Social Security Disability Secures Today and Tomorrow
Reading Time: 2 MinutesLast Updated: August 19, 2021
“I have never asked for help, but man did I need it now.” This is the case for many people living with disabling conditions that prevent them from working. At Social Security, we see and hear these stories every day.
We provide benefits to millions of people with disabilities and their families through the Social Security Disability Insurance program. This earned benefit program provides a vital lifeline for those who can no longer work because of an oftentimes unexpected critical illness. Disability can be unpredictable and can change anyone’s life at any time.
This year, our disability program turned 60 years old. There have been changes over the years, especially in medicine and technology, but one thing remains the same: our core philosophy of securing today and tomorrow for workers and their families.
In honor of the 60th anniversary of the program, we’ve featured blogs focusing on disability since the beginning of August, when the program officially turned 60. Acting Commissioner Colvin kicked off the blog series and Judy Chesser, Deputy Commissioner for Legislation and Congressional Affairs, detailed the legislative history of the disability program. We will continue to feature blogs about the program over the next few months.
We invite you to visit our Faces and Facts of Disability page to learn more about our disability beneficiaries through personal stories and videos. You can also get links to our publications and statistics and learn disability facts.
Currently, we feature Jon’s story. Jon lives with a rare neurological disability called Complex Regional Pain Syndrome. A condition so severe, it doesn’t allow him to work, easily digest food, or even go for a leisurely stroll in the park. Jon expresses his gratitude for Social Security and describes what his life is like. Read Jon’s story, as well as many others, by visiting Faces and Facts of Disability.
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Tags: Disability, Social Security benefits, social security disability benefits
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Jim Borland, Assistant Deputy Commissioner, Communications
Jim Borland, Assistant Deputy Commissioner, Communications
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David
Hello I’m receiving ssdi benefits I’ve been on for around 11 years at first I had my spouse and 3 children receiving benefits from my ssdi since then they have taken my son age 25 off he is also disabled and has been denied his own ssdi benefits.now my oldest daughter is 22 years old she was taken off when she turned 18 same situation she applied and was denied now my youngest when she turned 16 they took my spouse off from receiving and benefits she is also disabled but doesn’t have enough work credits to receive any benefits she has been trying sing we got married 26 years ago she has a multitude of disability problems.I have helped her with protesting the decision made and as usual denied
Now my youngest daughter is turning 18 an d guess what she is now coming off my ssdi account now she has the worse disability she is in hs a senior but is in a disability class that she can go to until she is 26 years old with a mentality of sa 4th grade student
Where do I have to do she will never work a regular job with her disability..I know this is alot that I telling you I’ve been thru ss for many years fighting with them
tony
Here is a whole family dependant on Social Security disabilty and saying they can’t work.
The free Social Security disabilty money sure is good where nobody wants to work.
Ray F.
Hi David, please visit our Retirement Planner: Benefits For Your Children, for important information about this topic.
tony
The DDS usually determines if someone meet the Listing for a mental disorder. The ALJ hardly ever says a person meet the Listing for a mental disorder.
This is the concept of the hearing. If the claimant meet the Listing for the mental disorder, then why does the ALJ request a Vocational Expert(VE) at the hearing. The ALJ is wasting taxpayer’s money. The VE is used at Step 5 when the Listing is not meet.
At Step 5, before making a determination that includes vocational evaluation, the ALJ should discuss the case with a psychiatrist or psychologist.
https://secure.ssa.gov/poms.nsf/lnx/0425020010
The ALJ shouldn’t even consider a VE without discussing it with the psychiatrist or psychologist. If the ALJ doesn’t discuss the case with a psychiatrist or psychologist, then there is no need for a VE and the claimant should be denied.
I am getting that free Social Security disabilty money because the SSA can’t do anything right.
tony
The DDS has already denied the claimant once or twice before the hearing. If there is something overlooked or underrated, then the ALJ should discuss the case with a psychiatrist or psychologist.
tony
I use to live in a building were most of the people were Section 8 tenants. The adults didn’t have to work because they were on SSI. There was one guy who I saw riding a bike everyday. I asked him if he had a job and he told me that he was collecting disabilty for his shoulder and back. This guy was riding a bike and carrying his grocery bags from the store.
People who don’t own are car have to ride a bike or do a lot of walking to the bus stop and carry their grocery bags all the way back home. They don’t have a lot of money to pay someone to deliver their grocery. There are a bunch of fraudsters out there.
