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Playing Politics with the Disability Trust Fund

On the first day the new Congress took office earlier this year (2015) Republican lawmakers passed a measure that stopped the routine transfer of money from the social security retirement trust fund to the disability trust fund. In the past, Congress routinely transferred revenues between the funds as the need arose. In the early 1980’s, for instance, revenues were transferred from the disability trust fund to help shore up the retirement trust fund, though in recent years the transfer has typically flowed from the retirement fund to the disability fund. As it now stands, the [...]

LA Times Sets the Record Straight on the SSA

A recent article in the LA Times by Michael Hiltzik offered a strong defense of SSDI after a misleading attack on the program was published in the Wall Street Journal. The author of the Journal piece, Mark J. Warshawsky, criticized the high percentage of awards granted by Social Security Judges, and urged Congress to reform the entire system. Among Warshawsky’s claims was that Judges on average were awarding “70% of the claims before them.” Hiltzik took a closer look at the numbers cited by Warshawsky, and came to very different conclusions. For instance, the 70% [...]

Unemployment Has Little Effect on the Number of Disability Claims

After the crash of 2008, the unemployment rate in the United States spiked to levels not seen since the Great Depression. Around the same time, the number of individuals applying for Social Security Disability benefits also began climbing - but was there a connection?