A Look at the Future of the Social Security Program

Until the end of last year, we were seeing constant articles about how the Social Security disability program would run out of money and nearly 11 million Americans would lose around 20 percent of their total monthly benefits across the board.

Many argued that the program needed major overhauls, and they would not spend another dollar to help fix the cash flow shortage unless and until the overhaul occurred.  This commentary was mainly from Republicans who were running against Donald Trump for the GOP presidential nomination.   For a variety of reasons, including that it would look very bad in an election year if nearly 11 million Americans were thrown into poverty, they agreed to take one year of funding from the Social Security Old Age and Retirement Fund and apply it to the Social Security disability fund.However, as discussed in a recent news article from The Matsu Valley Frontiersman, this was not a one-to-one allotment of funding.  In other words, one year of funding for the retirement programs is a lot more than it takes to run the disability program for a year.  Prior to the reallocation of funds, there was enough money to run the disability programs at a fully funded level until the end of 2016, where we are now.  There was enough money in the retirement program to fund to the program to the year 2036. By taking one year of funding off the retirement program and shifting it to the disability programs, the United States Social Security Administration (SSA) now has enough money to run the disability program until 2023 and the retirement program until 2035.

As our Boston disability attorneys can explain, while this gives Congress more than enough time to act, it is likely we will see this same issue arise in the near future, and there will be concerns that the program will run out of money if something is not done to fix the problem sooner rather than later

While there is always a cost to running any social service, there are those who think the system will be unable to absorb all of the Baby Boomers who are now starting to draw benefits; however, to put this in perspective, it cost the nation more to educate all of these additional Baby Boomers as children than it will cost them to provide Social Security benefits of any kind, including retirement and disability.

However, regardless of the strength of the program’s funding, the SSA will likely try to reject applications as a means of saving money.  This is what the agency has done for many years, since the fewer the applicants who are accepted means the less that has to be paid out in benefits.  For that reason, the best thing you can do is make sure you have an experienced Boston SSDI attorney on your side who is fighting for your rights to a full and appropriate award of benefits.   The reason for this is the because the system can be very difficult for someone to navigate without experienced legal representation.

If you or a loved one is seeking Social Security Disability Insurance in Boston, call for a free and confidential appointment at (617) 777-7777.

Additional Resources:

Don’t be skeptical, Social Security is here to stay, October 21, 2016, By Robin Schmidt, Matsu Valley Frontiersman

More Bog Entries:

Social Security Disability Judges Allegedly Used Racial and Sexual Terms on Claimants’ Applications, July 22, 2016, Boston SSDI Lawyer Blog