Policy: Entitlements

EXography: Many disability recipients admit they could work

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Watchdog,Entitlement Reform,Social Security,Entitlements,SSA,Waste and Fraud,EXography,Luke Rosiak


More baffling, most have never received significant medical treatment and not seen a doctor about their condition in the last year, even though medical problems are the official reason they don't work. Those who acknowledge they're on disability because they can't find a job say they make little effort to find one, according to a Washington Examiner analysis of federal survey results.

Unearned disability, called SSI, is for individuals who have petitioned to be classified as disabled. Many of them have never worked and have never paid into Social Security. Earned disability, or SSDI, is for those who have held jobs for significant periods of time and paid at least partially into Social Security before becoming disabled.

Those collecting government checks in the unearned program are in less pain than their counterparts who paid into the system, the analysis showed. They are typically overweight, uneducated and from broken homes.

But the analysis also revealed more practical barriers to weaning recipients off the disability rolls: The jobs they'd be candidates for often don't provide health insurance, which is essential for those with medical problems, and they'd rather receive the federal benefit. Many also say they don't have transportation to work.

In 2009, the Social Security Administration conducted a detailed study of disability recipients' characteristics, desire to work and their impediments from doing so. Geared towards academics, only the raw, individual-level responses were released, and until the Examiner's analysis here, there has been little in the way of published tallies.

The survey included responses from 2,300 disability benefits recipients. There are approximately 11 million SSDI recipients and approximately seven million SSI recipients.

Among the most notable results of the survey:

* Returning to work is not a goal for 71 percent of the SSDI recipients, 60 percent of the SSI recipients.

* 75 percent of the SSDI recipients don't see themselves returning to work within five years, 65 percent of the SSI recipients don't.

* 72 percent of the small number of SSDI recipients who started a job while on disability got cash under the table, as did 70 percent of the small number of SSI recipients who started a job while on disability.

* 24 percent of the SSDI recipients lack even GEDs, as do 43 percent of the SSI recipients.

Responses of those surveyed who were receiving SSDI earned disability benefits are in blue. Responses of those receiving SSI unearned disability benefits are in red.

Source: Public use file round 4

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