comment: >
  
  Every time someone talks about how lazy people just live on state aid I ask them “do you have ANY idea how fucking difficult it is to get approved for ANY state funded aid?”
  EBT is kinda sorta easy but the rest is next to impossible with all the hoops and waiting you have to deal with.
context: He had made it through four years of denials and appeals, and Robert Heard was finally before a Social Security judge who would decide whether he qualified for disability benefits. Two debilitating strokes had left the 47-year-old electrician with halting speech, an enlarged heart and violent tremors.
  There was just one final step: A vocational expert hired by the Social Security Administration had to tell the judge if there was any work Heard could still do despite his condition. Heard was stunned as the expert canvassed his computer and announced his findings: He could find work as a nut sorter, a dowel inspector or an egg processor — jobs that virtually no longer exist in the United States.
  [...]
  But while the judge agreed that Heard had multiple, severe impairments, he denied him benefits, writing that he had “job opportunities” in three occupations that are nearly obsolete and agreeing with the expert’s dubious claim that 130,000 positions were still available sorting nuts, inspecting dowels and processing eggs.
  [...]
  The jobs are spelled out in an exhaustive publication known as the Dictionary of Occupational Titles. The vast majority of the 12,700 entries were last updated in 1977. The Department of Labor, which originally compiled the index, abandoned it 31 years ago in a sign of the economy’s shift from blue-collar manufacturing to information and services. >
  
  Yeah, this is what they do. My personal favorite from my own SSD struggles was "toy assembly worker", a job that was replaced by robots decades ago. I got that one twice. They're just like, 'whatever, you can sit and assemble troll dolls, we will speak no more of this'. I was like, where is the troll doll factory and how do I get back to 1996? >
  
  I got denied because I had too much money.
  I had less than $2500. It was a month's rent and groceries, at best. But the rules say that I'm only disabled if I have less than $2000, so I guess I'm not. >
  
  That's Supplemental Security Income (SSI). That's a separate program. >
  
  SSI is in additon to SSD. If you are not disabled you don't qualify for SSI.
  I was applying for SSD. >
  
  You weren't denied Social Security Disability Insurance benefits because you had ~$2,500 in the bank. But you may have been denied SSI for it. >
  
  Okay, but that's not what the denial letter I got said. I'm sure you know better. >
  
  This is an excuse - the system is designed to make it harder to get help, which is the fundamental problem. Don't get me wrong, by all means fix it, but it's worth a note even with Republican desperation to justify witch hunts against safety nets, the rate of fraud continues to be so low as to outcost the very thing they're hunting for. >
  
  War of attrition. >
  
  The purposeful construction of impassable hurdles for social safety nets is some next level dystopian shit. >
  
  This happens with every bureaucracy and it is unavoidable.
  Systems exist to ensure that majority of people are served in a reasonable manner.  Procedures are developed, people are trained, audits are conducted.
  You never hear about problems with most cases, they go according to plan.
  The downside is weird exceptions.  If it doesn't fit in an established procedure then people don't know how to handle it, and things get fucked. >
  
  I have worked in many bureaucracies.  Whenever anything weird happens, it is used as a case study to fix the system. >
  
  Government services in the US are grossly neglected and underfunded. I remember when the pandemic first hit and a lot of people got laid off/furloughed, the unemployment website was constantly crashing and people were experiencing 8 hour wait times just to talk to a representative. That was a hot fucking mess. I can't wait for the same thing to happen during our next crisis. >
  
  People (voters, taxpayers) refuse to pay government workers market rates for wages.  I work in state government and we've had positions open for literally years because they are 50% below market rate, so we end up having to hire contractors at 3x the wage instead. >
  
  Was this always the case to pay considerably below market rate? Or is it more recent decades? I feel like so much of our government relies on civil sacrifice and people who feel a sense of duty. It's just that we have gone from the WW2 generation who believed in the United States, to Baby Boomers who think the biggest problem with the United States is government and have all but destroyed local and federal government agencies. >
  
  It has been getting worse for about 20 years in my state.
  We used to have a defined pension plan and guaranteed retirement benefits helped retain people who could have moved to the private sector for more money today.  We then moved to a 401(b) which is basically a normal retirement account like private companies have.
  So now, we make less money than private industry but have the same retirement as private industry.
  Skilled workers - people with professional designations - are in more demand than ever.  When we interview actuaries they are also interviewing with companies and governments around the world, especially now that work-from-home is much more accepted.
  In demand workers are choosing between a stable and low paying government job or a very high paying job they can do from anywhere in the world. >
  
  Got ya, that's unfortunate. It seems like everything is slowly getting worse over the past few decades.  
  I know in my field working for the government only pays about 60% of a starting salary for non government jobs in the same field. The government jobs also had much higher requirements than the private practice jobs, despite offering way less money, benefits, and time off. >
  
  This is why I didn't bother with appeals when I was denied for severe sciatica. I haven't been able to work in almost four years, but there's no way the social security administration is going to grant me disability for a little ole thing like constant, excruciating, debilitating pain. >
  
  They will in 99% of the cases deny the first appeal. But you need lots of documentation of your condition to get approved - it doesn't all have to all be medical documentation. You can keep a symptom diary (preferably hand written) and letters from employers and others stating what they have observed about your disabilities and your absences. Also documentation from any low income services you've turned to for help. 
  Even then it takes a long time. Some people finally get approved, then die just a short time later. >
  
  So much for the myth that it’s very easy to rely on welfare money as a substitute for working.