chanel
Silver Member
DI costs have exceeded non-interest income since 2005, and the Trustees project trust fund exhaustion in 2016, two years earlier than projected last year. The DI program faces the most immediate financing shortfall of any of the separate trust funds; thus lawmakers need to act soon to avoid reduced payments to DI beneficiaries four years from now.
Trustees Report Summary
Currently, the SSA deems disabilities to be "total and complete" if applicants demonstrate that their impairments prevent them from earning at least $1,000 a month. But beginning in 1980 presumptions of disability began to be made based on age, education, work history and other mitigating factors. Four years later applicants were permitted to count the sum of multiple "nonsevere" impairments and count this as a "severe" disability.
As a result, workers who complain of "persistent anxiety" and "chronic fatigue" are now viewed by the government as being disabled.
Howard Rich: Defining Disability Down - WSJ.com
I have to stop reading the news.