Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) benefit payments have been rocketing higher over the past 5 years. And lawyers are racking up some handsome fees in the process.
“Lawyers Scalp $1.2 Billion From Social Security In 2013”
Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) is no small program, costing taxpayers more than the combined cost of federal welfare payments, housing subsidies, food stamps and school lunches. Attorneys receive taxpayer-funded fees each time they successfully place a client in the program, which incentivizes them to encourage clients to file disability claims. The fees are capped at 25 percent of the successful client’s SSDI award, or $6,000, whichever is less.
Attorneys took in $1.2 billion in such fees in 2013, up from just $425 billion in 2011.
In 2010, the report notes that nine of the top 10 highest-earning SSDI lawyers made more than $2 million just in fees that year. Claimants’ representatives need not be attorneys to receive the fees, a rule that changed in 2004 when Congress voted to allow non-lawyers to represent disability claimants. What resulted, however, was an explosion in profits to SSDI-focused law firms such as Binder and Binder, which hired large teams of people to work on disability claims and sent their profits soaring, reaching $88 million in 2010.”
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The CBO projects that “in 2022, the [Social Security] DI program will provide benefits totaling $204 billion to over 12.3 million disabled workers and their dependents.”
That works out to a 45.7% increase in cost over the next 7 years, although it is set to ‘run dry’ by 2016 – resulting in a 20% decrease in benefits if Congress doesn’t add funding (of course, they will).
America needs a strategic plan to help people get off government programs, rather than the trying to get more people dependent upon government for their livelihood.
The Leviticus 25 Plan helps people escape their dependence on government – by directly providing them with the resources to manage their daily lives in the way that best meets their individual needs, and frees them from government control and domination.
The Leviticus 25 Plan ‘recapture’ provisions generate annual government budget surpluses of $1.094 trillion over the first 5 years of the plan.
It is time for a change.