Social Security Disability Insurance (SSD or SSDI) is a payroll tax-funded, federal insurance program of the United States government. It is managed by the Social Security Administration and is designed to provide income supplements to people who are physically restricted in their ability to be employed because of a notable disability, usually a physical disability. SSD can be supplied on either a temporary or permanent basis, usually directly correlated to whether the person’s disability is temporary or permanent.
Unlike Supplemental Security Income (SSI), SSD does not depend on the income of the disabled individual receiving it. A legitimately disabled person (a finding based on legal and medical justification) of any income level can theoretically receive SSD. (“Disability” under SSDI is measured by a different standard than under the Americans with Disabilities Act.) Most SSI recipients are below an administratively-mandated income threshold, and indeed these individuals must in fact stay below that threshold to continue receiving SSI; but this is not the case with SSD.
Informal names for SSDI include Disability Insurance Benefits (DIB) and Title II benefits. These names come from the chapter title of the governing section of the Social Security Act, which came into law in August 1935.
At the end of 2011, there were 10.6 million Americans collecting SSDI, up from 7.2 million in 2002.[1] The share of the U.S. population receiving SSDI benefits has risen rapidly over the past two decades, from 2.2 percent of adults age 25 to 64 in 1985 to 4.1 percent in 2005.[2]
In a 2006 analysis by economists David Autor and Mark Duggan for the National Bureau of Economic Research, Autor and Duggan wrote that the most significant factor in the growth of SSDI usage had been the loosening of the SSDI screening process that took place in 1984, following the signing into law of the Social Security Disability Benefits Reform Act of 1984, which directed the Social Security Administration to place more weight on applicants’ reported pain and discomfort, relax screening of mental illness, consider multiple non-severe ailments to be disabling, and give more credence to medical evidence provided by the applicant’s doctor. These changes had the effect of increasing the number of new SSDI awards and shifting their composition towards claimants with low-mortality disorders such as mental illness and back pain. Autor and Duggan wrote that a second factor in increased SSDI usage was the rising value of SSDI benefits relative to what recipients would have earned if they had been employed, saying that in 1984 a low-income older male SSDI recipient would have received from SSDI about 68% of what he would have earned had he been working, and that by 2004, due to increasing income inequality in the United States, the same man would have received from SSDI 86% of what he would have earned through work. Autor and Duggan say that aging and changes to the overall health of the U.S. population, have had a small effect at most on SSDI usage.[3]
Autor and Duggan argue that because the definition of disability adopted in 1984 is quite broad, the SSDI program often functions in practice as an insurance program for unemployable people.[3]
As of December 2013, under current law, the Congressional Budget Office reported that the “Disability Insurance trust fund will be exhausted in fiscal year 2017 and the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance trust fund will be exhausted in 2033”.[4]
In December 2014, the SSDI program insured approximately 10.9 million beneficiaries including disabled workers and their spouses and children.[5]
Lebanon
Lebanon /ˈlɛbnən/ is the county seat of Wilson County, Tennessee, United States.[4]
The population was 26,190 at the 2010 census, 28,608 in 2013 and 32.372 following a special census conducted in 2016[5].
Lebanon is located in Middle Tennessee, approximately 25 miles (40 km) east of downtown Nashville. Lebanon is part of the Nashville Metropolitan Statistical Area.
The city was incorporated in 1801,[6] and was named after the biblical cedars of Lebanon.[7] Local residents have called Lebanon “Cedar City”, mostly a reference to the abundance of cedar trees in the area. The city is home to Cumberland University, a small, private four-year liberal arts institution.
As of the census[2] of 2000, there were 20,235 people, 7,987 households, and 5,319 families residing in the city. The population density was 692.0 people per square mile (267.2/km²). There were 8,693 housing units at an average density of 297.3 per square mile (114.8/km²). The racial makeup of the city was 82.89% White, 13.78% African American, 0.33% Native American, 0.82% Asian, 0.03% Pacific Islander, 1.00% from other races, and 1.15% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 2.26% of the population.
There were 7,987 households out of which 30.9% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 47.7% were married couples living together, 15.0% had a female householder with no husband present, and 33.4% were non-families. 28.5% of all households were made up of individuals and 11.1% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.41 and the average family size was 2.94.