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Those lawyers by and large really do not make as much money as you may think. By law they receive a percentage of the settlement which has a cap. Most receive $2000---$6000. If they attempt to wiggle more cash from the client, they will find themselves in deep trouble.
Let's just say it's lucrative enough that they devote their entire practice to it. If they weren't making money they would be doing something else. I imagine their business model revolves around the number of clients, rather than the dollar amount per case.
SSDI is what a worker pays for. If you don't work, collect welfare you'll never collect SSDI. SSI is welfare and is not social security but supplement security income---welfare. Copeesh?
+1 It's interesting the number of disability critics who don't understand the difference between SSI and SSDI.
It wouldn't really matter. The government has been putting millions in the system early anyhow on SS "disability." Face it, the system will crash eventually.
... In all these discussions we have about retirement, few people seem to acknowledge that the population blip created by the "baby boom generation" created a special situation. There are not as many children in succeeding generations, i.e. there are not as many workers to pay benefits for a worker who chooses to retire. Boomers ought to accept the reality and be looking at later retirement, not early retirement. ...
I don't think it's true at all that few people acknowledge the population blip. I certainly acknowledge it, and being a tail-end member of the baby boom generation who has not reproduced, I am well aware that we currently have more takers in the system than I suppose anyone ever accounted for. But you're missing one important point. WE WANT TO WORK. It's corporate America that doesn't want us.
They push us out the door in ways it takes experts to think of. I know dozens of people my age who "retired" early and it wasn't their idea. In much of corporate America, "downsizing" no longer means reducing the number of workers, it just means reducing the number of workers at the top of their pay grade. Have you ever met a single individual who won an age discrimination law suit? I haven't. Lawyers won't even take them except under the most extraordinary of circumstances.
I got the "slam, bam, thank you ma'am" THREE times in my storied career. First when a Fortune 100 company was broken up into parts that were sold off for the benefit of stockholders and the golden-parachute-fitted executives; second, when the company that hired me next sold itself to a competitor who made most of the lower-level functionaries redundant, and third when corporate raiders took over the company I worked for, Romney-style, and then bankrupted it in fewer than two years for their own financial benefit. I've been ushered out the door three times (with warm thanks and glowing reviews) and in each subsequent job I had no choice except to accept lower pay and fewer benefits than in the previous one.
So at age 60 I ended up unemployed for the third time (and unemployable according to human resource departments). What do YOU suggest I do? How much savings do you think I have left having been unemployed three times in the most recent 20 years? I'm not stupid. I'd be crazy to take my Social Security at age 62, if I didn't need it in order to keep a roof over my head.
I guess the younger generation wants to work, too, or we wouldn't hear so much griping about "the older workers who won't retire and give us our chance." Very few people, no matter what age, are seeking a life of leisure. We want to make a contribution. We want to work. I'll probably be working part-time at a menial hourly job until I've long passed 70 to supplement a Social Security check that would have been enough had I been able to collect it when I turn 65.
Sorry if I sound bitter ... but I am bitter. The rich keep getting richer while the middle-class is being purposefully disappeared. And not only am I the victim, I get told it's MY fault.
+1 It's interesting the number of disability critics who don't understand the difference between SSI and SSDI.
I know SSDI isn't actually welfare, but my point was it is the same premise as welfare - a steady check with no effort involved. I know of several people who collect SSDI who worked only a few years, are relatively young, and will collect far, far more than they paid into it. Add to that the immediate benefit of food stamps, special perks because of being "disabled" and there you have it - the equivalent of welfare.
Sorry if this offends folks collecting SSDI - I get the fact there are some truly qualified that collect, but there are way too many who should not be draining the system.
In all these discussions we have about retirement, few people seem to acknowledge that the population blip created by the "baby boom generation" created a special situation. There are not as many children in succeeding generations, i.e. there are not as many workers to pay benefits for a worker who chooses to retire. Boomers ought to accept the reality and be looking at later retirement, not early retirement.
Baby Boomer's are NOT the largest generation. Their are 78 million boomers give or take. There are 95 million millineals. So that is 20 million more than boomers. The millineal generation at it's oldest is 25 and its youngest is 13. This is the generation that will be funding all of our excess.
I don't understand this notion that their won't be enough workers to fund things, when our population keeps growning every year. As I said in another thread, those people will have to work, buy houses, cars, pay taxes, etc. Will it be different for them, absolutely, but its not like when the last boomer walks out the door, turn off the lights. Those 95 million are just waiting to replace us.
Oh..and don't forget the 51 million of Gen X. So that is a lot of people just waiting for thier chance.
I know SSDI isn't actually welfare, but my point was it is the same premise as welfare - a steady check with no effort involved.
