New Rule Modernizes How We Award Disability Benefits
Reading Time: 1 MinuteLast Updated: February 24, 2020
The Social Security Disability Insurance and Supplemental Security Income programs protect some of the most vulnerable people in our society. A successful disability program must evolve and support making the right decision as early in the process as possible. To help us do that, we must modernize the rules and standards we use to evaluate how we determine disability benefits. We are moving forward with a rule change that has been in the works for a number of years and serves to update a more than 40-year-old policy that made the inability to communicate in English a factor in awarding disability benefits. The new rule is effective April 27, 2020.
We are required to consider education to determine if your medical condition prevents work. In 2015, our Inspector General recommended that we evaluate the appropriateness of this policy. Research now shows the inability to communicate in English is no longer a good measure of a person’s education level or the ability to engage in work. The new rule also supports the Administration’s longstanding focus of recognizing that individuals with disabilities can remain in the workforce.
To make the right disability decisions, Social Security disability rules must continue to reflect current medicine and evolution of work. We need to update our rules to keep up with society’s changes.
We owe it to the American public to ensure that our disability programs continue to reflect the realities of the modern workplace. Please share this information with your family and friends.
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About the Author
Andrew Saul, Commissioner, Social Security Administration
Commissioner of Social Security Administration (June 17, 2019 - July 9, 2021)
Comments
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Donnie L.
I just hope it’s fair and doesn’t take away benefits from those who truly need them.
I have been on disability myself since 1996. You’re below poverty quidelines. People who think you got it made should try and live on it. If it comes down to it, I guess I can retire at 62 and draw the same amount.
josh
Can u explain it to someone like me with tbi that’s been fighting for ssi for 5 years and never won haveing disabilities like I do make it very hard in life
K F.
Get ready for all those court cases. Remember Schisler, etc?
Wendy M.
Why do WOMEN who are disabled as children lose their SSD when they get married???? This needs to be fixed!!! BOYS don’t lose theirs. Now you have married couples struggling to make ends meet when one of them can’t work. PLEASE REVIEW THIS!!! It’s DISCRIMINATION AGAINST WOMEN.
Lisa D.
For god sakes it’s about time in modern day Society we need to recognize there are medications and work environments that allow people with disabilities that in the past where not able to function.. it was to easy for a person to claim a mental illness a reason not to work or a child or adult with adhd or drug addiction. Today we have come along way from simply isolating people with these problems. It was to easy to find away to collect.
A long paying tax payer sick of hearing someone collecting money because they are depressed…
Kimby
You dont know what you are talking about. I have hallucinations several times a week. I was denied ssdi twice. Im not “just depressed.” Having Mental illness is not an easy in for getting benefits. I will also have my cased reviewed routinely for the rest of my life.
Would you want someone who has psychotic episodes making your meals at your favorite fast food chain?
Drake D.
The reason that I’m on disability is because I got a flu shot that ended up giving me GBS . Please don’t get me wrong I appreciate every little bit I can get but I would much rather have my health back I’ve lost everything I own because of this sickness they said I would be getting better within a year I’m not any better I’m in pain all the time my life is gone down the tube the government has a no fault vaccination program but I don’t qualify for it because I’m not in their window whose fault is this it certainly isn’t mine I’ve been kicked to the curb I was a hardworking person that started add on to my house I can’t finish it I don’t know what I’m going to do I’m worried sick I just don’t know what to do I do not think it’s fair that I’m not qualified for the no-fault vaccination program. The quality of life for me is crap whose fault is that?
Polly L.
I worked most of my life and had all my quarters in when I filed my disability claim in 1986. Took me roughly 20 months to get approved. I feel the lengthy time waiting was terrible. Where do yo think people waiting for so long are supposed to live? You need to make decisions faster especially for those of us who could make more money working and simply can’t.
Margaret
Ashlee, you seem a little angry over a misunderstanding. When you go before a SS judge, there are factors considered regarding employability, such as availability of jobs you might be able to do & whether you might be considered for the job. Another factor is whether you can perform work without direct supervision; if the answer is ‘no’, you are not employable. Language ability is only one factor of many. Immigrants might have many children compared to us due to lack of advanced healthcare options (birth control, education, accessibility). Livable level of SSI income is not a factor. SSI says make it work for you. Poverty is not a factor. Keeping SSI recipients poor is just a side effect of the rules determining eligibility.
Shonda B.
Hi my name is Shonda!
I have been trying to get disability since 2004. I have Epilepsy, Depression, Anxiety that’s when I was diagnosed. I’ve been denied ever since then. Now I have no work credits and not blind. They just keep adding meds. Been to the neurologist done all the test. I got a lawyer off the internet specializing in they don’t get paid unless you win. Filed then denied so they filed an appeal received a hearing date. Two weeks before the hearing the lawyer calls to say” The judge is a hard judge, I lost all my work credits, not blind and withdrew from my case. How is this right and at what point do I just stop! I’ve cried many times and now have to see a therapist only to be put on a mood stabilizer and doubled my epilepsy meds,
Robert F.
Native American and Spanish were the first languages, then the white man came and broke his promises and tried to commit genocide for land. Now, we want the language of the white man who is in power to still steal from all the people who paid our money into the governments promise to protect all Americans.
I find this article evasive and punitive. It also does not state how disabled Americans who are shamed and blamed for their disabilities, are now the target of this administration. Go ahead, keep lying to us about an entitlement that this administration renamed our money paid into and used for government spending, but never paid back. Wake up, Americans. They used up the money and now say social security is in trouble because Trump and men like him use the social security freely as a loan without paying it back. Are you as dumb as this article makes you out to be? I doubt that. Targeting a group of people was what the Nazi’s did. That is what this group of Trump appointees are doing also. They deplete our funds and then try to get rid of it so they do not have to pay us back. In this America, I can be targeted for speaking out. Is that freedom of speech? We better start fighting back because this is just the start. This is theft by deception. It is our money and I do not target people who paid in all their life for what language they speak. Are they Americans?