Plea For Change In Return To Work Provisions

From an op ed piece in the Cincinnati Dispatch (and read my comment at the end of this excerpt):

I've seen a lot of unpleasant press about the Social Security Administration in the past several weeks. Print and broadcast media have carried stories about people who have become disabled and can't tap into what was supposed to be disability insurance from all the years when that money for Social Security was taken out of their paychecks. ...

But there's another Social Security Disability Insurance problem that, while it is keeping people fed and sheltered, could, with some tweaking, lend a hefty boost to the slumping economy.

I'll give you an example. ...

M is a mother in her early forties who had a great job the first few years out of college. Then the compromised sight she always had suddenly became worse; she could no longer see the computer, spread sheets and reports that were integral to her employment. So she stopped working.

Fast-forward 14 years. M has been raising her two children and doing a great job of it. She also has gotten training in adaptive techniques, so that she can use a white cane, Braille, electronic magnifying devices and computer software that delivers information to her extra-wide monitor in huge letters -- and speaks it aloud, as well.

She's ready and eager to go back to work.

The dilemma is that if she does, she almost certainly will lose money.

The rules go like this: If you're blind and receive Social Security Disability Insurance benefits, you are allowed to work, but if you make more than $1,570 a month, you lose the benefits.

M gets $2,600 each month in benefits -- $1,600 for her and $500 for each of her children. Let's say she gets a job earning $10 an hour. Working at 40 hours a week, she'll earn $1,600 a month, which is $30 over the limit, and about $500 of that goes to taxes. Boom. Benefits vanish. ...

It doesn't have to be this way.

For people who reach full retirement, receive Social Security and return to work, the earning limit is $36,000 annually. If an American of full retirement age exceeds that (twice the amount a blind recipient is allowed), benefits are adjusted incrementally, $1 for each $2 additional earned.

Yes, I know that the author is confused about the special return to work provisions for the blind and that she has never heard of Social Security's concept of Impairment Related Work Expenses (IRWE), but she has just chosen a bad example for a good argument. Her mistake in framing the example also points to another argument for changing the return to work provisions. They need dramatic simplification. Few people understand them.