An Entitlement Not a Handout

The Social Security Disability Income (SSDI) program is the largest involuntary insurance policy in the world. As soon as you are old enough to start working, FICA taxes are taken out of your paycheck, to provide benefits to you upon reaching retirement age, or if you become disabled. That's in theory anyway. The truth of the matter is, if you become disabled and are unable to keep working, the very program you had no choice but to pay into for all those years will do just about everything in their power to deny you benefits. Had you been given the option of investing those FICA taxes yourself in an individual disability policy you might have been better off. That's not to say that insurance companies issuing individual and group long-term disability benefit plans won't give you a run for your money either. However, the big difference is, that with private disability insurance, depending on the policy, you may very well be covered for benefits if you are unable to work and perform your own occupation at the time you became disabled. With SSDI, in many instances, after considering your age, education, experience, residual functional capacity, and other factors, you can't collect Social Security disability benefits if you could move across the country and work as a surveillance system monitor (a favorite of Social Security Administrative Law Judges and the medical and vocational "experts" that they consult), looking at a security screen all day. It really doesn't matter that you used to be a mid-level manager in a Fortune 500 company either. The end result is, like most applicants, you will likely be denied disability benefits and have to fight for what your deserve every step of the way. That means understanding, navigating, and winning the Social Security Administration Disability Appeal Process. Here at DisabilityAppeal.com we think the way the system operates is despicable. So we are going to share a few things with you that we have learned over the years. It won't be legal advice, but should give you a better understanding of how the disability appeals process works and help you win Social Security disability benefits.