Connecticut woman uses fake name to steal $90,000 in benefits

The woman legitimately started receiving disability benefits back in 1993 after the SSA determined that she was disabled and unable to work at all. However, the next year 1994, she returned to work under a different last name. All the while, she collected disability benefits up until 2009, accumulating $93,359 in illegal benefits. She now faces three years in prison, full restitution and a fine of up to $250,000.

Virginia truck driver fails to tell SSA about his $1.4 million

The Virginia man began receiving disability benefits in October of 1998 for a back disorder. Between 2002 and 2010, however, he drove a tractor-trailer, earning about $1.4 million in income. The SSA needs to know whenever you make more than $720 a month (and anything over $1,010 a month usually means you cannot receive disability benefits at the same time). The SSA found out about his income, and now he faces the same charges as the Connecticut woman.

The SSA has programs in place to help you return to work. In fact, during your trial work period, you can work and earn more than $720 for nine months while receiving your full benefits at the same time. Even after the trial work period, there are several years during which you can immediately start receiving disability benefits again if you find yourself unable to work. Work with the SSA when you are earning income, as the risks are not worth it. More details on returning back to work are available from a Tulsa SSI attorney.

Did you successfully transition off of disability benefits? What programs did the SSA have in place that helped you do so?

Troutman & Troutman, P.C. – Tulsa Social Security disability attorneys

These official numbers are generally about half as much as true unemployment rates, many economists point out. The official numbers often seen in newspapers do not include people who have stopped looking for work or those who accepted part-time work but would prefer full time. As a result, the actual unemployment numbers are about twice as high, putting the unemployment rates for disabled Americans in the neighborhood of 30 percent and for non-disabled Americans around 16 percent.

Difficulties disabled workers face in returning to work

Disability benefits like SSDI or SSI benefits help disabled Americans and their families make ends meet, but receiving them and then transitioning back into the workforce is far from straightforward. For more details on disability benefits and returning to work, consider speaking with a Tulsa Oklahoma Social Security disability attorney.

Below are a few of the difficulties disabled Americans face when looking for work. If you have any additional thoughts, we welcome your comments below.

• The wait for disability benefits can be a year or two; during this waiting period, the bills of course continue to come and expenses have to be paid
• Bankruptcies and foreclosures are more common amongst disabled Americans because of the financial difficulties they face
• For many disabled Americans, it is extremely painful to work and returning to work can aggravate their condition
• Unfortunately, the difficulties posed by disability and the difficulties in finding work often go hand in hand – if a disability beneficiary has been out of work for a few years and has faced several financial difficulties, he or she often has a tougher time finding work

What difficulties did you face while waiting for disability benefits or while transitioning back to work?

Troutman & Troutman, P.C. – Tulsa Social Security disability lawyers

All of the estimates of when benefits are expected to run out got bumped up a few years. The Trustees reported that all benefits will be exhausted in 2033, which is three years earlier than last year’s predicted date. If that event does eventually occur, Social Security will only be able to pay a portion of benefits to beneficiaries with the money that is coming in – about 75 percent. Regarding the disability benefits fund, those funds will be empty in four years in 2016, two years earlier than last year’s date.

The Trustees – comprised of Social Security’s commissioner, the Treasury Secretary, the Secretary of Health and Human Services, the Labor Secretary, and two public trustees – warned that Congress needs to act soon to ensure the long term solvency of Social Security. They highlighted the dire situation facing disability beneficiaries – disability benefits will run out of funding during the next president’s term. If Congress does not act by then, the nine million disabled Americans receiving SSDI benefits will face a dire financial situation when they lose the only means most of them have. If you think you may be eligible for disability benefits, we recommend speaking with a Tulsa OK Social Security disability lawyer.

Do you receive SSDI or SSI benefits? How important are they to your and your family’s financial well-being?

