A Vital Lifeline for People with
Disabilities
Lisa D. Ekman, JD, MSW
SSDI Is Vitally Important For
People With Disabilities
 SSDI benefits lift many people with disabilities and
their family members out of poverty
 For many people with disabilities, the SSDI
benefits they earned are the only thing that keeps
them from homelessness and destitute poverty
 Provides access to health care and long-term
services and supports
SSDI Beneficiary Characteristics
 SSDI beneficiaries are a diverse group, including
people with:
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heart disease
end stage renal failure
significant intellectual disabilities
severe mental illness
severe physical disabilities
advanced stage cancers
debilitating arthritis
deafness
blindness
SSDI Beneficiary Characteristics
 Some are terminally ill:
 About 1 in 5 male SSDI beneficiaries and just under 1 in
6 female SSDI beneficiaries die within the first five years
of receiving benefits
 SSDI beneficiaries tend to be older
 About 7 in 10 are over 50
 Approximately 3 in 10 are over 60
 And have low educational attainment
 42% did not finish high school
 35.3% have high school diploma or equivalent
Can A Significant Percentage Work
and Become Self-Supporting?
 SSDI beneficiaries should be given every support, service and encouragement to work but:
 Available data show that a large percentage will never have the capacity for ongoing
work at a significant level
 Rejected applicants don’t fare very well:
 Barely half of rejected applicants have any earnings. Some 53 percent of rejected
male applicants age 45 to 64 (compared with about 20 percent of accepted
applicants) had any earnings two years after application, as compared with 82
percent of a control group (selected for its similar demographic characteristics
and past work history) of non-applicants who had earnings.
 Two years after application, 43 percent of rejected applicants (compared with
about 13 percent of accepted applicants) had earnings equivalent to three
months out of the year at the minimum wage. In contrast, 79 percent of nonapplicants had at least that level of earnings.
 For those with earnings, median amounts are quite low. Among rejected
applicants who worked, median annual earnings (in 2000 dollars) were only
$10,000, just slightly above the poverty threshold, (compared with about $3,500
for accepted applicants). This compared with median earnings of $35,000
among non-applicants.
Kathy Ruffing, Social Security Disability Insurance is Vital to Workers With Severe Impairments, Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, August 9, 2012.
http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3818
SSDI is not a work disincentive
 just over 8 in 10 reported that the biggest barrier to
employment was their own disability (80.5 percent).
 More than 9 in 10 people surveyed indicated that the
receipt of public income support benefits had NO
effect on their work activity.
 In fact, 92.5 percent of those who received financial
assistance within the past year reported that “the
program(s) they used did not cause them to work
less than they otherwise would have.”
United States Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, News Release, PERSONS WITH A
DISABILITY: BARRIERS TO EMPLOYMENT,TYPES OF ASSISTANCE, AND OTHER LABOR-RELATED
ISSUES —MAY 2012,” April 24, 2013; available at http://bls.gov/news.release/pdf/dissup.pdf
Early Intervention – Start Years
Before Application for Benefits
Earnings deteriorate several years before application
Sustainability and Affordability
Are a Matter of Priorities
 Americans support Social Security and they
don’t mind paying for it
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Given a choice, they would rather pay more than see
benefits cuts- NASI Survey – see next slide
 The Consortium for Citizens with Disabilities
supports revenue only options
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Benefits are already modest as Melissa explained
Any cuts will cause more hardship and more poverty
Social Security:
What Americans Want……
 ELIMINATE CAP: Gradually, over 10 years, eliminate the cap on
earnings that are taxed for Social Security.
 INCREASE TAX RATE: Gradually, over 20 years, raise the Social
Security tax that workers and employers each pay from 6.2% of
earnings to 7.2%. The increase would be so gradual that someone
earning $50,000 a year would pay about 50 cents a week more each year.
 INCREASE COLA: Increase Social Security’s cost-of-living adjustment
(COLA) to more accurately reflect the inflation actually experienced by
seniors, who typically pay more out-of-pocket for medical care than
other households.
 RAISE MINIMUM BENEFIT: Raise Social Security’s minimum benefit
so that a worker who pays into Social Security for 30 years can retire at
62 or later and have benefits above the federal poverty line ($10,788 for
one person aged 65 or older in 2011).
Source: Jasmine V. Tucker, Virginia P. Reno, Thomas N. Bethell, Strengthening Social Security: What Do
Americans Want?, National Academy of Social Insurance, January 2013,
http://www.nasi.org/research/2013/report-strengthening-social-security-what-do-americans-want
Does SSDI Need Reform?
 SSDI is functioning as it should – providing vital wage
replacement to millions of people with disabilities and
their families who need it
 More must be done to
 help people who acquire disabilities stay at work if they
can and
 provide support and services to SSDI beneficiaries with
work capacity to obtain and maintain employment
 But this is not, and should not be, the role of SSDI
program
Principles for Reform
 Any reform should preserve the structure of the SSDI
program, including the definition of disability
 Efforts to increase employment opportunities and
improve employment outcomes for Social Security
disability beneficiaries should not be achieved
through:
 any tightening of eligibility criteria for cash benefits
 narrowing of health care benefits
 removing the entitlement to benefits or
 devolving responsibility to the states
Principles for Reform (cont)
 SSDI benefit receipt should not be time limited
 Work activities, and work preparation activities,
should be voluntary for SSDI beneficiaries
 The Social Security Administration should be given
adequate administrative resources to:
 Perform disability determinations in a timely manner
 Perform program integrity functions:
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Continuing disability reviews
Prevent overpayments