It really really really pisses me off when people say its their tax money that we are living on. No that is not how disability works, it is my own social security that i paid in over my lifetime coming back to me, my own retirement money coming to me early. Ok do we got it i think we got. Just something that annoys me to get off my chest.

Yep.
And in my state (CA), we also pay "SDI" (state disability insurance) out of our paychecks every week. If you go on disability, you get paid out of that plan as well as the SSA.
It's not "freeloading."

Thank You Hie somebody knows.

Yes. Kombucha for diabetes.

I agree with you. It's a benefit that you have already paid for and will likely continue to pay for over the course of your lifetime. When I went on Worker's Comp for four months, it was explained to me that it was essentially an insurance benefit.

Disability is an insurance which is deducted from the employee's paycheck each pay period. I think here in Ca. it costs the employee less than 1% of their gross.

Worker's Comp is an insurance also but is paid for by the employer. It is very expensive as it is plagued with law suits.

Neither are considered government welfare.

Who considers it welfare? Only somebody who is ignorant! Some people say that about social security and retirement, which is stupid, too. I just laugh it off, knowing it's not true. People need to mind their own business.

Anybody who has had FICA tax taken out of their earnings has paid into Social Security. And SSI comes out of the General trust fund, which is in the Great Melting Pot of tax revenues, as well.

I never paid into FICA; as a Federal employee prior to 1984, I only paid into Civil Service, which is why I am not eligible for any form of Social Security except Medicare. (I get Civil Service pension, instead.)

As with insurance premiums, almost everyone pays into them, but not everyone gets to collect. There are "fiduciaries" (specialists" who study this stuff like you would not believe.)

Almost everyone who works has paid into Social Security and its offshoots, as well as welfare. Yes, there are exceptions, but not a lot of them.

I've never understood the Federal Pension system. Can employees get both if they spend a significant amount of time working for the Federal Government, but also an employer who is under the Social Security system? When I was job-hunting as a young woman, I was made to feel that you had to make a choice one way or the other.

And why would Federal Workers have a separate system? Is there any advantage in doing so? It seems like it simply takes the place of Social Security, and you have to have other savings in place, anyway.

paid into Civil Service retirement, not Social Security. The only explanation I ever got was that Social Security employees could not be covered under Social Security, because they knew every possible way to trick or defraud the system.

In 1984, we were given the choice to either stay with Civil Service (which I did) or start paying into Social Security. There was a "grandfathering" period for people who had paid into both.

From what I've seen, I do better under Civil Service than most people do under Social Security. But then, I gave them 30 years of my life, and worked hard.

I get an SSI check each month. It comes from my Social Security account, which I paid into for decades. I also receive a small company pension. These are earned benefits, and I refuse to feel guilty about it. I got enough of that from Mormon family, and I stopped communicating with the blighters.

If you paid in to social security "for decades" you should not be collecting SSI, you should be collecting SSD. SSI is for disabled people who do not qualify for SSD. All you need to collect from SSD is to have paid in for fourty quarters (ten years), and to be disabled. The SSD benefits are higher. If you get regular social security, that's not SSI, it's just social security.

At age 30 (after my big crash in life that led to my losing everything and leaving the church) I went on SSD and even was on Medicare for a time, as a result of severe mental depression which was medialcally proven. The state was even paying for my apartment under a grant for the mentally disabled. My attention span and short-term memory were both shot, and I felt anger all of the time (never acted on it, just felt it - very strongly and persistantly). But with much of my life still ahead, it really wasn't where I wanted to be, just what I had to accept for the time as mental health experts and councelors assured me that I would qualify and needed to take their advice. I was on high doses of anti-depressants back then and required eighteen hours of sleep every day to feel half way normal the other six hours. With my own apartment and my needs met, I could have chosen to remain that way indefinitely.

I remember that as soon as I could, I used some of what little money I had, to get a gym membership. Most of my waking time then was spent at the gym, running on the treadmill, working out, and in a tanning bed. Over time, my daily waking hours increased. I did everything I could then to increase my seretonin levels, while getting counceling. During that time, I resigned from the church and got a girlfriend and moved in with her (gave up the free apartment). A few years later was off of the anti-depressants. I voluntarily withdrew from SSD and medicare as my income from working increased and therefore I no longer qualified for disability income. Eventually, I went to college (enrolling for the first time at age 30), ended up with two under-graduate degrees, and a Master's degree. I got my first job as a Technician roughly ten years after my big crash, and was promoted to Engineer a few years after that.

My girlfriend who let me live with her for free for most of a decade ended up having several strokes, years later. Now she is on disability and I (happily) support her now to live a nearly normal life (working around the issues caused by the strokes) but free of poverty with the Engineer's salary.

I attribute my sudden big crash in life and ten years of suffering and struggle to get back on my feet again, to the church and the culture of lies, deceit, and gaslighting that resulted in the clinical depression I went through. I may notnhave been able to bounce back the way I did (even though it took ten years) if everything that happened to me had started now, in my mid-50's. But in cases where the mental issues are a result of false beliefs in mormonism, a person can recover.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 11/18/2017 09:46PM by azsteve.

I am disabled. I guess mine is SSD then.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/18/2017 09:03PM by donbagley.

You have to be just as disabled to get Social Security as SSI.

For Social Security, you have to have worked and paid FICA taxes during a certain period relative to your age and the onset of your disabling condition. Your earnings and age are factors in calculating how much you are paid. Any other income you get - a disability pension from your company, winning the lottery, etc. - have NOTHING to do with whether you continue to get your disability.