You're going to need more qualifications, because an annuity is a steady check with no effort involved. In both cases (SSDI and the annuity), the effort involved occurred at some point prior to the issuance of the check. Furthermore, don't forget that "a steady check" is also to a great extent a reflection of risk taken. Dividend checks from investments in value fund epitomize that, as does working a job that results in permanent disability. And the objective of investors who invest in value investments is to, as you put it, "collect far, far more than they paid into it". It is important to not get caught up in the fact that SSDI comes from SSA. That's apparently the only substantive distinction in play here. If your concern is simply that, then it is sufficient to say that (i.e., "I don't want the government providing a safety net for those who suffer a disability; I want those people to..." and then say what you want those people to do, given their misfortune).
I don't think it's true at all that few people acknowledge the population
blip. I certainly acknowledge it, and being a tail-end member of the baby boom
generation who has not reproduced, I am well aware that we currently have more
takers in the system than I suppose anyone ever accounted for. But you're
missing one important point. WE WANT TO WORK. It's corporate America
that doesn't want us.
I guess the younger generation wants to work, too, or we wouldn't hear so
much griping about "the older workers who won't retire and give us our chance."
Very few people, no matter what age, are seeking a life of leisure. We want to make a contribution. We want to work. I'll probably be
working part-time at a menial hourly job until I've long passed 70 to supplement
a Social Security check that would have been enough had I been able to collect
it when I turn 65.
Sorry if I sound bitter ... but I am bitter. The rich keep getting
richer while the middle-class is being purposefully disappeared. And not only
am I the victim, I get told it's MY fault.
You raise valid points and my post was probably overly simplistic.
In my own case, I'm self employed and can't be laid off. My intentions, health permitting, are to work until I'm 70. Of course, lots of unintended things can happen in life and your post does a pretty good job of describing that.
Even so, I've hung out periodically on the retirement forum long enough to observe a pattern. For every person who wants to work past the age of 65, there are probably three others here that are just salivating at the chance to leave work early. I hear them all the time and many seem very aggrieved at the notion that they are actually expected to put in a 9-5 day until their mid-sixties. The notion that they are going to live longer than their parents did is irrelevant to them. The fact that the system will be expected to pay them social security or other retirement benefits for an additional 6 to 8 years of life bounces off many like "water off a duck's back".
The group that bothers me the most are former government employees whose pensions are subsidized by the taxpayers. Many of them feel very entitled to an early retirement. They could care less about what this is costing younger people who are unlikely to ever have such a retirement of their own. In the final analysis, its a cruel example of forced wealth redistribution that is going the wrong way. Its a situation where many people who are poor and young pay taxes to subsidize a group that is far from poor and often very demanding. In the end, we must all face a simple fact. Work is what creates wealth. Work is what makes retirement possible. Longer retirement periods logically mean longer periods working to pay for the additional period of retirement. That's simple math and nothing more.
Besides draining the system, its a poor example for younger generations. I can't help but think it makes many young people perceive the system as a "sort of scam" where if you are lucky enough to land some minor low level job as a clerk with the federal or state government you've won the lottery because of the retirement and health insurance available (not to mention job security where you can seldom be discharged) Obtaining such a job becomes a "career goal" rather than going out and building a business that employs others and actually contributes to the community and economy.
In the end, its probably both a question of economics than simply one of morality. Many others don't believe, as I do, that the system we have created is immoral. I'm sorry you were laid off before you wanted to be. There have been some awful changes in the American economy that many of us are really struggling to deal with.
Baby Boomer's are NOT the largest generation. Their are 78 million boomers give or take. There are 95 million millineals. So that is 20 million more than boomers. The millineal generation at it's oldest is 25 and its youngest is 13. This is the generation that will be funding all of our excess.
I don't understand this notion that their won't be enough workers to fund things, when our population keeps growning every year. As I said in another thread, those people will have to work, buy houses, cars, pay taxes, etc. Will it be different for them, absolutely, but its not like when the last boomer walks out the door, turn off the lights. Those 95 million are just waiting to replace us.
Oh..and don't forget the 51 million of Gen X. So that is a lot of people just waiting for thier chance.
Dada Bing a few times plus. Immigration reform is part of the puzzle and getting illegal workers to pay into SS and above board if they are going to be here etc etc. Millennials are the largest group and it is much about timing and job opportunities and economic growth and a lot of other parts to the puzzle.
Below is a good link to Pew Research and their ongoing studies of Millennials. I don't think the next generation has been coined yet so who to include in the total count of Millennials may vary based on the purpose of any article or study. The SS burden is not just about Boomer numbers but also Generation X. Some studies and articles differentiate between early and late Boomers as they consider those groups to have different characteristics.
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