
They have just introduced food stamps in the UK to replace crisis loans which were repayable but you could spend the money on what you wanted.
Food stamps are redeemable only in Asda (Walmart) and ony for food. (Not cigarettes or alcohol. Not sure about any other restrictions).
Food banks are the biggest growth industry in the UK next to our welfare costs.
Our government too keep saying unemployment is down but the welfare bill is rising. Only 13% of the bill is unemployment payments.
The cost of living is so high often a family with both parents working still need help towards rent and bills but the government do nothing to raise the minimum wage and vilify those who do qualify for help as lazy and scroungers.
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Satanus
Moshe
Thats the direction it seems to be going, at the present. Corps only do for their employees what they are forced to do. That force used to come from govt and unions. Unions have mostly dissappeared and many western govts are basically owned by the corps.
S
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mrsjones5
Of course, if an applicant needs a lawyer why the hell not? My husband had a lawyer and I'm thankful for what the lawyer did. There was nothing crooked or unseemly done to get my husband his benefits.
but I'm done. Carry on with the SSDI recipient bashing and the screaming over so-call welfare queens. This is a message board after all. I've got better things to do.
Hi Was!
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soontobe
No one is talking personally about your husband, or you, or your children, Mrs. J. No one is denying legitimate cases exist.
We are talking about an aggregate problem involving millions of people. The population is not more physically disabled, overall, than it was decades ago. Quite the opposite. Yet the numbers receiving benefits are skyrocketing.
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Berengaria
That state has more than 30% of the nation's welfare recipients,
California happens to have the highest population. And highest GDP.
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mrsjones5
With that board stroke you and Moshe are talking about my husband and I. You never say some. You dont even give a percentage. All recipients are on the undeserved take so you would have us believe. I still live this. It's still close. My husband recently had a doctor who would not look over my husand's medical records, told my husband it was all in his head and had my husband kicked out of the medical group and put my husand's SSDI application in danger of denial again. Thank goodness we were able to reverse it and got my husband another doctor.
I take this all very personal because I lived it and am still living it. You are talking about me and my husband! There are folks on this very board who are on SSDI and even welfare (or had been) and you are talking about them also. And you painfully don't know what you're talking about cuz you haven't lived it.
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ShirleyW
I believe on an earlier post it says it takes up to 3 to 5 years to get thru the disability system. I guess it depends on where you live and who's handling your case. A friend of mine who's had major surgery on her spine going on four years ago, although she is recovered but with pains now and then is on SSDI, and it took just under a year, it took her Dr forever to send over his paper work and that was her major holdup. She used Binder & Binder, whose commercial always run all day about getting the "money that you've earned"
Also, as I posted a few weeks ago regarding SSDI I can't understand how these young able bodied people that I see on these daytime judge shows say they are on SSDI for ADHD getting $700 per month, one guys girfriend was getting the same exact thing for ADHD, so of course Judge Judy asked him why doesn't he get a job, all he could say was that he "had" a job ! I've heard that ADHD quite a few times used on these shows and these folks are just in therir 20's ! Can't they go dig some ditches somewhere are collect some garbage ?
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soontobe
California happens to have the highest population. And highest GDP.
California does not have 30% of the population, or 30% of national gdp. It has roughly 12% of each.
Children on Disability 
How Easy is it to Get Disability?
I would love to show data pre-recession. Unfortunately, the data only goes back to mid-2008. We can see however, that nearly 23 million Americans are not in the labor force because of "disabilities".