Disabled Recipients of Social Security Fund Face Hefty Benefits Cut [View all]

[Omaha Steve]

This has been posted before, but a reminder can't hurt. I was going to post this as a reply in the current 401K post in GD. I decided to make it an OP on it's own.

http://www.nbcnews.com/business/economy/disabled-recipients-social-security-fund-face-hefty-benefits-cut-n127981

June 22

BY MARTHA C. WHITE

Congressional gridlock is threatening the already thin lifeline of Social Security benefits that nearly 9 million disabled American workers rely on to feed, clothe and shelter their families.

Known as SSDI, the trust fund is one of two administered by the Social Security Administration (the other is for senior citizens), and its reserves will run dry in late 2016, if lawmakers don’t act sooner to shore them up. But the timing is poor; it falls in an election year and experts say it could become a target for political infighting as Americans gear up to go to the polls.

“I think it’ll probably come down to the wire,” said Mark Duggan, a professor of business economics and public policy at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.

And that’s what worries people like Erica Choy. The 45-year-old San Francisco resident is struggling to raise the youngest four of her five kids on about $2,100 a month, a combination of SSDI and SSI — supplemental security insurance. “It’s a constant struggle for us,” she said.

FULL story at link.