Troutman & Troutman, P.C. – Tulsa Social Security disability attorneys

What we bring up today is an extremely important link between your credit and disability benefits that disabled Americans need to take note of – although your status as a beneficiary does not go on your credit history, once you become disabled and unable to work, you will likely face difficult financial times in the years ahead. Unless you qualify for one of Social Security’s fast-track programs, your wait for disability benefits will likely be around two years or more if the Social Security administration approves your application. Thus, for many beneficiaries, disability benefits have indirectly led to a lower credit score just because of the financial strains of being disabled and unable to work. More details on the disability benefits application process are available from a Tulsa OK Social Security disability law firm.

Here are a few of the ways by which beneficiaries have sought to minimize the financial impact of a severe disability:

• Apply for disability benefits immediately after you stop working
• Get in touch with creditors ahead of time to see if you can work something out to lower your payments
• Seek financial advice from an expert about how you can deal with the upcoming difficult times
• Sell the non-essential, have garage sales, or move to cheaper housing in order to keep your costs as low as possible
• Use your down time to learn new skills or to take classes so that, when you return to the job market, your prospects have improved

What financial adjustments did you make after you suffered a disability and were unable to work?

Troutman & Troutman, P.C. – Tulsa Social Security disability attorneys

Your credit score trumps all else

What a potential lender will always care most about is what your credit score and credit history are; this is true regardless of whether you are currently receiving Social Security disability benefits. If you have a strong credit history with a high score, you will be more likely to receive credit on favorable terms than in the opposite case. The fact that you receive disability benefits usually just comes into play when you are in the middle, and a creditor is determining whether to extend credit to you.

How disability benefits impact your ability to get credit

On the plus side, disability benefits are guaranteed income from the federal government. Some lenders will look favorably on this. On the negative side, disability benefits are not a great deal of money. If the item that you are looking to finance takes up a large portion of your monthly SSDI or SSI benefits, you are not likely to receive credit, because creditors would fear that you are stretching yourself too thin financially.

Additionally, as we discussed on Monday, creditors cannot garnish your disability benefits in order to pay back debt. This makes some creditors more hesitant to lend money to people whose main source of income is disability benefits since it can be more difficult to collect on overdue debt.

Has being a disability beneficiary impacted your financial life with regards to credit?

Troutman & Troutman, P.C. – Tulsa Social Security disability lawyers

The rationale is that these benefits help disabled Americans who are already unable to work and who probably faced an increasingly worse financial situation while they waited on their disability benefits to start. Permitting creditors to take disability benefits would just result in an even worse financial situation.

While private creditors may not be able to get your disability benefits, the federal government can in some cases. Your SSI benefits are usually safe even from the federal government because they are intended for lower income Americans who would have trouble living off a reduced amount. A Tulsa SSI lawyer can provide more information on this issue.

For SSDI beneficiaries, the three cases for which the federal government can take part of your benefits are as follows:

• Unpaid child support or spousal support (the government can take up to 60 percent of your monthly SSDI benefits)
• Unpaid federal taxes (up to 15 percent of your monthly SSDI benefits)
• Non-tax debt owed to the federal government, including food stamp overpayments, student loans and federal mortgages (up to 15 percent, but only if that reduction does not drop your monthly benefits below $750)

Have you faced any problems involving disability benefits and creditors? How did you resolve them?

Troutman & Troutman, P.C. – Tulsa Social Security disability attorneys

The medical conditions that fall under CAL are those that the SSA has determined clearly qualify for disability benefits. The SSA periodically holds open forums and asks for comments from the public and health experts about what conditions it should add to the list. The list had previously included 113 conditions, but is set to grow to 165 once the new 52 conditions are officially added later this year on August 13.

The new conditions include several types of cancer and neurological and immune system disorders that affect both children and adults. A few of the conditions are:

• Alpers’ Disease
• Child Non-Hodgkin Lymphoma
• Juvenile Onset Huntington Disease
• Perry Syndrome
• Wolf-Hirschhorn Syndrome

Each year about 60,000 disability benefits applicants qualify for the fast-track CAL process. Each time the SSA expands eligibility for CAL, everyone benefits – it speeds up the process both for applicants with CAL eligible conditions and those without, since there are fewer people in the waiting pool; it also reduces SSA costs, as CAL claims involve fewer people and resources to process.

