Give disabled people who are unable to work a survivable wage

A buddy of mine was injured by an IED in Afghanistan, he lost his right eye. Every year he goes to the VA for his regular checkup and the doctor has to sign some paperwork that he then needs to get notarized. Social Security says they need all that to make sure he's still disabled... you know, checking that he hasn't spontaneously regrown an eyeball miraculously and would then be cheating the system I guess. Our benefit system for disabled people is really fucking broken.
- My buddy's leg is like that for the same reason and goes through the exact same process. Still no leg.
- The cost of this and thousands of other pointless assessments by qualified medical professionals probably costs more than people receive in benefits in the first place let alone the cost of a handful of cases of actual fraud.
  
  What is America up to now, three admin/clerical jobs per every two doctors? The insurance companies complicate things so much.
- Ok, but these have to be artificial hurdles - a yearly notarized doctors note?
  
  Yeah, if it wasn’t artificial there would be a system to register a disability as impossible to recover from for stuff like loss of body parts.
- Sometimes time travelers happen though.

Buddy of mine has no eyes. Has to get reevaluated every year. Still doesn't have eyes. Probably won't next year, let's check just to be sure
- There sure must be lots of people faking having no eyes.
  /s

I was turned down with genitofemoral neuropathy because the government insists on record of ongoing treatment. The only continuous treatment for nerve damage is pain management, and I can’t take opiates.
I’ve paid into Social Security for 25 years, yet I can’t access my own money when I’m in desperate need of it. Fuck this system.
- This sounds silly, but could you fill your opiate prescription and just toss the pills? Maybe you can find a doctor willing to record your ongoing treatment as whatever works for you.
  
  The disability attorneys I’ve spoken with say it’s a double-edged sword. The government is also reluctant to support indefinite opiate treatment (with good reason). They said I’d have better luck applying for SSI citing the psychological effects from the pain rather than applying for SSD for the disability itself.

I would go further, especially considering the context:
Give people a survivable wage.
Regardless of whether they can work or not. People's survival should not be contingent on working. Give people what they need to survive as a baseline, and then if they want to work for more, they can negotiate for employment on equal terms.
- Universal basic income (like a bigger one than you are probably thinking), universal healthcare, eliminate most other welfare programs (UBI filling that role in place of things like SNAP and TANF, the remaining ones should be narrowly targeted and temporary - think WIC), institute a maximum wage (highest compensated person in a company can make no more than X% of the least compensated and Y% of the median compensated employee - makes it so that for executives to get a raise that rising tide has to lift every boat).
  
  And plus we can just keep increasing taxes and UBI until we achieve the desired result.
  
  Sounds great but do you really think the 1% will not fuck with a UBI?

So if she doesn't attend she gets denied for missing appointments and if she does, she's obviously not disabled enough, right?
- A WITCH!!!

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/nov/09/blind-woman-denied-benefits-because-she-attended-dwp-interview-with-help-of-mother

All these government benefits programs are ready to deny 100 valid people benefits if it means they stop one instance of fraud. Because only the one instance of fraud gets attention in the corporate media.
- All these government benefits programs are ready to deny 100 valid people benefits if it means they stop one instance of fraud.
  That's my criticism of conservatives obsessing and crusading over welfare fraud. Sure, fraud happens, what system is fool proof? But conservatives make it as though it is prevalent when statistics show that it's not (I don't know about the US but in UK welfare fraud is statistically not a big of an issue as it is made out to be). I met a guy who is nice and intelligent, and a conservative based from the views he espoused during the conversation, but he obsess over welfare fraud like many conservatives. Just because he personally saw few instances of fraud, he makes it as though it is a pervasive issue.
  
  Yeah, if they didn't you would have more people apply for disability payments instead of being a profit center for financing corps.
  
  worst thing is a lot of their “personal experiences” with fraud are pure bullshit.
  They don’t try to empathise or understand someone who’se disabled. They see their neighbour get out their wheelchair and walk a few steps once and then decide “he’s a frauster”. Never mind that a large chunk of wheelchair bound people have the ability leave their chairs and stand up for short periods of time. They just can’t do it regularly or with any consistency. Or doing it worsens their underlying conditions.
  But never mind, the conservative genius saw them leave their wheelchair once so now since he never has faced disability and his view is based on simplified steorotypes, thinks the person is faking.

Well, if you cant work you are a shame (and a traitor) for the Working class as Serving the rich would normally be your one and only job. /s
- With our new presidential elect, we might not need to pay them benefits anymore. He could just get rid of them! /s
  
  "Hey everyone we figured out low power AI!" Then it turns out to be a bunch of people on disability Neuralink'd together into a customer support LLM.