With SSI, other income (as well as living arrangements) determine how much you can be paid. I forget how much the base figure is now - I have been retired for 15 years - and there is a State supplement in some States. California used to be the best one - maybe Hawaii is pretty good, too, because the cost of living in those places is so high. If you win the lottery, it is very likely that your SSI will stop, until you can prove (with receipts) that you have spent whatever you won. The agency gets in touch with you about once a year to "redetermine" both your condition and what other income you receive, to be sure that you are being paid the right amount.

Wow, you really have been through hell and back.

No one knows how much Mormonism messes with your mind unless you've lived through it.

You are a survivor.

I am very tired of feeling guilty for everything. It has not ended since i was a kid. I almost feel guilty for even being here like i was born on accident.

I wrote the story of my experiences above in part because I can relate in part to some of the things that badassadam1 has written. I hope more for his full recovery than I do for him to need (or to get) government assistance for the rest of his life. And not because he isn't entitled to assistance. I am sure he is entitled to it, after paying-in.

Sometimes, and especially with potentially incurable medical issues, there is nothing else a person can do than to ask for help. For me, that part was so extremely difficult for me. I felt like an undeserving leach. I went on Medicare before my dad even qualified for it. That wasn't what I wanted. But it sure beat the alternative. So take the help and feel good about it, as long as you're honest with yourself about wanting to recover. If you can, use the new stability you get, to get better and to find and work a better plan for next time (if that's possible). For me, my recovery accelerated greatly after I was done with receiving benefits that I didn't earn myself as I received them. It's probably much more difficult for someone who has little hope of recovery from the disabilities. Not everyone is as fortunate as I was at age 30. But accept the help like you deserve it either way. Life is full of nice things that many people on assistance can't afford to have. So either you'll get better and no longer need the assistance (eventually), or you can at least be resolved that you really do deserve your own part of this world and your right to be here, fed, and with your basic needs met.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/18/2017 11:18PM by azsteve.

So far, I have been a Trump supporter since the day he announced his candidacy. But if he goes after the truely disabled, I am going to oppose that and to start distrusting him on other things. I think he is too smart to do that as he would alienate too many of his supporters. Look what he did when people screamed about the elephant hunting trophies. How in the world could he have possibly thought it would be a good thing to encourage the extinction of an endangered species for sport, even if he did change his mind after the public outcry?

On the other hand, there might be a good way that Trump could cut back on disability expenses. There is a terrible amount of disability fraud going on. In some cases that I have read about, several generations of people in the same families have been on disability as parents teach their healthy adult children how to get in to, and to work the system. If some people can be taught how to better cope with life, and how to survive and do well in the workplace, some of the so-called 'disabled' could be put to work doing work that would make them feel good about their lives. So it's disability fraud and not the disabled that Trump should go after.

Somehow, this post ended up higher than expected. I meant for it to appear below the discussion about 45.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/18/2017 11:55PM by azsteve.

Tens of millions of children and their parents stand to lose health insurance under his existing plans. He doesn't care how he's hurting the less fortunate. His tax cuts are geared expressly for the elite and no one else. He's broken every single campaign promise he made thus far, because he's a professional liar albeit not a very good one.

Your SSDI is someone else's health insurance. :(

Did you know his sons hunt endangered wildlife for sport? All the laws he seeks to pass are for his and his family's personal gain, not the good of the country or the world.

He has oligarch fever.

If I left work on a disability I'd make more than were I to take early retirement at 62. To break even, would need to work until I'm nearly 67 to make in retirement what I'd get in SSDI if I qualified today.

Kinda stinks to be indentured servitude, but I'll keep working as long as I can. If my health gives out I just hope it does before I turn 62, not after so I can apply for disability before taking early retirement.

I've been paying into Social Security since I was 15 years old.

Heck no, it isn't welfare. It's "old age" insurance. By 2035 the benefits may be in jeopardy with talk that it won't be there to pay the same benefits that it does today. I try not to worry that far in advance, but it does factor into my retirement planning - if there is such a thing. That's only 18 years away.

He knows better than to mess with the seniors, but he has his eye on disability, just as Reagan did, only more draconian. I hope Congress won't let him get away with it, but from what I've read, it's scary.

I'm hoping that this is only a blip in his scattered little brain, and he may get distracted by something else.

We call him 45 haha he has no name.

Thank you for saying this. I'm on SSI and it really is no one's business. If they were bipolar like I am, they would have a different worldview.

Fordescape, we are all one bad accident or one serious illness away from disability ourselves. As a single, self-supporting woman, I have been conscious of that for many years now. I am not that far away from age 62, when I can collect both my pension and early S.S. if I so desire, and when that birthday comes, I will breathe a major sigh of relief. I still hope to work the additional years needed in order to get the full S.S. payout, but life is uncertain, right?

After watching sir david the bard videos i think i might be bipolar as well. Time doesn't exist and we don't acknowledge holidays or birthdays for example. And yes anybody can become disabled very fast, just one car accident is all it takes.

Badass, if you think you're bipolar do get it checked out. It's serious business. Whatever you do, my thoughts are with you.

Thought about it. I am on cymbalta and depakote but i don't know if those treat bipolar. Been focusing more on physical problems more. It does seem to be more of a serious thing then i realize after watching sir david the bard talk about it. Him and i think alike and that is when it hit me i might be bipolar. We don't acknowledge the calendar and holidays or birthdays, when he said that i was like i think i am bipolar. How do you test for it?