The Myth of the Disability Queen

A Case for Strengthening SSDI

There have been some posts on Twitter recently about the Social Security Disability Insurance Program. Republicans love to hate SSDI, blaming it for all types of societal ills. Right now it is mostly used to attack runaway government spending and the labor shortage seen in many sectors of the economy. The phrase “nobody wants to work anymore” is usually followed by a mention of SSDI, or “disability.”

I have a pretty good perspective on the SSDI program because I received SSDI payments from around 2004 to around 2014. I suffered from some very severe mental health issues that were obviously and objectively disabling. Nobody who knew me during that time, including my doctors, thought that I was able to work, and most thought that I would never be able to work again.

It took me a long time to make the decision to file. There was absolutely a stigma about people who were “on disability.” For a while I would apply for jobs thinking that I could do it, only to be talked down prior to the interview. I also thought that I would somehow magically get better sooner than anyone else thought reasonable.

My immediate and extended family basically had an intervention with me. I was broke. I had one used car and a school aged child. I had moved from a nice brick home to a quite small single-wide mobile home. Family members were pooling money together and bringing food over. I wasn’t totally destitute, yet, but I was desperate.

Prior to this I had dropped out of high school at 17 and gone pretty much straight to work at the local glove factory. This was in the early 90s and textile manufacturing was still thriving. I made really good money. The factory closed in early 2000 and I had used Trade Adjustment Assistance to get my high school diploma and started classes at the community college.

I’ll never forget the day the bottom ultimately dropped out. I had struggled with issues of anxiety and panic for most of my life. But I was in class one day taking a test. Now I was a really good student, straight As. During this exam though, I started having a massive panic attack. Even though I thought I was holding it in, my professor somehow noticed something off, walked over to my desk, and whisper that I could finish the test in his office if I needed to.

I finished the exam, walked out of the college, stopping multiple times along the way to my car, and somehow managed to drive home. The next several weeks, maybe even a month or more, I have no memory of. But I do know that when I got home that day, I spent approximately 350 days per year there for several years.

I digressed there to paint a fuller picture of the circumstances.

Back to Twitter, a commenter on one of the threads I was reading this afternoon stated that almost half of Americans are on SSDI. The true number is less than 5%. I’d be willing to bet though, especially among conservatives, many people think the number is much, much higher.

There are two primary eligibility requirements for SSDI:

·       Be unable to work due to a disability that is expected to last more than one year or result in death

·       Have earned the required number of work credits prior to becoming disabled

This sounds like something that would apply to a larger percentage of Americans than 5%, but remember, this just means that you are eligible to apply to the program, not that you are eligible to receive benefits. To receive benefits you must go through the determination process.

There are three primary levels of determination. Note that aside from the application itself, which is quite burdensome, you are also responsible for ensuring that the reviewer receives all supporting documentation. Physician appointments, lab results, medications and side effects, letters of support from physicians, reviews by physicians specifically chosen by the determination center.

Initial determination reviews take about 6-8 months. The number of applicants approved at this level, people who have provided medical evidence of their disability, is a whopping 36%.

Reconsideration is the first level of appeal. This is basically the same process as the initial determination but by a different reviewer, ostensibly to ensure that people don’t ‘fall through the cracks.’ This takes another 6-8 months and the number of people at this level, people who have been unable to work for a year and a half, and have medical evidence supporting this, is a massive 13%.

The final appeal generally requires the applicant to present their evidence to an Administrative Law Judge. This takes an additional 12 months, on average. This is where the majority of applicants are approved. And by majority, I mean 51%.

There are other appeals at the federal court level but those are rare and usually result in either dismissal or remanding the case back through the process.

After two and a half years of being unable to work, with supporting medical evidence of a disability, still, only 51% of applicants are approved at this level.

Now keep in mind that these percentages are only for people who are approved. Generally, less than 60% of people who apply are approved.

And through all of this, the estimated level of fraudulent payments in the system, is 1%. This is lower than SNAP (food stamps), which is less than 2%, and much lower than tax evasion, which is estimated at almost 15%.

Just looking at these numbers should completely obliterate the idea that the SSDI system is rife with fraudulent layabouts who would rather sit at home and live large off the government than get a job. And by living large, the average SSDI beneficiary receives $1,300 per month. The US median income is around $2600 per month.

So we keep 40% of people eligible for disability off the rolls, make the majority or people who receive benefits wait almost three years, just to ensure that the rate of people receiving fraudulent payments remains at 0.005% of the population.

I think the numbers speak for themselves. Of course I’m basing this on official government statistics so I’m certain some people will say, well obviously they are lying because of course that’s what people say now. But I’m a living, breathing example of this reality. It took me almost three years and my payment amount was right around $1300 per month.

That said, I don’t mean this article just to naysay the people who claim that the program is too generous and rife with fraud. I also hope that people who read this will reconsider any prejudice they have against the system based on faulty information or lack of knowledge. And that we bring some attention to reform the system.

Looking at the data, it would appear that over 20% of people who are approved for SSDI payments eventually return to work, and most of these people do so of their own volition, not because SSDI determines that their condition has improved enough that they should lose benefits.

SSDI has a very generous return to work program. Recipients can make a certain amount of money while they receive benefits without being removed from the rolls. Recipients who return to work making over that threshold can continue to receive payments for up to 18 months, and continue receiving Medicare benefits for five years.

Many recipients though are terrified of even trying to work for fear of losing benefits. There needs to be a no-fault system in place where as long as a person is making under the threshold, or doing volunteer work of some sort, this cannot be used against them as a reason for ending benefits.

We need to get people on the rolls faster by adding tiers to the system. It shouldn’t just be rejection or approval. There should be full approval, as it is now, and a more conditional level of approval with heightened scrutiny after a number of years, and the burden for rejection needs to be much higher than the burden for approval.

If you ask most people, of any political persuasion, about SSDI specifically, they will tell you that the program is good, but they only want to ensure that only those who get it receive it. They never get presented with the fact that many, many times more people who need it don’t get it, than people who don’t need it get it.