Featured Stories
More Articles
Beyond the Medical Records: Alternative Evidence for Disability
If you sign up with an advocate or representative, they will also ask about treating history and send requests for records to various medical providers. But what if you don’t have much care? What if your medical records don’t paint a very clear picture of your limitations?
Can You Perform Your Past Relevant Work?
Step four of Social Security Administrations’s process for determining disability requires that the claimant prove that they cannot perform their “past relevant work,” and there are some important factors to understand about how the SSA makes this determination.
US Disability Strict by World Standards
It is an unfortunate reality that there are many critics of the Social Security Disability program, who despite evidence to the contrary, claim that benefits are too high, that the system is abused, and that it is simply too easy to get approved for benefits. Typical of this last argument is a statement made by Senator and Presidential Candidate Rand Paul, who recently proclaimed that “over half of the people on disability are either anxious [...]
What Is a Severe Impairment?
The heart of the matter is whether or not the applicant can "sustain" their work. In this article, we break down what that means, and provide three examples of common impairments.
Non-Medical Reasons You Might Be Denied SSDI Benefits
Although you may experience serious medical problems that impact your ability to work, there are non-medical reasons that can prevent you from receiving benefits; we explain a few examples in this article.
Playing Politics with the Disability Trust Fund
On the first day the new Congress took office earlier this year (2015) Republican lawmakers passed a measure that stopped the routine transfer of money from the social security retirement trust fund to the disability trust fund. In the past, Congress routinely transferred revenues between the funds as the need arose. In the early 1980’s, for instance, revenues were transferred from the disability trust fund to help shore up the retirement trust fund, though in [...]
LA Times Sets the Record Straight on the SSA
A recent article in the LA Times by Michael Hiltzik offered a strong defense of SSDI after a misleading attack on the program was published in the Wall Street Journal. The author of the Journal piece, Mark J. Warshawsky, criticized the high percentage of awards granted by Social Security Judges, and urged Congress to reform the entire system. Among Warshawsky’s claims was that Judges on average were awarding “70% of the claims before them.” Hiltzik [...]
How does Social Security Determine a Listed Impairment?
The third step in the SSA's five-step evaluation process asks whether your condition(s) meet or equal a “Listing Impairment.”
