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What sort of disabilities are we talking about? And how much are doctor’s visits? Here’s a couple of interesting facts I found:
- You’re basically not allowed to have any savings at all on disability. I’m in a pretty low cost of living area. If I had taken disability and then returned to work, I would have lost any help at all immediately. The maximum savings I could have without losing benefits would be about 2 months of living expenses. For some of my friends it might be one month or less of living expenses, meaning you’ve got almost nothing until that first paycheck.
- If you do get a job, and it doesn’t work out, there’s a good chance you’re still out benefits. So if you’re not absolutely sure you can work it’s much safer not to try, as opposed to giving it a chance and having something to fall back on. Plus the processing can take months even if you could get benefits back.
- Some disabilities limit the sorts of jobs you can take. This will result in people who are capable of working, but not capable of taking the sorts of jobs that might actually be in the area, or of finding the money to move. I went through this as well - I could do a job so long as it didn’t require me to keep to a set 5 day a week schedule. There are jobs out there that meet those criterion, but they weren’t anywhere I could actually get to.
- Doctors are expensive. Meds are expensive. Even with insurance I’m paying $50 for a month of each sort of med I take. That was part of why I ended up not applying for disability (and taking on debt instead); I wouldn’t have been able to pay the doctor they wanted me to see.
- Education is also forbidden. Being able to enroll in education is considered proof that you can work. So you have to stay out of school to receive benefits, even if that education would help you gt a manageable job.
Honestly, the more I look at the system, the more I think we’re punishing everyone
except the scammers. We’ve blocked off just about every way of trying to improve your situation for people who legitimately want to get back to work, by cutting off all assistance the minute your situation starts to get better. The scammers won’t care about that - they’ll do whatever they can to stay on. And the reality is we’re never going to get all of them. But the system right now is encouraging people who would like to work to stay on disability instead.