This is one of the first things new acquaintances say when I tell them that I'm an Administrative Law Judge for Social Security. Because nearly everyone has had some personal contact with Social Security, everyone has an opinion about the disability programs. Inevitably, almost everyone thinks a large number of people receiving benefits don't really deserve them. It doesn't matter if the person I'm talking to is an unemployed neighbor, a waitress, a business owner, or a politician. They all have an unquestioned belief that a great many people somehow cheat to get Social Security benefits.
This has not been my experience at all.
If there were a lot of deadbeats applying for benefits, I would certainly see some of them. The screening process used on applications pretty well assures that any marginal case is denied initially. All the deadbeats would have to appeal and come before an ALJ in order to trick their way to benefits. It just doesn't happen.
In fact, virtually everybody I see in my court genuinely believes they are too disabled to work. I see an amazing array of people of all ages with all kinds of disabling conditions. They come to my court to tell their sad story. Most have only the vaguest idea about the legal standard for disability, or how to meet it. They just know they can't work. They have tried.
So, what is the source of the opinion that a lot of Social Security claimants are deadbeats? Many people tell me they know someone who knows someone whose neighbor down the street is getting benefits but doesn't deserve them. On closer questioning, however, they admit they don't really know all the facts of any particular case. They have accepted someone else's opinion that they know a deadbeat, and that's enough proof for them.
The reason people are so quick to believe in the existence of Social Security cheats is the deep-seated belief that America is uniformly a country of rugged individuals who work hard to support themselves. The corollary of this belief is that someone who does not work for a living is just plain lazy. Unless they have personal experience with a disabling condition, it's hard for many people to believe a person can't work at least doing something. It's true I see a lot of people in my court who have lost the motivation to work because of their disability, but that certainly does not mean they could somehow magically be capable of earning a living if they only tried a bit harder.
Somewhere during this discussion I usually point out there is little financial incentive to cheat to obtain benefits because the benefits are barely enough to live on. For a person 60 years of age with a lifetime of past work at minimum wage, the SSD monthly benefit is only about $700. If the person had average lifetime annual earnings of $40,000 the benefit would be about $1,170, or about a third of what they were earning. Benefits are proportionate to the person's age and wage earning history but are never a real replacement for wages. You can check out the numbers yourself by using Social Security's handy benefit calculator at http://www.socialsecurity.gov/estimator/. If the person did not work long enough or recently enough to qualify for SSD, they can only qualify for the Supplemental Security Income monthly benefit of about $675. People do not live like kings on these amounts.
Finally there is the fact that for any deadbeat to get benefits they would have to convince an experienced ALJ that they have a severe disability that has so eroded the occupational base that they can not perform the essential duties of any job. This is a hard test for anyone to meet.
For adults under age 50, the basic question I try to answer is, “can this person reasonably be expected to work at any job where they can make just barely enough money to live?” In a great majority of these cases I am faced in the end with the question of whether this person with their background, work history and limitations can now do unskilled sedentary work. Many judges, myself included, directly ask the claimant to explain why they could not do simple work such as receptionist, parking lot attendant, desk clerk, and so on. One ALJ in South Carolina told me he once took this line of questioning a step too far.
“So, tell me, sir, are you too disabled to do a desk job like mine?”
“Judge, I figure I could probably do your job, I just can't work.”
The ALJ quickly excused himself, but was overheard howling in laughter out in the hall.
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