One lady in the building pays $900/month in rent and drives a brand new car and doesn’t work. I get her mail by mistake and it was from Medicaid. How the hell is she on Medicaid paying $900/month in rent and driving a brand new car.
My friend that I knew 15 year ago scam Social Security disabilty for some type of intestinal problem. He paid off some doctor in Miami to write up some bogus medical records.
His whole family were crooks. His dad was sentenced over 15 years for drug dealing and his brother served 5 years for identity thief. He was trying to sell me a commercial driver license because he knew one of the driver license examiner. Everybody was crooked down there in Miami.
The Blacks and Hispanics are robbing Social Security like crazy in Miami. Miami is the scam capital of the US. Where ever there are too many poor and homeless people, you got a bunch of fraudsters like in New York, California, West Virginia, Puerto Rico, etc.
It is Social Security fault for all of the fraud. They approved more people in these locations where all the fraud is at. The ODAR office also has the highest approval rating above the National average at these locations.
Brenda
ed and was denied, appealed and denied (their doctors report was contradictory of itself and was not allowed to call her for clarification), went to appeal a second time and my whole case was missing from the site!?!?!
I had multiple doctor and diagnostic reports but none were used to determine my case. They even said I turned in a report a year prior to me even applying. What’s with that? I am now looking to more surgery and more time away from work, yet I do not qualify as disabled. I have multiple spinal injuries/issues and am on a few drugs (not by choice) for pain.
Brenda
I want to know what is going to happen to all the cases that fell under the “blanket Denial” that social security office is now under investigation for? I applied and was denied, appealed and denied (their doctors report was contradictory of itself and was not allowed to call her for clarification), went to appeal a second time and my whole case was missing from the site!?!?!
I had multiple doctor and diagnostic reports but none were used to determine my case. They even said I turned in a report a year prior to me even applying. What’s with that? I am now looking to more surgery and more time away from work, yet I do not qualify as disabled. I have multiple spinal injuries/issues and am on a few drugs (not by choice) for pain.
If mine was one of the ‘blanket denials’, will I be notified?
Tony S.
Social Security Amendments of January 1, 2016. Summer Solstice Instructions HA-6-6-16 http://www.title24uscode.org/ss1.htm
Today is last day for Congress to pass the Social Security Beneficiary Class Action and make a $20 billion surplus fiscal year 2017. Today is the day I conclude my service to Paul Ryan, Speaker of the House.
Tomorrow you begin prosecuting the attempts of the rich, in particular the President and Congress, to evade or defeat the 12.4% OASDI tax on all income on the unequally limited individual basis of up $100,000 fine, thus a $500,000 corporate fine against the President and Congress to try IRS Commissioner John Koskinen’s new 1-2% voluntary UN tax 1040 form and quarterly 12.4% OASDI tax on all income under 26USC7201 today or tomorrow.
Condolences. Congress lacks the intellectual capacity to reason, may need a new Speaker and definitely needs to be reminded to abolish the Democratic-Republican (DR) two party system under penalty of poisoning. Yesterday, against the counsel of the United States Supreme Court regarding Burwell v. Hobby Lobby (2014), King et al v. Burwell (2015), Zubick v. Burwell (2016), Congress conspired with HHS half high school to pay a $1.1 billion bribe to the Zika terrorists of the half head secretary. The gray haired President has bribed Anthony Fauci to publicly suggest paying $1.1 billion for a federal laboratory that has not already produced an attenuated Zika vaccine and promote abortions for microcephaly – half head sonogram.
Their crimes of genocide, including publicly reported school shooting, poisoning deaths, and false representation and bribery of terrorists were enumerated at the end of the day with a reminder to change the name of HHS to PHD. I’ll never be able to eat ham while quoting the Bible and Quran on orphans again. The rich owe mandatory restitution for 10 million AFDC/TANF benefit cuts 1996-2000 that currently affect 16-24 million poor children under 18USC228(b-d).
Do not take advantage of a widow or an orphan (Old Testament, Exodus 22:22). Leave your orphans; I will protect their lives. Your widows too can trust in me (Old Testament, Jeremiah 49:11). Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world (New Testament, James 1:27). And they feed, for the love of God, the indigent, the orphan, and the captive (The Human: 8). Therefore, treat not the orphan with harshness (The Quran, The Morning Hours: 9). (Be good to) orphans and the very poor. And speak good words to people (The Quran, The Heifer: 83). Give orphans their property, and do not substitute bad things for good. Do not assimilate their property into your own. Doing that is a serious crime (The Quran, The Women: 2).
