The following story was first published on the Huffington Post and then on MSNBC by the same writer. Social Security benefits are being used up much quicker than anticipated but not by retirees. Now that unemployment benefits are expiring, people are heading to their local Social Security office to claim disability. The details are outlined below but this is a direct consequence of Socialism engineered with social justice.
Personal responsibility and a good work ethic are becoming as scarce as a politician who will admit that the country is bankrupt. This news in conjunction with a rise in tension in the Middle East will make for another wild roller coaster ride on Wall Street.
David DeGerolamo
Social Security disability on verge of insolvency
Laid-off workers and aging baby boomers are flooding Social Security’s disability program with benefit claims, pushing the financially strapped system toward the brink of insolvency.
Applications are up nearly 50 percent over a decade ago as people with disabilities lose their jobs and can’t find new ones in an economy that has shed nearly 7 million jobs.
The stampede for benefits is adding to a growing backlog of applicants — many wait two years or more before their cases are resolved — and worsening the financial problems of a program that’s been running in the red for years.
New congressional estimates say the trust fund that supports Social Security disability will run out of money by 2017, leaving the program unable to pay full benefits, unless Congress acts. About two decades later, Social Security’s much larger retirement fund is projected to run dry as well.
Much of the focus in Washington has been on fixing Social Security’s retirement system. Proposals range from raising the retirement age to means-testing benefits for wealthy retirees. But the disability system is in much worse shape and its problems defy easy solutions.
The trustees who oversee Social Security are urging Congress to shore up the disability system by reallocating money from the retirement program, just as lawmakers did in 1994. That would provide only short-term relief at the expense of weakening the retirement program.
