CONGRESS MUST ADDRESS ELIGIBILITY
|| By ROBERT ROMANO || The Disability Insurance Trust Fund is set to run out of funds in 2016 according to the Social Security Trustees, having lost $113.1 billion since 2009 alone.
One might think the shortfall has come about due to the two-year payroll tax holiday that was enacted in 2010. However, little reported has been the fact the holiday was completely offset by reimbursements from the General Fund of Treasury in 2011 and 2012, which undoubtedly were borrowed.
In fact, $216.8 billion was infused into the Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance Trust Funds those years, according to data compiled by the Social Security Administration.
Meaning, the program’s impending insolvency can only be attributed to a combination of the Great Recession, the loss of millions of jobs that would have contributed revenue, and the expansion of the disability insurance program that was enacted unanimously by Congress in 2008, and signed into law by then-President George W. Bush.
The fact is, the number of people with jobs aged 16 to 64 has decreased 338,000 since the beginning of 2008, despite the population that age increasing by 7.5 million, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Meanwhile, 2 million people including dependents went on disability in that timeframe.
Yes, you read that correctly. More people have gone on disability than found jobs since 2008, even after you include seniors who are still working. And that’s with a one year gap between the jobs data, which goes through 2014, and Social Security, which is only up through 2013. No wonder it’s in trouble.
All of which means that Congress is more than likely to be addressing this issue in the new 114th Congress, trying to figure out where the program went wrong.
With that in mind …
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Robert Romano is the Senior Editor of Americans for Limited Government. This piece (reprinted with permission) originally appeared on NetRightDaily.com.
20 comments
FIRST!!!!
Now wait for me to post some inane babbling about ISIS, gay marriage, and Halley.
LMAO!
The real Flip/pogo/Sandi/sockpuppet-of-the-day must be hung over at GrandTango’s trailer this morning.
FREE COLLEGE FROM SOCIALIST OBAMA!!!! Oh my!!!
Free health insurance,40 million get free food and now FREE college for 2 years. Free condoms and birth control pills.
Iman Obama won’t be happy until nobody can eat, sleep,fuck or drink without the government.
A free college ed really bankrupted Germany.
Maybe if it runs out of money all the lazy asses will have to go back to work. But what about the few that actually deserve SSDI ? As with every good idea, the libturds have lowered the bar so far as to break the system. They caused the problem , let them fix it.
But aren’t your beloved Republicans and Tea Party in charge or they have a vote in Congress. Seriously you always forget Republicans and Tea Party also caused this nightmare. I see you only know the word Libtards when discussing Congress. You are not a viable person to discuss politics. I openly admit my Democrats are also responsible.
Even the Republicans are “libtards” to these guys. The only people not “libtards” are the crazy kook goobers in the extreme minority of the GOP who essentially want to cripple and kill all of these programs.
Let us not forget the only reason Social Security exists in the first place is because the “libtards” pushed it through decades and decades ago.
Excellent post. How many SSD actually can’t earn SOME income?
Let me jump in here early to make the point that, while the Trust Fund is projected to run out of funds in late 2016, the continuing collections from currently employed taxpayers means that SSDI recipients will continue to be paid 81% of their current benefits.
That can still be a budget-buster for some. However, as usual, the Republicans will try to use this as a lever to tear something else down while they are inadequately patching SSDI.
For a better explanation than I can give: http://www.offthechartsblog.org/getting-it-wrong-on-disability-insurance/
Note to self: be sure to purge your history and cookies from that link to NetRightDaily!
Two days ago, House Resolution No. 5 passed along party lines which prevents “clean allocation.” This essentially prohibits discussion or votes or reallocation of the trust fund. This creates a prob for attempts to alleviate a coming shortfall in the disability fund. Based upon current projections unless Congress acts by mid-2016. Social Security will only be able to pay about 80% of disability benefits. This occurred primarily due to changes in the American population and retirement age.
I ask that FITS stop printing misinformation from people like Romano. Get the facts straight
“More people have gone on disability than found jobs since 2008” = This is a patently false statement. Over 10 million people have found jobs since 2008. Labor participation is down for a variety of reasons that still are not fully documented. There are early retirees, people electing not to work as one parent stays home (in fact I might argue that cost of daycare alone is enough to keep a number of people at home) – people returning to school. The increase of disability is more likely linked to people over 55 who have good legal representation.
Increase or eliminate the payroll tax cap.
The bigger question is this; with the GOP, how do we as a society wish to define a disabled person?
Yes we can cut off kids who get SSI disability. Yes we can cut off adults who get SSI. These are very poor people. Let’s have that discussion about lazy bums feeding off the trough. But please let’s do it.
One way to revise the definition of disability is to use the VA standard, where people can still work but they get a percentage rating for their impairment or disability, as it is called by the VA. Veterans get a rating and a check based upon that numeral rating, i.e., 20%, 40% and so on.
Soc Sec requires a person to be unable to perform his past relevant work and be unable to perform all other substantial gainful activity in the national economy.
I personally would like to see people work but if they cannot, then we need rehab. And we need Haley to give the folks in South Carolina who review claimants to see if they continue to remain disabled the MONEY to do this important task.
Do you know what these people have in common?
Wes Hayes
Luke Rankin
Greg Dellaney
Tom Young
Bruce Bannister
Doug Brannon
Neal Collins
Chris Corley
Stephen Goldfinch
Jenny Horne
Jeff Johnson
Jay Lucas
Chris Murphy
Murrell Smith
They are all attorneys. They are all members of the General Assembly.
They ALL claim to be conservative Republicans. The number one things they all have in common: they are ALL ambulance chasers. They all make their living on personal injury cases or social security disability cases or workers comp cases or personal injury cases. Is there anything that anyone with a brain considers conservative about chasing ambulances? Of course not. Is there anything wrong with handling these types of cases. No, probably not. Unless you get elected by telling the voters how conservative and pro business you are, all the while the actions you take in your law practice drive up the cost of business and drain the funds intended to help the weakest among us. The hypocrisy of it is mind numbing. I don’t know how they call themselves “conservative.” If South Carolinians actually knew they were ambulance chasers, then there is no way they would be in office.
Dont forget Tommy Pope. He is also a conservative repub that wants to cut government fraud, waste, and abuse and reform the lax ethics regulations in the Gen Assembly. Except the kind of shenanigans that allows him to appear in front of Workers Comp commisioners that he has a hand in putting in their position and a hand in whether they stay in their position.
The fact is,nearly all Medicaid / Medicare fraud is perpetuated by doctors.
I realize the news media attempts to make the Social Security system a “complicated” program.
The truth of the matter is SS was based on having more people to pay into this system, than were recipients.
In 1940 the ratio of paying in to compared to recipients was 149:1, in 1950 the ratio was 75:1 and continued to drop by 50% each decade until today at 2.89:1.
Thanks for that accurate description. Only one problem. We were TOLD by people like Fritz Hollings that SS money was locked up in a special account. I know they said it, because I still have my reporter’s notebooks and the 16mm magnetic SOT film, recording their images and words from 1971 – 1975, when they visited in Charleston. If it’s a lie, then we know who the liars are and were. Of course SS is a ponzi scheme, but merely saying that ignores the fact that hundreds of millions of Americans were PROMISED.
“The truth of the matter is SS was based on having more people to pay into this system, than were recipients.”
Also known as a “Ponzi Scheme”.