The United States is going through a time when the unemployment rate is very high. It has been like this for several years now. Recently, the House of Representatives voted against another extension of unemployment benefits, which means that many of the Americans who were eligible for unemployment insurance no longer will be receiving that form of financial assistance. What can they do? It seems that whenever unemployment is high, there is a corresponding surge of people who apply for disability insurance.
During the fiscal year of 2010, there were 3.2 million applications for disability insurance. This is significantly more than the amount of people who applied for disability insurance in 2008, (when that number was 2.6 million). What has remained consistent is the amount of applications that have been approved, which is between 35% and 37%.
This does not mean that an increasing number of Americans have suddenly become disabled. It also doesn’t necessarily mean that rampant fraud is going on. What it means is that there are a lot of people who desperately need financial assistance right now, who cannot get that assistance from employment, or from unemployment benefits, who are turning to the government for help. It means that this same group of people has been unable to afford health insurance, and is hoping to get their health care needs met through disability insurance.
What is disability insurance? It is a program run by the Federal government. Social Security Disability Insurance will pay financial benefits to a person, (and sometimes to that person’s family as well), if the person who applied for the insurance has been working long enough to have paid Social Security taxes. You will need to fill out an online form that will ask you a series of questions, in order to apply. You will be asked medical questions, questions about your previous job, and for information regarding your qualifications and certifications. All of this data is used to determine if you qualify for disability insurance benefits.
The Social Security administration only pays for total disability, (not for partial disability, or for a short-term disability). They base it on your inability to work. They consider a person to be disabled if that person cannot do the work that he or she did before, if they decide that the person can’t adjust to other kinds of work due to medical conditions, and if that person’s disability has lasted (or is expected to last) for at least a year or that it will result in death. This is a very strict definition. Therefore, it isn’t possible to simply “sign up” for disability insurance through the Federal government, as a way to avoid having to work. It is designed for the people who truly need this kind of financial assistance.
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