To Act in good faith SSA must make orphan a qualifying disability today. There are an estimated 100,000 orphans living in orphanages with no social insurance, allowance or property rights, and another 400,000 under retirement age adult orphans, many of whom are extremely poor, who might benefit if orphan were made a qualifying disability. There are also an estimated 400,000 children passing through the foster-care system shifting from psychiatric exploitation to homeless youth with rich adoptive parents.
An orphan is a child whose parents are dead or have abandoned them permanently. Worldwide about 7.6% of children are orphans, in Africa that number is estimated at 11% , in Asia 6.5% and Latin America and the Caribbean 7.4%, however the United Nations counts for children who have lost only one parent. The estimated 100,000 orphans in the United States comprise only about 0.2% of children in the United States. Supplemental Security Income (SSI) growth has been about 0.1% although it is advertised at 1% for the passed several years; SSA needs to make orphan a qualifying disability right away.
Adults can also be referred to as orphan, or adult orphans. However, those who reached adulthood before their parents died are normally not called orphans; the term is generally reserved for children whose parents have died while they are too young to support themselves. At a long-term rate of 2.2% the DI trust fund should have enough to pay for adult orphans as they become expected to be unemployed for more than one year.
Although the Economic Security Act of 1935 did not specifically provide for orphans it intended to insure aged persons, blind persons, dependent and crippled children, maternal and child welfare, public health, and the administration of their unemployment. Since 1996 the United States has seriously failed to provide for dependent and crippled children, maternal and child welfare.
To make sure that orphans are treated fairly they must be specifically qualified for full SSI benefits $777 mo. with the 6% Cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) in 2017 so that they and their charitable givers are not penalized with 2/3 rates for living and eating in the household of another or $30 a month for living in a genuinely benevolent institution for free – the child will keep two-thirds of the full benefit for candy, car, computer and college and will pay one-third of their income as rent to the orphanage under Housing and Urban Development (HUD) guidelines.
lowell g.
I’m getting disabelty from work for three years when it runs out can I get disibelity from social security I’m drowing social security now can I switch over to disibelity
Ray F.
You can apply for Disability Benefits before you reach your full retirement age (currently age 66). Disability payments are established at the highest rate possible, meaning you could get a higher monthly benefit amount. In addition, we can continue paying your retirement benefits while we consider your application and wait for a medical decision. In addition to meeting our definition of disability, you must have worked long enough–and recently enough–under Social Security to qualify for disability benefits under the SSDI program. For more information and to see if you should apply for disability, please contact your local office or call us at 1-800-772-1213 between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m., Monday through Friday and ask one of our representatives to assist you. Generally, you will have a shorter wait time if you call later in the week. We hope this information helps!
Daniel C.
Jim: It’s nice to see the words “earned benefit program” in your write-up. So many folks just don’t get it. Thanks for the support!
Tes
I receive SSDI. Will the amount I get ever change? Besides the cost of living amounts.
Ray F.
Thank you for your question Tes. Disability payments are established at the highest rate possible, and we used the highest years of your earnings to calculate your monthly benefit amount. We base it on your average lifetime earnings before your disability began. When you reach your full retirement age, we will automatically convert your disability benefits to retirement benefits, but the amount remains the same.
Carolyn P.
I was injured at work 12 years ago. I applied for SSDI & was denied. Thankfully Workers Comp helps out. Since my injury I was divorced after 30 years of marriage. Which besides not getting any alimony or a penny from my ex, he’s on SSDI just prior to the divorce. My question is I’m afraid of losing my home. They decreased my Workers Comp rate after the divorce! Crazy! I have documents for every specialist they’ve sent me to all of which state I am totally, permanently disabled. Now, if I apply again what happens with the money I collect from Workers Comp? I don’t want to end up with a lesser amount of money. I can’t afford food most weeks. I’m getting older and now it all scares me. Any advice what or how this works?
Thank you in advance.
Carolyn
Ray F.
Please read our publication: “How Workers’ Compensation And Other Disability Payments May Affect Your Benefits” or visit our Social Security Handbook web page for more information on Workers’ Compensation. If you have specific questions, please call our toll free number at 1-800-772-1213, Monday through Friday, between 7 a.m. and 7 p.m. and speak with one of our representatives. We hope this information helps!