Disability 101

United States Senator Tom Coburn is on a quest. He wants to get control of Social Security disability payments that go out monthly to twelve million citizens at a cost of $150 billion. As they say in here, “That’s a lot of cheddar!” Senator Coburn is in the classic sense of the word a curmudgeon. His nickname, “Senator No,” tells it all. His goal is to rein in runaway federal spending. The more I see him talk about debt and deficits and rampant federal spending for things most of us could never imagine government spending money on, the more I like him.

            Here’s his take on SSI disability: It started out as a noble program in the 1950s to provide a living income to citizens who, because of physical or mental disability, were incapable of providing for themselves. Qualification for disability was strictly controlled and limited. The Social Security Administration maintained an employment “grid” that included virtually every known job in the country. If the disability applicant had the skills necessary for any job on the grid, their application was denied. It didn’t matter if the job was available. If you possessed the requisite skills, you weren’t disabled.

            As a young lawyer just starting in practice I remember agreeing to handle a disability appeal pro bono. “Jane” was a thirty something white woman who looked much older. Life had not dealt her a fair hand. Her left side was partially paralyzed, the result of multiple minor strokes in her teens and twenties. She spoke with a slow, slightly slurred speech pattern. She was close to being classified as legally blind. She “heard” voices and twice each week visited the health clinic for psychotropic meds to control her schizophrenia. She lived with her elderly mother in subsidized housing.

            I took on Jane’s case after one of our firm secretaries told me her church had been providing meals to her and her mother at regular intervals. When I met her I was shocked. I was twenty-five years old and didn’t know people like Jane existed (side note: I recalled my initial encounter with Jane when I found myself in jail with the flotsam and jetsam that makes up most of the inmate population).

            She showed me her disability denial. Based on the grid, the Social Security Administration determined Jane could work assembling boxes. I read the denial and grew angry. There were no box assembly jobs around East Tennessee. And Jane, well it was obvious she couldn’t work. We appealed; I found a Psychiatrist willing to testify about her mental condition; and Jane, began receiving disability.

            Now, almost eighty percent of those applying for disability get it. Lawyers – who used to take one or two such cases on to remind themselves why they went to law school, to bring “justice for all” – began warehousing thousands of disability cases each year and earning millions in legal fees, all paid by the Federal government. Disability became an income supplement after your unemployment ran out.

            Think I exaggerate? Walk through any prison today and listen to the number of men (and woman) who will seek to receive disability upon release. Meet “Screw Loose” a diabetic college student. “I don’t need re-entry. When I walk out the front door I’m goin’ right back home. I’ll sit on my fat ass and get my disability check” (as an aside the disability check didn’t stop him from getting arrested and sent back to prison two more times). The disability system, like so much else going on in the country today, is in need of overhaul.

            What does this have to do with a prison blog? Well, one of the big “industries” inside is helping guys understand what benefits are available once they return to “the street.” And disability income is a biggie. Face it; employment opportunities for convicted felons are limited. Add to that the high percentage of those in prison with little to no education, poor work and credit histories, and their likelihood of successfully re-entering society drops even more. Disability becomes a no-brainer. So many of those behind bars are classified with mental disorders and kept medicated that it becomes easier to say you are disabled than to say you’re alright.

            And prison itself is schizophrenic. Everything in here is done for you, yet nothing is done to help you, I mean really help you, put your life back together and be an active participant in society. Prison is about the have nots. Most of the men I’ve met along the way – save the overtly violent, sociopathic ones – are men who candidly never had a chance to succeed. America isn’t much on Horatio Alger’s stories of pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. These men were born to poor, uneducated, alcoholic or drug-addled mothers. Violence and neglect were the norm in their life, not the exception. Does that excuse their crimes? No. But, it does explain why so often they turn to disability claims as a way of “getting what’s due me.”

            It’s a short-sighted approach and one that’s destined for failure. But then again, so is this country’s current reliance on prison as means of dealing with those struggling on the outside to be let in. Most of the incarcerated don’t look like me. They didn’t have the opportunities I had. Maybe that justifies me getting sent here. After all, I threw away a pretty good deal.

            That’s not how it is with the vast majority of men I’ve met. They’re on the outside looking in. Sadly, so were their families. That doesn’t justify what any of them have done. Nor is it an excuse. But, perhaps, just perhaps we can pause and realize things aren’t fair for everyone. The preamble of the United States Constitution begins with these transcending words:

            “We the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, to provide for the common welfare …”

            That is a goal that should drive this country forward. Senator Coburn is right. SSI disability is a mess. But so is our neglect of those hanging on by a thread on the fringe of the American dream. Prisons aren’t the answer; neither is a rigged system that leads folks to “get what’s due” them.