In the United States, Social Security is the commonly used term for the federal Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance(OASDI) program and is administered by the Social Security Administration. The original Social Security Act was signed into law by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1935, and the current version of the Act, as amended, encompasses several different programs.
In 2017, Social Security expenditures totaled $806.7 billion for OASDI and $145.8 billion for Disability Insurance (DI). Income derived from Social Security is currently estimated to have reduced the poverty rate for Americans age 65 or older from about 40% to below 10%. In 2018, the trustees of the Social Security Trust Fund reported that the program will become financially insolvent in the year 2034 unless corrective action is enacted by Congress.
Social security gives millions of retired and disabled individuals all around the country a feeling of peace of mind and ease. There are financial trends, however, that are worrying to people who rely on social security payments as a means of getting by. There may be major social security disability adjustments on the horizon.
Expenses Are Going up Rapidly
The fact that the cost of living is consistently going up. The good news is that Social Security benefits include a cost of living adjustment (COLA) that is supposed to cover the official increase in the inflation rate. The bad news is that the official adjustment is based on the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) CPI-U which is the inflation rate that they calculate to be closely related to “urban consumers”. The BLS also calculates another cost of living index that more closely approximates the costs experienced by the elderly called the CPI-e which due to the cost of medicine etc. tends to be higher than the CPI-U so the elderly tend to fall further and further behind as they get older.
There Are Many People Trying to Get Disability Insurance Nowadays
There are increasing numbers of individuals trying to get DI or “disability insurance” nowadays. That number may only go up with the passing of time as well. Significant numbers of individuals have signed up for disability insurance over the course of the past decade. As we can see from the chart below from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities the number of beneficiaries of SSDI has increased from just over 2 million to over 8 million during the period from 1975 through 2016. Ah, you might say, but the population has also increased. But the percentage of the workforce collecting disability insurance has also increased from around 3% to over 4% and during the same period workplace safety has increased not gotten more dangerous.
Assistance from Social Security Disability Attorneys
According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities:
Eligibility criteria are strict, and most SSDI applicants are rejected. Applicants for SSDI benefits must be —
- Insured for disability benefits (essentially, they must have worked for at least one-fourth of their adult life and five of the last ten years).
- Suffering from a severe, medically determinable physical or mental impairment that is expected to last 12 months or result in death, based on clinical findings from acceptable medical sources.
- Unable to perform “substantial gainful activity” (any job that generates earnings of $1,180 per month for most people, $1,970 for blind people) anywhere in the national economy — regardless of whether such work exists in the area where the applicant lives, whether a specific job vacancy exists, or whether he or she would be hired.
If you find yourself needing to apply for SSDI it can be a daunting process and many people choose to set up a consultation with a social security disability attorney to help them through the process. The right social security disability lawyer may be able to offer you social security disability attorney services that can help you navigate the application process.
Hearings
Wait durations for hearings for social security are an issue for many people in the United States. Typical time spans are 354 total days. That’s close to twelve months. People are starting to voice their concerns with regard to wait durations that are thought to be unreasonable.
Social security disability is an in-depth system that aids all sorts of people in the country. If you rely on this form of disability, it can help to stay updated on all of the financial patterns that are relevant nowadays. Staying updated can help you get ready for all kinds of adjustments that may be coming.
You might also like:
- Cost-of-living Adjustment (COLA)
- Retirees Working for Good
- Retirement Planning Calculator
- Historical U.S. Inflation Rates
