Social Security Disability Collapsing

You can argue about the sustainability of regular Social Security all you want, but the Washington Examiner reports S.S. Disability (not quite the same as Social Security) is nearing collapse. By 2016 it's projected to run out of money.

This is a toughie for me. I've always felt there should be some sort of assistance for people unable to work. The wifey is on SSD, her main problem being she's immune deficient so gets sick fairly easily, and when she gets sick it can be a serious problem.

I'd like to think there would be help for me should I be sick or injured and can't work. One problem with Disability is they've lowered the qualifications, allowing many more to take advantage of it. I've often joked that the one way you can tell if someone is on disability is that they do everything everyone else does...but go to work.

Yep. same with the wife, so it's not always obvious, but I've known more people on disability that could work than couldn't.

Years ago I knew a maintenance gardener in Eureka. She had a guy helping her. She told me later she ran into a problem when she went to file taxes. The guy she had helping her told her she couldn't use his name because he was on disability and would get in trouble if they found out he was working, especially doing hard physical work. Gee. Who'da thunk?

About that same time there was a tenant at a place I worked at who started doing lawn work and cutting firewood to sell. He had cords of wood stacked in the yard. I got to talking to him and he told me he was on SSD, too! He had both shoulder joints replaced. That qualified him for SSD, but he did hard physical work regardless.

I get the impression all joint replacements qualify people for disability.

I worked for a guy that lived in Pine Hill. He was a manager for a grocery store and limped around a bit when walking. Then he got a hip replacement and automatically went on disability. In his case, I suppose he needed it as last I saw he was either in a wheelchair or on crutches.

That raises the question of the efficacy of hip replacements if nothing else. The guy could walk and work until the hip replacement. Now he just sits around.

I still work for a another person that had a hip replacement. I never knew there was anything wrong with her until after she had the surgery and told me. She went on to tell me they put her on permanent disability as a result. At the time she said she didn't want to be on permanent disability.

About a month later I stop by and she tells me she wants to keep disability (doesn't take long to get used to it). Then she got a job doing home health care, or some such, since you can still earn up to a certain amount even if you're on disability. I can't tell if the hip replacement helped her as she still walks as she always did, but at least she got her disability.

I'm not sure how they can deal with the S.S.D. collapse. I'd hate to be the one deciding who qualifies and who doesn't. If they do raise requirements, there will be the additional problem of all those people back on the job market. What will the unemployment rate be then?