Let me mention that to get $700 in food stamps (EBT) the woman would need to have at least one child in the household.
Why Bother Working?
- Thread starter Scataphagos
- Start date
According to the SS Administration there are 8.8 million disabled workers that receive $10.3 billion in benefits ($1,146 average monthly benefit). This figure does not include SSI.
http://www.ssa.gov/news/press/basicfact.html
The growth in SS Disability payments has been greater than any other benefit program in the U.S. except for Food Stamps since 2005. There are law firms that advertise on TV in our community stating how they can get you on federal disability.
From NPR...
Unfit for Work
The startling rise of disability in America
In the past three decades, the number of Americans who are on disability has skyrocketed. The rise has come even as medical advances have allowed many more people to remain on the job, and new laws have banned workplace discrimination against the disabled. Every month, 14 million people now get a disability check from the government.
http://apps.npr.org/unfit-for-work/
One quote "In Hale County, Alabama, nearly 1 in 4 working-age adults is on disability.[2] On the day government checks come in every month, banks stay open late, Main Street fills up with cars, and anybody looking to unload an old TV or armchair has a yard sale."
How Americans Game the $200 Billion-a-Year 'Disability-Industrial Complex'
http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapot...billion-a-year-disability-industrial-complex/
Record Number: 10.9 Million Americans Collecting Disability
http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnew...-10-9-million-americans-collecting-disability
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As outlined in the articles and the SSA website; 8.8 Million receive Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) and the remainder receive Supplemental Security Income (SSI).
The NPR and Forbes articles provide an good outline of the fraudulent behavior that is occurring. There are towns where over 25% of the population is receiving government disability benefits? Let me ask what percent of our population is disabled? There has been ample coverage of the dismal misappropriation of these benefits - it is easy to find examples on the web including the entire npr/pbs series.
Sadly the worst examples are the parents who refuse to have their children receive medical treatment so they can still get SSI money for the child. If the child stopped being "disabled" then the family would not get money. Therefore the child goes without proper medical treatment for years while failing in school. Sadly my family members who teach encounter this problem every year recently in their schools.
Which I'm afraid does not answer the question of how many of these people do not qualify to receive benefits? Doh wants the FACTS!!
Well in that case read the articles, watch the newscast, and investigate it yourself.
I personally believe that over 50% of people receiving SSDI should not be getting it.
The Social Security system was designed to be providing retirement benefits for senior citizens who put into it for many years. Adding SSDI & SSI to the system, non-retirement programs that sucks out billions of dollars per year from a retirement system, is absurd. The politicians who added SSDI & SSI onto Social Security without properly funding these programs should be ashamed of themselves, they effectively have stolen retirement funds from millions of hard working Americans.
The question is to define "not qualify to receive benefits" -- apparently by our government definition all of these people "qualify to receive benefits" --- even the clown I know who sits as home and claims mental disability and refuses to work (while poking fun about how he is scamming the government, and the rest of us are stupid for working).
Doh does not approve of being told to "investigate it yourself".
Be that as it may, if all of these people have been determined to qualify, then the whole basis of this arc is just another right-wing rant. If someone is standing on the street corner handing out thousand-dollar bills, are you going to say No, thank you, I have enough already?
If (a) the criteria need to be changed and/or (b) the process by which a determination is made as to whether or not the criteria are met needs to be changed, then those changes need to be made. But no one applying for and meeting those criteria needs the approval of those who believe that the recipient is shiftless and needs to be sterilized.
Able-Bodied People Defrauding Social Security Disability Program
http://dailysignal.com/2012/10/12/able-bodied-people-defrauding-social-security-disability-program/
After shimmying up trees and doing away with storm debris, the obviously able-bodied tree trimmer asked his customer, “Could you make the check out to my mom? I’m on disability.” Inconveniently for him, the tree trimmer’s customer was Senator Tom Coburn (R–OK).
This guy asked a U.S. Senator to help him defraud the Social Security Disability program.
In fact, Coburn is one of the last legislators you want to let in on such a scheme, having built a reputation of going after waste, fraud, and abuse. After witnessing the man shimmy up trees while collecting government disability benefits, Coburn wondered, “How widespread is the abuse?”
Wide.
An 18-month investigation by a Senate subcommittee reports that in more than 25 percent of cases reviewed, evidence confirming disabilities was “insufficient, contradictory, or incomplete.” The staff reviewed 300 decisions in which individuals were awarded disability benefits by administrative law judges. A 2011 internal Social Security Administration report echoed the findings, showing a national error rate of 22 percent.
Coburn, a medical doctor, personally reviewed the application and evidence in 100 individual cases. His summation was even more startling: “In about 75% of the cases I went through, people were not truly disabled.”
