I have no idea what you are trying to say with this. Apparently he was not actually working post-disability? Or was he? Or was he committing some other kind of fraud? I strongly doubt you actually have the knowledge of this situation to make whatever judgment it is you are trying to make, but for kicks and grins, lets say this guy IS one of the very very few disability cheats who has managed to slip through the cracks.
What does that have to do with allegations that people are getting disability benefits based solely on a presumed inability to speak English?
Not being able to speak English and being on disability does not equate to their being on disability BECAUSE they don't speak English. That's a logical fallacy.
Still does not equate to people getting disability payments solely because they do not speak English.
Also, people don't get disability because they are refugees, either. I'm not sure what being a refugee (or not) has to do with anything.
Again - people do not get disability because the unemployment rate is high. People who are disabled get disability.
It is true that disability application rates - and hence the number of new disability recipients - spikes when unemployment rates go up. This is because people who are already struggling to continue working with a disability are most likely the first to go and the last to be hired. Hence, many of us - especially those of us who are older and have the additional burden of age discrimination to deal with on top of discrimination against the disabled - end up breaking down and applying for disability. If we get hired before an application is approved, we drop pursuing the disability. But if we ride it all the way out to the end - and it takes up to 5 years for approval - its because we COULD NOT get another job.
I don't know about you, but for me at least, living without any income to speak of for the 3.5 years it took for my SECOND disability application to be approved was no cake walk. My back pay, when it finally came, went to pay off the debts my college-age son had run up caring for me in the meantime. People do not go on disability because its easy street - they go on disability because its that or starve.
There are no states "where people all have back problems". There probably ARE states where a lot of people really DO have back problems - because there is a preponderance of people who have done hard manual labor all their lives.
And of course there is nothing to preclude someone who can't speak English from having a back problem. In which case, if they are on disability, its because they have a back problem. I have back problems. The pain is relatively minor - its when your lower extremities go numb and you fall down that's the biggest problem. I did not get disability based on back problems - that started up AFTER my disability was approved.
No, the phenomena are unrelated.
As for Virginia reputedly telling people with "severe mental impairment" that they can work - what are you even talking about? I just looked Virginia up, and they have a 30% approval rating at the first level of application. California, supposedly a welfare state, also has a 30% approval rating. Illinois, one of the most corrupt states overall in the US (I think ALL of their living past governors are in jail, at least a bunch of them are) has a 32% approval rating. The US average is 32%.
Statistics do not support the idea that Virginia is disproportionately denying benefits. What's your evidence?
Again, we are lacking definitions and evidence. I don't know what you are talking about, and googling didn't bring anything up.
Do you? You haven't addressed the issue at all, nor provided any evidence.
Here is a complete listing of all the things SS considers in a disability application. Inability to speak English is not listed under ANY of those categories. Loss of speech is - as in, you can't talk at all, or can't speak intelligibly. However, even that is not sufficient for disability approval. It is only one thing that is considered along with other things in determining disability. People who are totally mute don't even get disability based on that alone.
This I can agree with. I should have been approved for disability the first time I applied. At the time I was too sick to pursue it when they denied the initial application. The SSD administration depends on disabled people being too debilitated to follow through, or to be able to navigate the complex multiple processes in getting disability. Instead, I went another 5 years trying to handle things on my own and then still had to get a lawyer and wait another nearly 4 years for the application to be approved.
If I had not had a son who was willing to take me in - in spite of being in college himself at the time - I would have ended up homeless and/or dead, and the application would necessarily have been dropped. Win/Win for SS!
This LITERALLY happens to a lot of people. They die or become one of those annoying homeless people, and then they die. Could have been me.
Abuses are extremely minimal. Disability cheats get approved at only a slightly higher rate than actual voter fraud occurs (actual voter fraud occurs - NEVER). The few disability cheats who get through nearly always get caught within a couple of years. "Abuse" is not "draining the system". Abuse is almost non-existent - unless you are counting the abuse perpetrated by the application process, of "hurry up and wait for them to die, or give up because they are too sick to follow through correctly on all the complicated processes we use".
A FY2011 investigation by the Government Accountability Office found that improper payments of Social Security benefits that include Disability Insurance had an error rate of just 0.6 percent. [Government Accountability Office,
3/28/12]
What does that have to do with the idea that people are getting disability solely because they don't speak any English?
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