After about 20 years of debate in Congress the Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) program was established in 1956, but is the program today what Congress intended?
Social Security released an issue paper that examined this question, and the simple answer is yes, the program is what Congress intended when it was established more than 60 years ago.
“According to the issue paper, Congress agreed what the program should look like. From the outset of the debate, however, there had been general agreement that the DI program should be for workers with substantial work histories, be funded through payroll taxes, include stringent disability criteria, provide modest benefit levels, and require return-to-work supports. Using administrative data on current DI beneficiaries, this issue paper examines how the program reflects those original tenets as it nears its 60th anniversary.”
All of the requirements Congress had for the program have been established and remain today as the conclusion to the issue paper points out.
“The Social Security DI program was designed to provide modest federal benefits to workers with established work histories who had paid into the program and subsequently became totally disabled and unable to support themselves through work. Current data on the DI disabled-worker beneficiary population indicate that the program hews closely to this intent. Beneficiaries generally had long work histories before becoming eligible for DI. Most beneficiaries not only met the minimum insured-status requirements, but handily exceeded them, often earning the maximum possible work credits in all (or nearly all) years between age 21 and DI eligibility. Their patterns of predisability employment by industry were much like those of nondisabled workers, and prior to starting DI benefits, they had achieved adjusted earnings in their top 5 earnings years that, on average, were comparable to the 2014 earnings of nondisabled workers.
As the DI program’s designers intended, most disabled-worker beneficiaries are older; the majority of them are aged 50 or older when they start receiving benefits. The program’s strict eligibility standards are reflected in the high mortality rate among beneficiaries within 5 years of starting benefits. Its goal of providing only the most basic of benefits is reflected in the fact that the average benefit level remains less than one-third of the national AWI and only slightly above the federal poverty line.
Although the Social Security DI program has grown and adjusted to meet the demographic changes in the United States since 1956, it also succeeds in dutifully following the core tenets that Congress established for it nearly 60 years ago.”
