Massachusetts Social Security Disability Lawyers Blog

Close to half of all Americans have more credit card debt than savings. According to CBS News, the overall personal savings rate in the United States fell even as Americans increased spending. This has resulted in a situation where a lot of people don’t have cash on hand to pay their debts.

If you become disabled, your debt problems could become much worse. After all, if you are sick and unable to work, you will not have income to pay your bills. You may also incur additional medical expenses and costs that make your debt rise. This is especially true if it takes a long time to get Social Security Disability (SSD) benefits approved. For many, this process can take months, even with the help of a Boston disability lawyer, because the SSA works slowly and because many initial claims are denied.
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Our Boston SSDI lawyers know that the task of applying for benefits can really seem like an uphill battle to an unrepresented claimant.

In Murphy v. Colvin, an appeal filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, the claimant was admitted to the hospital after having a stroke. The examining physicians noted a past history of headaches and issues with her speech. The doctor noted that, while the claimant could read a basic sentence, she would sometimes substitute random words.

The doctor also diagnosed the claimant with a degree of weakness on her right side and a neurological condition which affected sensation and caused her to be unaware of the location of her own hand without looking at it. The doctor recommended physical therapy.
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Our Boston disability lawyers understand that many people need SSDI with costs of private insurance going up every billing period.

According to a recent article in the Portland Herald Press, employers are starting to phase out benefits, including long-term disability insurance. Many people do not realize the importance of having long-term disability coverage. This type of disability insurance, as its name implies, will provide benefits on a long-term basis for people whose disability makes it difficult or impossible to work in the same or similar job that they had before becoming disabled. To get an idea about how important having disabled coverage may be, statistically, one in 20 workers will become disabled before their retirement.

The key to understanding how long-term disability insurance differs from Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) is to look at how a disability is defined. With long-term disability coverage, if you become disabled and can no longer perform the services required for your current job, you may be declared disabled for the purposes of benefit eligibility.
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The Highway Transportation fund is broke because gas taxes have not been raised since 1993 — and cars today are more fuel-efficient and use less gas. Rather than raise the gas tax, some lawmakers want to take money away from the disabled. The proposal is just one more way in which the Social Security Disability benefits program is under attack and the disabled are at risk.

Those who cannot work due to medical problems deserve to receive benefits to support themselves and their families. A Boston disability lawyer should be consulted to provide help for those applying for benefits or for individuals whose benefits claims are denied.
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Social Security Disability benefits are difficult to get for applicants and as our Boston disability lawyersrecently wrote, there is serious budget shortfall that could result in a significant benefits reduction if Congress does not act. While most people are aware of these challenges, however, the Huffington Post has recently reported on “dramatic changes” that “threaten to end Social Security as we know it” that almost no one has heard of.

The Huffington Post was talking about Vision 2025, which is a long-range plan that the head of the Social Security Administration has drafted. The plan would make it much more difficult for people seeking help with Social Security issues to get the benefits they need.
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Young people who are disabled before they reach the age of 18 face many challenges. Many people who are disabled as children do not get the education and job training they need to earn a comfortable living on their own. Because they do not earn work credits, they also may be ineligible for Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) and may be left to rely on benefits provided by Supplemental Security Income (SSI) only.

While SSI is an important safety net for low-income disabled individuals, it often provides much less money per month than SSDI. Children who are disabled should consult with a Boston disability lawyer or information on whether they can qualify for SSDI based on their parents work record. States also need to do a better job preparing disabled young people for jobs that they may be qualified to do even with their medical condition.
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One of the reasons politicians have been fretting over the future of programs like Social Security Disability Insurance is that the large baby boomer generation is increasingly seeking access to them.

This was expected, though admittedly, it’s not something for which legislators and government agencies have been well-prepared. So now, rather than expanding access to the offices that provide these services, we are actually seeing a significant reduction.

SSDI lawyers in Massachusetts understand that this has translated in the closure and threatened closure of Social Security Administration offices nationwide. The agency is seeking a shift from in-person contact to electronic communication in order to save money.
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