I can confirm that it's a fucking terrible process and that they'll use anything they can against you.
- Just a reminder, we spend more preventing welfare fraud than we save by preventing fraud. We could just give cash away on the honor system to everyone who asks for it, and we would save money.
  
  We could also house the homeless for less than it would cost to punish them for being homeless.
  We could feed the world on what we throw away in the US.
- Funny how it changed from ‘liveable wage’ to ‘survivable wage’

suicide rate of applicants is pretty high already. incoming administration will only increase it
- suicide rate ~~of applicants~~ is pretty high already. incoming administration will only increase it

Putting Dole Up To £1K A Week | Kevin Bridges: A Whole Different Story
That takes balls. That takes balls, George Osborne, Ian Duncan Smith... looking through disabled people's doors: "This is your fucking fault, mate, you. We could go after tax-avoiding multinationals. We could go after Vodafone, Starbucks, Amazon, Google, Gary Barlow, but it is your fucking fault. You."
"You're going back to work, mate. We don't give a fuck how disabled you are. Oh, you're paralysed from the neck down. We don't give a fuck, mate. There will be a farm out there looking for a scarecrow. Fucking go to the farm."

Give disabled people who are unable to work a survivable wage
Hilarious. Ha ha ha. As if.
Society was already hostile towards the disabled. Just wait to see how much worse it's going to get.
I'm not looking forward to it.

51% seems low

Nah, I'll do you one better. Abolish money, an economy based on mutual aid.
- I'm sorry but a system of currency of some sort is kind of a must in the modern world.
  I can't reasonably know enough people who I could help do something so that I could get a phone, an e-bike, all the foods that I enjoy, etc etc etc.
  "Abolish money" is a sort of naive thing to say, really. Even in Star Trek, they don't really explain it, because people can't even imagine a society really working truly without any currency, because of the problems it eventually leads to. Like even in Star Trek, Picard owns a huge vineyard and has people working there. Why? I'm sure most of the goods are going to be shared without making profit off of them or anything, but still, it just doesn't really make sense. And they've owned that vineyard for centuries.
  Honestly just the systems we have, if we take basically the best of all the systems around the world and take the good and leave the bad and assume very little corruption of non-significant levels and we assume that we actually tax the wealthy properly, I think we could have the world looking radically different in a matter of few decades. I don't think it's easy for any humans (including me) to even fathom the effect it would have if people honestly didn't take as much as they wanted, but as much as they needed, and perhaps a little on top.
  I know of a couple of very fair bosses here in the Nordics who actually pay their employees very well and while they make a bit more as the owner of the company, not really significantly more. I don't believe even double, let alone triple, whereas usually tens or hundreds of times more than the average worker. Although these aren't large companies I'm talking about.
  I'm just saying there's no need to "abolish money". Money is fine, it's just being hoarded away from everyone who actually need it and would actually use it.
  How about if we start with "Abolish billionaires" first, we'll see about how realistic it is about the whole "abolish money entirely" later on, yeah?
  Tangentially related video:
  Putting Dole Up To £1K A Week | Kevin Bridges: A Whole Different Story
  
  I study the history of money and pre-money economies as a hobby (oh god I'm such a fucking nerd) and you're 100% spot on. Before coins were invented, societies used ingots of metal. Before that, they used shells and beads. The first currency was used about ten thousand years ago (iirc).
  And yeah, in the times and places throughout history where there wasn't an available currency, people practiced what was called a "gift economy." It works great on the small scale, and it still pops up in some communities even today. But on the large scale? Moving between cities, regions, and countries? Some form of currency is an absolute must.
  The problem is that for anything to be used as currency, whether it's shells or coins, there has to be a critical mass that's the minimum to sustain an economy. That's where the hoarders (aka billionaires) are such a problem. As billionaires suck up currency, governments risk having the available currency fall below the critical mass. So, they make more. Which causes inflation.
  So the billionaires really REALLY are the problem.
  
  I found the Orville interesting as a thought experiment since their currency was reputation. Not sure how feasible that is, but nice to try to speculate how you'd have any kind of economy post-scarcity.
  
  Picard owns a huge vineyard and has people working there. Why
  Harvest party with a hero of Earth seems pretty rad.
  
  Money will always lead to a desire to hoard it. Money creates that greed and is something that should be abolished. Money simply acts as an unnecessary middle man to the distribution of goods. Money has to be abolished alongside the concept of property. Communal ownership is what would allow money to be done away with. And people would work and contribute because they would get to reap the benefits just as much as anyone else. Thats what mutual aid is. The sharing of resources mutually. I give my goods/services to the community which helps the community, and I get to also reap the benefits of what everyone else puts towards the community. And we have the means to meet everyone's needs now with the technology and productivity we have now.
- Not gonna happen until we have Star Trek tech like matter replicators, and have killed all the bastards who first got their hands on them and try to keep them secret to exploit them for 0 cost high profit.
  
