Take a look at this report from the "Center for Studying Disability Policy" which recommends "work-support" programs as a way to reduce the burdens on Social Security's disability trust fund. (One word of warning, the Center's website caused my browser -- Firefox -- to freeze up. Could there be a metaphor here?) Three types of programs are recommended in the report:
- Earnings Support Insurance: New temporary program that would provide cash and employment supports funded by payroll taxes.
- Universal Short-Term Private Disability Insurance: Required short-term insurance provided by private insurers and funded through mandated employer and employee premiums.
- Experience Rating: A new formula used to determine the allocation of SSDI payroll taxes to employers, based on SSDI use by former employees.
I understand these ideas are receiving attention in Washington.
I put the name "Center for Studying Disability Policy" in quotations because it is not exactly what you might think. The "Center for Studying Disability Policy" appears to be a wholly owned subsidiary of Mathematica Policy Research which was at one time a major contractor with Social Security. What sort of contract did Mathematica have with Social Security? Oh, a contract to support disabled youth making the transition to employment, a contract which Social Security's Office of Inspector General says cost Social Security over $44 million and which generated "little tangible benefit." I think that Mathematica wants to get back on that gravy train.
So, Mathematica is recommending another trip down the same path that proved unsuccessful in the past and people in Washington are listening. People have short memories. How many times has Social Security pored money down the rat hole of encouraging the disabled to return to work? Which of these efforts has demonstrated any viability whatsoever? These schemes are always promoted by Beltway Bandits whose only real interest is in getting contracts.
The problem remains what it has always been. If you require people to be half dead or fully crazy to get disability benefits, what makes you think that ANY program will show any significant success in returning them to work? If you want great success in returning people to work, make it vastly easier to get on Social Security disability benefits. Otherwise, you are just wasting money on research that is doomed to failure.
Policymakers need to drop their illusions about who gets Social Security disability benefits in this country. They are NOT, in the main:
- People who have suffered some traumatic injury that will get better with time
- People whose only impairment is some injury or disease which has put them in a wheelchair but which leaves them able-bodied otherwise.
They ARE, in the main, people who suffer from one or more of the following:
- Chronic, progressive disease, meaning they not only do not get better with time; they get worse
- Chronic, severe pain which is not going to get better over time
- Chronic, severe mental illness that is unlikely to get significantly better over time
If policymakers would understand who is actually on Social Security disability benefits, they would understand just how futile it would be to fall for Mathematica's scheme.
7 comments:
"If you want great success in returning people to work, make it vastly easier to get on Social Security disability benefits."
Please explain the logic of that statement.
Explain? Son, it's obvious. Right now, the bar to getting disability is set so high that about the only ones who get approved are so severely disabled that the idea that you can somehow move them back into the workforce is just plain dumb. SSDI cherry picks the worst of the worst, denying those who are anything less than the walking dead. So, just how successful do you think it'll be to try and get this cohort of individuals back in the job market?
Otherwsie, the programs aimed at putting people back to work are doomed to fail because the cohort of eligibles simply cannot work (which is why they got disability in the first place.)
Open up the disability roles to folks with disabilities less than "the walking dead" and you'll have candidates who can return to work.
Try making that suggestion to individuals on SSI. They tend to be just about everything but the walking dead. They are just happy to have income and not have to work for it. There is no incentive for them to try to be gainfully employed.
ANON #2, you are deluding yourself. Getting disability benefits is not hard at all, especially if you are older; the worst complaint that any honest representative can make is that the process of approval can take a long time (which actually benefits the representative since it leads to higher past due benefits).
A high percentage of people approved for benefits are not actually disabled, but rather unemployed and unmotivated. A 55-year-old claimant with any significant physical impairment is practically impossible to deny, especially if you toss in depression and chronic pain and reduce them to unskilled work mentally (ruling out transferabiilty of skills).
The average pay rate at the hearing level is over 60%; that means 6 out of every 10 claimants can expect to receive benefits [while not every claimant denied by DDS appeals, there is no disincentive to appealing as it does not cost the claimant anything). There are 317 ALJs who pay 80% or more of their cases (compared to only 94 who pay less than 40%). You also have 60,000 or so cases paid on the record by senior attorneys every year.
The disability program has become more of an unemployment program, especially for individuals who are fifty or older, where SSA inappropriately takes into consideration hiring practices and age-related biases when determing disability status, even though the standard is supposed to simply be are there a significant number of jobs in the national economy which you, despite your impairments, can do.
also...don't forget that the 60% approval rate is only for those who already got denied at the FO level. That means a LARGE portion of people already got granted benefits. Yes, some people who are denied don't appeal, but on a whole, I believe that the number of applicants who apply for SS benefits and are ultimately granted them is MORE than 60%.
Also, I still fail to see how giving somone disability benefits actually IMPROVES the chances that they will work (as claimed by Anon 2)!
In 2009, there were 2,686,152 disabiity claims filed, with 37% paid and 63% denied.
That means 1,692,276 denials and 993,876 pays.
In 2009, there were 582,992 reconsideration decisions (or approximately 34% of denials were appealed). Of those appeals, 14% were approved and 86% denied.
That means 81619 pays and 501,373 denials.
In 2009, there were 554,025 ALJ hearings (the number of hearings is higher than the number of recon denials because of the hearing backlog).
In 2009, 63% of cases were paid, 22% denied, and 15% dismissed.
That means 349,036 paid cases versus 121,886 denied cases (with 83,103 additional cases dismissed).
Therefore, in 2009, 1,424,531 people were added to the disability rolls. That is equivalent to 53% of the number of claims filed that year.
http://www.socialsecuritydisabilitylawyer.us/files/2009-waterfall-chart.pdf
Mr. Hall: I am apalled at your lack of awareness of the ability of people with disabilities to work. People with all types of disabilities. It is not the disability that matters as much as the individual's personal motivation, encouragement from family and friends, and assistance he/she receives from service providers and community organizations. I am not saying it is the majority of people with disabilities but it is a substantial number of people that should have access to programs that will assist and encourage them to work without losing their health care or cash benefits.
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