What You Need to Know About SSDI Under a Trump Presidency
With a new president in place, some experts in Social Security believe disability funding might change. But would those changes affect your disability application?
While nothing is certain yet, recent discussion over the budget suggests a reduction in funding for Social Security Disability (SSDI). This poses the question: where and how will those cuts hit hardest?
Here are three things that might affect your disability application down the road:
1. Changes in Services Due to Budget Cuts
You may find the SSA takes longer to respond to you, or you might have trouble getting answers to your questions. Hiring freezes and personnel changes can save money quickly and may be one of the ways the SSA cuts costs early on. That could potentially lead to an overload for the remaining case workers.
Hopefully you won’t notice any difference, but if you do, and you need immediate answers, a qualified Social Security Disability attorney should be able to help.
2. Means Testing for Your Disability Application
Means testing takes into consideration who needs benefits the most. In other words, wealthier workers might have a harder time getting disability.
But SSDI is an insurance program that everyone pays into, so in theory anyone who pays should be able to get benefits if by some chance they face a disability down the road. The person’s financial situation hasn’t ever really been a major factor, since everyone pays for their own benefits over years through their paychecks.
Means testing hasn’t been enacted but has been discussed by some politicians, so many of us SSDI lawyers will watch for it as policies develop.
3. Tighter Restrictions for Applicants
To reduce fraudulent cases and cut costs, the SSA may make it even harder to get disability benefits. Considering how hard the application process is already, down the road it might become impossible to get the benefits you need without the help of a lawyer.
My advice: use a lawyer no matter what. Sure, that’s easy for me to say, being a lawyer. But studies show time and again you’re MUCH more likely to get disability benefits if you get legal help in the application process. That won’t change with a new administration.
Plus the government sets the lawyer’s fee to a small amount of your past-due benefits. So you don’t really have anything to lose.
A Memphis SSDI Lawyer for Any Situation
If you need disability benefits now, don’t wait. You don’t want to get stuck in a bureaucratic mess while the administration tries to figure out new laws.
Our Memphis disability attorneys help make your disability application as strong as possible. Plus we handle the appeal if necessary. We make a complicated process easy and painless, so you can focus on feeling better and getting your life back in order.
Contact us today for a free conversation, no strings attached.