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Jobless and desperate, many working-age Floridians seek disability
TAMPA, Sep 25, 2011 (Tampa Tribune - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) --
Lawyer Garry Miracle helps disabled people get benefits through Social Security. Recently, he has seen a different kind of client coming through the door: the long-term unemployed.
"A lot of these people are not really qualified for disability," Miracle said. "The problem is you have a large number of people in their 40s who have lost their jobs. From that age up, it's really difficult to compete in this economy."
With unemployment checks drying up and full-time work hard to get, thousands of working-age Floridians are turning to Social Security's disability program as a last-ditch effort to keep money flowing into their households.
The number of Floridians seeking disability coverage has ballooned by 50 percent -- double the national rate -- since the economic downturn began in 2007. Applications are up 70 percent since 2006, when Florida's economy was peaking.
This year, nearly 157,000 people in Florida sought disability insurance, according to the Social Security Administration.
The odds are stacked against them. About two-thirds of those who apply get rejected on the first try. Appeals can take at least 18 months, leading many to quit before their appeals are finished.
"It's not like your average person says, 'I'm just going to stop looking for a job and get disability,'" said Jill Quadagno, a sociologist with Florida State University's Pepper Institute for Aging and Public Policy. "It's so much easier to go back to work."
Those who are approved are guaranteed two things: a steady, if small, stream of income for years and, after a two-year wait, health coverage under Medicare.
For people too young to retire but too old to compete with workers in their 20s or 30s, disability is becoming a logical alternative to being penniless, Quadagno said.
"Disability is a big advantage," she said. "It's a rational response to hard times."
Nationally, the burst of disability-seekers has clogged the review process, pushing the wait period for benefits toward 12 months. "Which is still a long time to wait for someone who has no money," Miracle said.
In the Tampa Bay area, about 16,000 people are waiting for their disability cases to work through the system, according to the Social Security Administration.
The growing demand for benefits has the potential to bankrupt the disability system by 2018 if federal officials don't step in, according to a Congressional Budget Office report issued this summer.
Even as applications have exploded, the number of Floridians receiving disability benefits has not changed much. Disability recipients amount to about 15 percent of Social Security beneficiaries statewide, up from the 14 percent they represented five years ago.
Last year, more than 122,000 people in Hillsborough, Pinellas, Pasco and Polk counties were living on disability, about 20 percent more than five years ago. Together, those people received almost $115 million in payments last year, according to the Social Security Administration.
Nationally, the average disability payment was $1,065 a month in May. Although modest, that money comes with guaranteed Medicare, a factor that makes people reluctant to leave the disability program, even if they eventually find work, Quadagno said.
In Florida, 30 percent of full-time workers and 60 percent of part-time employees don't get health insurance through their jobs, according to recent census numbers.
"There's always a concern that people who get better won't drop their benefits because they'll lose their insurance," she said. "But I've got to believe that most people would prefer to go back to work."
___ (c)2011 the Tampa Tribune (Tampa, Fla.) Visit the Tampa Tribune (Tampa,
Fla.) at www.tampatrib.com Distributed by MCT Information Services
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