The Disability Program Needs Help Itself
(By - Matthew Philips, Bloomberg Business)
The Social Security offshoot is facing insolvency next year
When President Eisenhower added disability benefits to Social Security in 1956, he pledged that the new program would be run “efficiently and effectively” and that it would help “rehabilitate the disabled so that they may return to useful employment.”
Six decades on, Social Security Disability Insurance has 1 million rejected applications pending appeal, pays out 25 percent more in benefits ($141 billion last year) than it gets in taxes, and is set to be insolvent by the end of 2016. There are currently 11 million people on disability. In 2013 less than 1 percent left the program by recovering or reentering the workforce, according to SSDI data. Read more…
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