In 1935, during the middle of the Great Depression, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed into law a nation wide program designed to protect our economy by providing retirement benefits for the nation's workers when they reached retirement age of 65. This program was known as the Social Security Act ("Act").

      It was not until 1954 that Congress began to consider the disabled worker. Interestingly, the 1954 inclusion of the disabled worker did not provide for "disability benefits". Rather, it established a "wage-freeze" (which was an exclusion from the formula for averaging wages in order to determine the amount of retirement benefit payable) to be applied during the period of time the worker was disabled.

      In 1956, Congress amended the Act under Title II to allow for monthly payments to permanently and totally disabled workers between the ages of 50 and 65. These types of disability benefits are known as wage-earner disability benefits ("Title II"). Since 1956, the Act has been amended numerous times which resulted in enlarging the persons to whom disability benefits were payable. In addition to disabled workers, others to whom disability benefits may be paid now include the dependents of disabled workers, widows of disabled workers and disabled adult children of disabled workers.

      In 1972, Congress passed, as part of President Richard M. Nixon's plan to federalize the U. S. Welfare system, an entirely new disability program within the Act known as Supplemental Security Income (SSI). The implementation of the program replaced many state and local welfare programs. The purpose of the SSI program was to provide the low-income disabled and elderly with a basic level of support.

The Size of the U.S. Disability Program.  As of 2004, there were approximately 8 million people receiving disability benefits with close to 2.5 million applications for disability benefits filed yearly. In addition, the Social Security Administration (SSA) reviews about 1.3 million files annually to determine whether those to whom disability benefits were awarded continue to be disabled. At the Office of Hearings and Appeals (OHA) in Indianapolis there are over 10,000 pending cases waiting for hearing before an administrative law judge.

If you would like to know more about your rights, please read our guidelines on social security disability, or let us help you. Contact us today for a free initial legal consultation via our web site, or telephone us at 800.296.2290 toll free or 765-644-8410 in Indiana.