Enormous inconsistencies emerged after looking at how judges reviewed evidence. Coburn said, “you could flip a coin for anybody that came before the Social Security commission for disability and get it right just as often as the judges.”
A recipient’s award is not chump change, averaging $1,111 per month and $300,000 over the course of a lifetime. In addition, after a 24-month waiting period, SSDI beneficiaries qualify for Medicare benefits. In SSDI, disabilities include a range of problems, but about one-third of the diagnoses are mental disorders.
Giving disability payments to people who don’t need it is outrageous on many levels. Not only is it criminal, but it offends our sensibilities of fairness, runs counter to the American work ethic, and fuels the coming bankruptcy of a very important safety net program.
In April, the 2012 Social Security trustees’ report projected that the disability trust fund will be exhausted in 2016—two years sooner than last year’s report and sooner than any other federal entitlement trust fund.
The program’s precarious financial footing has accelerated in the last five years because of an astounding 23 percent increase in those on the rolls, bringing the total to 11 million beneficiaries. The surge is not simply a result of baby boomers reaching their disability-prone years. It’s the economy. People are losing their jobs and making a run for disability support. In fact, Heritage analyst James Sherk reports that the rise in SSDI rolls accounts for about a third of the drop in labor force participation between 2007 and 2011; overall, six percent of the country’s adult population say they are not working due to a disability.
Action is needed. The Social Security Disability Income program is meant to provide a safety net to one of our most vulnerable populations—individuals with disabilities who can no longer work. It supports the neighbor coping with severe brain injury from a car accident and the family member whose multiple sclerosis has progressed to a stage where work is no longer possible. We value and believe in such a safety net.
(More at above url)
http://dailysignal.com/2012/10/12/able-bodied-people-defrauding-social-security-disability-program/
After shimmying up trees and doing away with storm debris, the obviously able-bodied tree trimmer asked his customer, “Could you make the check out to my mom? I’m on disability.” Inconveniently for him, the tree trimmer’s customer was Senator Tom Coburn (R–OK).
This guy asked a U.S. Senator to help him defraud the Social Security Disability program.
In fact, Coburn is one of the last legislators you want to let in on such a scheme, having built a reputation of going after waste, fraud, and abuse. After witnessing the man shimmy up trees while collecting government disability benefits, Coburn wondered, “How widespread is the abuse?”
Wide.
An 18-month investigation by a Senate subcommittee reports that in more than 25 percent of cases reviewed, evidence confirming disabilities was “insufficient, contradictory, or incomplete.” The staff reviewed 300 decisions in which individuals were awarded disability benefits by administrative law judges. A 2011 internal Social Security Administration report echoed the findings, showing a national error rate of 22 percent.
Coburn, a medical doctor, personally reviewed the application and evidence in 100 individual cases. His summation was even more startling: “In about 75% of the cases I went through, people were not truly disabled.”
Enormous inconsistencies emerged after looking at how judges reviewed evidence. Coburn said, “you could flip a coin for anybody that came before the Social Security commission for disability and get it right just as often as the judges.”
A recipient’s award is not chump change, averaging $1,111 per month and $300,000 over the course of a lifetime. In addition, after a 24-month waiting period, SSDI beneficiaries qualify for Medicare benefits. In SSDI, disabilities include a range of problems, but about one-third of the diagnoses are mental disorders.
Giving disability payments to people who don’t need it is outrageous on many levels. Not only is it criminal, but it offends our sensibilities of fairness, runs counter to the American work ethic, and fuels the coming bankruptcy of a very important safety net program.
In April, the 2012 Social Security trustees’ report projected that the disability trust fund will be exhausted in 2016—two years sooner than last year’s report and sooner than any other federal entitlement trust fund.
The program’s precarious financial footing has accelerated in the last five years because of an astounding 23 percent increase in those on the rolls, bringing the total to 11 million beneficiaries. The surge is not simply a result of baby boomers reaching their disability-prone years. It’s the economy. People are losing their jobs and making a run for disability support. In fact, Heritage analyst James Sherk reports that the rise in SSDI rolls accounts for about a third of the drop in labor force participation between 2007 and 2011; overall, six percent of the country’s adult population say they are not working due to a disability.
Action is needed. The Social Security Disability Income program is meant to provide a safety net to one of our most vulnerable populations—individuals with disabilities who can no longer work. It supports the neighbor coping with severe brain injury from a car accident and the family member whose multiple sclerosis has progressed to a stage where work is no longer possible. We value and believe in such a safety net.
(More at above url)
And yet they qualified.