With more and more Americans in need of Social Security Disability benefits you can imagine that the funds are diminishing. President Obama has a plan to shift some $330 billion from Social Security retirement to the disability program.
At first this was met with some resistance from Senate Republicans, but now it appears as though the House Democrats and Republicans are willing to work together to help save the disability benefits. The main reason: Making sure that the people who paid into this fund are able to get it back when they need it, whether they are disabled or retired.
According to this report from Fiscal Times they believe that the Social Security reserve funds will be depleted by late 2016. That would put SS in the red, and by law you can only pay out the benefits if it has a positive balance, according to the report.
The plan laid out by the President would put a large enough amount in there so that people would not be losing their benefits. By moving around the numbers the President is making so that these finds would remain intact until 2033.
While the Republicans were not for the shift in funds at first, they now agree that they must do something do that it can continue to benefit those who are in need. Some of the stipulations are that if the finds are shifted, they must also do something to “bolster the program” instead of just saving it temporarily.