Have you taken advantage of any special programs like Compassionate Allowances to speed up your disability benefits application?

Troutman & Troutman, P.C. – Tulsa Social Security disability attorneys

For the last three months of 2011, the unemployment rate for those without a disability was 8.1 percent; that number increased slightly to 8.4 percent over January, February and March of 2012. For those with a disability, the increase was larger, climbing from 13.2 percent to 14.6 percent.

In the first quarter of 2012, over 700,000 Americans submitted an application for Social Security Disability Insurance (“SSDI”) benefits, an increase over the last three months of 2011 and an increase over the first quarter of 2011. Over all of 2011, almost three million applied for SSDI benefits.

All of these numbers will have practical consequences for anyone hoping to get benefits. Increased unemployment rates and increased applications add to the time it takes for disabled Americans to start receiving benefits. Current SSDI applications average about 800 days until the applicant starts receiving benefits.

Given the lengthy wait time and the signs that the economy is far from fully recovering (which also adds to wait times), we recommend applying for benefits as soon as you stop working. We posted several weeks ago about what applicants can do while they wait for a disability benefits decision. For more information on the SSDI application process, help is available from a Tulsa Oklahoma Social Security disability attorney.

Are you a recipient of SSDI or SSI benefits? What advice do you have to share with recent applicants?

Troutman & Troutman, P.C. – Tulsa Social Security disability lawyers

How would a President Romney impact Social Security?

Romney has spoken out about the financial perils facing Social Security programs, which provide benefits to disabled and retired Americans and their dependents. As the campaign season progresses, he will inevitably disclose more about how he plans to reform Social Security, but some of his suggestions thus far have been:

• Raise the retirement age at which Americans are eligible for Medicare and Social Security
• Not make any changes that affect Americans who are near or currently in retirement
• Shore up Social Security’s financial situation without raising taxes by raising the retirement age and encouraging personal investment options
• Reform Social Security without the use of temporary, year-by-year measures like the current payroll tax cut that has reduced taxes by two percent for 2011 and 2012
• Eliminate payroll taxes altogether for those Americans who are working and 65 or older

Romney has faced criticisms of his ideas from both political parties. Some of his former Republican rivals claimed that Romney was not in favor of privatizing Social Security enough (after 2008’s stock market troubles, Romney expressed concerns that a complete privatization of Social Security would hurt people’s benefits too much). Democrats are concerned about what Romney would actually do to Social Security once in office, as he has been sparse on the details.

Are you a recipient of Social Security benefits? What reforms would you like to see put in place in the next year or two?

Troutman & Troutman, P.C. – Tulsa Social Security disability attorneys

For adults, disability evaluation focuses on whether you are unable to work for at least a year. The Social Security Blue Book provides a listing of disabilities for which you can receive disability benefits, but the listing does not cover everything. If you suffer from something not on the list, yet are still unable to work for at least a year, you may be eligible for disability benefits nevertheless. Further details on qualifying for disability benefits are available from a Tulsa Oklahoma Social Security disability attorney.

For children, work cannot, of course, be the determining factor. The SSA focuses more on what children can do as compared with others in their peer group. The standard is that the disability results in “marked and severe functional limitations.”

The SSA takes into account the fact that certain medical conditions have a greater impact when they occur to children whose bodies and minds are still developing. Even when a medical condition falls under the same section for both adults and children, the SSA’s evaluation for children often varies from that of adults.

Consider the disability category of “mental disorders,” for instance. Most of the mental disorders are found in both the adult section and the children’s section, including schizophrenia, somatoform disorders, mental retardation and autism. But, with children, the SSA acknowledges other disorders that could also have a strong impact on them. These mental disorders limited to children include separation anxiety, failure to bond with parents, and other development problems that occur in newborns and the very young.

Have you had a child receive disability benefits? How would you describe the evaluation process for others who hope to receive financial assistance?

Troutman & Troutman, P.C. – Tulsa Social Security disability attorneys