  We have the means to meet everyone's needs rn. We don't need some scifi replicator. The only things holding us back is the exploiting class, and people who think a middle man like money is needed. You are holding yourself back. Money is simply a middle-man to the distribution of goods. Through communal ownership of capital and what it produces, you do not need money as people can just take what they need. And people will work and produce because 1. What happens when people don't do the work? It doesnt get done and you don't get the goods, so if you want the goods you better ensure its made. If people refuse to do the work then I guess the good isn't worth making to begin with. And 2. People desire purpose and to be a part of communities, part of that is work. It just might not be the work they are doing currently.
  
  Not gonna happen until we have Star Trek tech like matter replicators, and have killed all the bastards who first got their hands on them and try to keep them secret to exploit them for 0 cost high profit.
  This would happen very quickly as soon as someone figures out how to bypass security on them (you just know they'll require some sort of janky app) and remotely orders a cocktail of bleach and ammonia.

This whole thing was settled with Clinton.
Both sides have voted repeatedly to cut the social safety net, even for the disabled.
- I'm sure the presidential office holds a lot of power but I'm not sure it reaches as far as the UK benefit system.
  That's been a cruel mess far longer than Clinton did anything to you.

I do not think many people would disagree with the title.
In my opinion: the problems come mainly from freeloaders, that according to me do need to be refused.
And another problem I envision is the grey zone. Situations like me. I've diagnosed CPTSD, am neuratypical.
Working with other people 5 days a week destroyed me. But I managed to find a solution as a self-employed person. Am I unable to work, or not, what's the correct government's opinion on that?
- In my opinion: the problems come mainly from freeloaders, that according to me do need to be refused.
  You know that the concept of freeloaders is hogwash that mainstream media perpetuates because it gets views, right? At least under the Australian system, far more money is spent trying to "catch" them, than is spent on them.
  
  Same in the US.
  
  I worked as a fed in the US. The US federal government will spend a dollar to make sure a dime is spent properly.
  
  is hogwash that mainstream media perpetuates because it gets views, right?
  No, I do not know that. Please explain
  At least under the Australian system, far more money is spent trying to "catch" them, than is spent on them.
  When far more money is being spend on fire prevention, than what's currently lost in fire. Then that's not an argument pro, nor contra, fire prevention.
- “freeloaders” is exceedingly rare, it’s mainly a rightwing talking point to erode support for benefits. A high percentage of people with disability who can’t work aren’t even able to get disability insurance.
  it takes years, you need to hire a lawyer, go through extensive medical testing… All that to get a couple thousand a year, and given that you’re not working, it’s barely survivable.
  The only report I read on it was 15 years ago, a report by the general inspector of SSDI they estimated that 1-3% of people applying for disability were fraudulent and they had on average a 0.3% success rate. I wonder if that report is available online, I had read it at the local library.
  
  People like this will fight tooth and nail to prevent any theoretical "freeloaders" from getting less than minimum wage to survive on at the expense of something like 98.5% of people who make genuine claims (because your description is accurate, it is absolute torture to go through, and this bullshit lie is pushed to manufacture public support to make it even harder), but they accept tax dodging billionaires exploiting society for their own gain as an inevitable part of life they're happy to put up with because they've been brainwashed in to thinking one day it might be them (when the reality is you're probably thousands of times more likely to become ill and or disabled than you are to become filthy rich).
  It's so fucking twisted.
  
  The exaggeration or outright lying about welfare and social nets for political gain has roots back to the 60s. Reagan used the already created term "welfare queen" to disable even more help. Far easier to taint the whole thing than to improve fraud detection or shudder let the very small percentage of fraud exist while you try to help as many people as possible.
  Republicans hate people. It's as simple as that.
  
  Our respective experiences might differ based on context.
  Where I live, there's 500k people on disability, on a work age population of around 5 million (1).
  I was offered disability benefits, as I received my diagnosis.
- If a functioning disability safety net means you get an occasional freeloader then that's an acceptable price.
  
  I agree, it's about trade-offs.
  That's why my first statement was: I do not think many people would disagree with the title.
- Thing is, freeloaders are pretty rare. While people in need are far too common.
- In my opinion: the problems come mainly from freeloaders, that according to me do need to be refused.
  What do you base your opinion on? Statics or are you talking out of your ass?
- Its to pay less than motivated individuals can earn and consider if the person can earn a living in their field or profitably be offered benefits during retraining for another. If they can't then they are disabled did you have a hard one?