Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) is a federal entitlement created in 1956 as an insurance plan for long-tenured workers with the misfortune of becoming disabled before retirement. Today, the program has ballooned into a $135 billion behemoth threatening to collapse under its own weight.
Left unchecked, decades of loose standards and poor enforcement may cause a collapse of the system which would culminate in thousands — if not millions — of deserving recipients being deprived their rightful benefits.
Federal disability insurance has humble beginnings, but over time it has grown dramatically, and today the biggest driver of rising costs for Social Security is not retiring baby boomers, but skyrocketing disability insurance benefits. In 1970, the disability insurance program was financed with a payroll tax rate of only 0.8 percent of wages. Today, the cost of SSDI has tripled relative to the 1970 level with disability benefits now making up 18 percent of all Social Security costs. This is a significant change from 10 percent in 1990, and the number of people on SSDI in 2012 exceeded the entire population of New York City — more than 8.7 million participants.
While it is tempting to blame the aching knees and backs of an aging population, the truth is that American workers are healthier and fitter today than they were when SSDI was in better fiscal shape. Instead the answer is the program has grown soft around the middle for three reasons: low standards, enticing benefits, and far too little control over its own screening process.
Continue Reading......
No comments:
Post a Comment