Social Security Disability Insurance (SSD or SSDI) is a payroll tax-funded, federal insurance program of the United States government. It is managed by the Social Security Administration and is designed to provide income supplements to people who are physically restricted in their ability to be employed because of a notable disability, usually a physical disability. SSD can be supplied on either a temporary or permanent basis, usually directly correlated to whether the person’s disability is temporary or permanent.
Unlike Supplemental Security Income (SSI), SSD does not depend on the income of the disabled individual receiving it. A legitimately disabled person (a finding based on legal and medical justification) of any income level can theoretically receive SSD. (“Disability” under SSDI is measured by a different standard than under the Americans with Disabilities Act.) Most SSI recipients are below an administratively-mandated income threshold, and indeed these individuals must in fact stay below that threshold to continue receiving SSI; but this is not the case with SSD.
Informal names for SSDI include Disability Insurance Benefits (DIB) and Title II benefits. These names come from the chapter title of the governing section of the Social Security Act, which came into law in August 1935.
At the end of 2011, there were 10.6 million Americans collecting SSDI, up from 7.2 million in 2002.[1] The share of the U.S. population receiving SSDI benefits has risen rapidly over the past two decades, from 2.2 percent of adults age 25 to 64 in 1985 to 4.1 percent in 2005.[2]
In a 2006 analysis by economists David Autor and Mark Duggan for the National Bureau of Economic Research, Autor and Duggan wrote that the most significant factor in the growth of SSDI usage had been the loosening of the SSDI screening process that took place in 1984, following the signing into law of the Social Security Disability Benefits Reform Act of 1984, which directed the Social Security Administration to place more weight on applicants’ reported pain and discomfort, relax screening of mental illness, consider multiple non-severe ailments to be disabling, and give more credence to medical evidence provided by the applicant’s doctor. These changes had the effect of increasing the number of new SSDI awards and shifting their composition towards claimants with low-mortality disorders such as mental illness and back pain. Autor and Duggan wrote that a second factor in increased SSDI usage was the rising value of SSDI benefits relative to what recipients would have earned if they had been employed, saying that in 1984 a low-income older male SSDI recipient would have received from SSDI about 68% of what he would have earned had he been working, and that by 2004, due to increasing income inequality in the United States, the same man would have received from SSDI 86% of what he would have earned through work. Autor and Duggan say that aging and changes to the overall health of the U.S. population, have had a small effect at most on SSDI usage.[3]
Autor and Duggan argue that because the definition of disability adopted in 1984 is quite broad, the SSDI program often functions in practice as an insurance program for unemployable people.[3]
As of December 2013, under current law, the Congressional Budget Office reported that the “Disability Insurance trust fund will be exhausted in fiscal year 2017 and the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance trust fund will be exhausted in 2033”.[4]
In December 2014, the SSDI program insured approximately 10.9 million beneficiaries including disabled workers and their spouses and children.[5]
Waco
Waco (/ˈweɪkoʊ/ way-koh) is a city which is the county seat of McLennan County, Texas, United States.[3] It is situated along the Brazos River and I-35, halfway between Dallas and Austin. The city had a 2010 population of 124,805, making it the 22nd-most populous city in the state.[4] The US Census 2015 population estimate is 132,356.[5] The Waco Metropolitan Statistical Area consists of McLennan and Falls Counties, which had a 2010 population of 234,906.[6] Falls County was added to the Waco MSA in 2013. The US Census 2016 population estimate for the Waco MSA is 265,207.[7]
Indigenous peoples occupied areas along the river for thousands of years. In historic times, the area of present-day Waco was occupied by the Wichita Indian tribe known as the “Waco” (Spanish: Hueco or Huaco).
In 1824, Thomas M. Duke was sent to explore the area after the Waco people tried to defend themselves and their lands from settlers. His report to Stephen F. Austin, described the Waco village:
After further violence due to settler incursion, Austin halted an attempt to destroy their village in retaliation. In 1825, he made a treaty with them. The Waco were eventually pushed out of the region, settling north near present-day Fort Worth. In 1872, they were forced onto a reservation in Oklahoma with other Wichita tribes. In 1902, the Waco received allotments of land and became official US citizens. Neil McLennan settled in an area near the South Bosque River in 1838.[8] Jacob De Cordovabought McLennan’s property[9] and hired a former Texas Ranger and surveyor named George B. Erath to inspect the area.[10]In 1849, Erath designed the first block of the city. Property owners wanted to name the city Lamartine, but Erath convinced them to name the area Waco Village, after the Indians who had lived there.[11] In March 1849, Shapley Ross built the first house in Waco, a double-log cabin, on a bluff overlooking the springs. His daughter Kate was the first settler child to be born in Waco.[12]