It’s time that the Social Security Administration take a good, hard look at repealing the law that forces disabled workers to wait an additional five months before receiving benefits.
I know it sounds odd, but unfortunately it’s true. When a person becomes disabled, one of their major concerns will be how to supplement and stabilize their financial situation. For a two income household, losing one job due to a disability is a major blow. For a household with only one income, losing it can be utterly devastating. Not only do the month-to-month bills for utilities and other necessities begin to pile up, most newly disabled people have the added burden of out-of-pocket health care expenses. Any insurance they had with through their job is also lost once they are forced to leave their jobs. If they have private insurance, it becomes unaffordable now due to the loss of income. They find themselves stuck between a rock and a hard place, searching for any financial relief they can find.
Their first thought may be to turn to the Social Security Administration (SSA) for disability insurance benefits. Once a disability has been determined to exist as per the SSA guidelines, applicants are approved to receive a monthly supplemental stipend from the SSA. What most applicants do not know, however, is that this stipend will not provide instant relief from their financial woes. In fact, any relief at all will take nearly half a year to reach them, even after being approved.
Applicants seeking disability insurance from the SSA are subject to a five month waiting period before they begin receiving benefits. This waiting period begins counting from their “date of entitlement”. The “date of entitlement” refers to the date when the SSA determined that an applicant does have an approved disability for which they may receive benefits. In essence, people who are approved for disability insurance payments lose five months of income to which they are entitled.
The SSA defends this waiting period as a way to ensure that people who are not truly disabled do not receive benefits for which they are not eligible. Basically, their point of view is that if you are disabled, you will still be disabled five months down the road. The waiting period also applies to terminally ill people who may not even live past the five month waiting period.
Presently, there is legislation being considered that would eliminate the waiting period for those who are terminally ill. Senators Jeanne Shaheen, D-New Hampshire and Susan Collins, R-Maine are cosponsoring a bill known as S. 700 that would waive the five month waiting period for recipients of Social Security with life-threatening conditions. Hopefully more Senators will take an interest in the bill so that those dealing with a terminal illness can afford to maintain their quality of living for the remainder of their their lives.