America's disability insurance pays all or nothing, never part
Social Security Disability Insurance offers no partial or temporary payments. A worker either qualifies for full monthly benefits, because a condition is expected to last at least a year or end in death, or gets nothing. Compared with other rich countries' schemes, the American programme sets a notably strict bar for eligibility.
The original Social Security Act of 1935 left disability out. After two decades of debate, President Dwight D. Eisenhower signed amendments on August 1, 1956, authorising payments from July 1957 to permanently and totally disabled workers over 50. The age limit was dropped in 1960. Funded by payroll taxes and run by the Social Security Administration, SSDI works as insurance: eligibility rests on work credits, not wealth, which separates it from Supplemental Security Income, a means-tested programme for people with low income and assets.
Claims pass through a five-step test, usually decided by a state Disability Determination Service. Is the person earning above a set level? Is the impairment severe? Does it match an official Listing of Impairments? If not, can the person still do previous work, or any work in the economy? Much of the fight in applications and appeals centres on residual functional capacity, an assessment of what someone can still do despite their condition.
At the end of 2020, 9.7 million people received benefits, including 8.2 million disabled workers and 1.4 million of their children. Numbers climbed fast between 1990 and 2010. Economists David Autor and Mark Duggan blamed looser screening and benefits that grew more valuable relative to wages; others point to population growth, ageing baby boomers, more women in paid work and a rise in the full retirement age. Disabled workers peaked at 9.0 million in 2014. After forecasts of trust fund depletion in 2065 and then 2057, the 2024 analysis projected full benefits through 2098.
The average monthly benefit for disabled workers in 2024 was about $1,581, calculated from past earnings by a formula that favours low earners and rises with inflation. Poverty remains common: roughly 24 percent of disabled workers live in families under the official poverty line, against 7.1 percent of retired workers, and around 38 percent of disability beneficiaries face hardship such as food insecurity or unpaid bills.
Source: Social Security Disability Insurance
