Playing the Odds
Saturday, February 28th, 2009I was reading something about Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) today, and was kind of shocked to see this figure: according to a recent Social Security Administration (SSA) study, a 20-year-old worker has a 3-in-10 chance of becoming disabled before reaching retirement age. That’s a 30 percent chance, which means that almost one in three people will become disabled to some degree. Wow, that’s pretty frightening!
If this does happen, you can of course get Social Security disability insurance from the federal government — provided you can navigate through all the red tape and paperwork required to start receiving benefits. I know a couple people who have tried applying for SSDI, and pretty much gave up on the whole ordeal because they simply couldn’t get everything in order.
Seriously, this is kind of a scary knowing that I have a 30 percent chance of becoming disabled. And then I might not even receive the benefits that I’m entitled to just because of paperwork snafus? If something catastrophic ever happens to me or my husband, I would probably go to a company like Allsup for help. They provide social security disability representation, and boast a 97% success rate in getting benefits for people who go through the process with them. That’s comforting to know, especially when my family’s very livelihood would be at stake.
Now that I’ve pretty much made up my mind to apply to grad school, I’ve got to think about replacing my laptop. The one I have now is five years old, and since it was a cheapo Gateway model to begin with, it’s really not fit for serious use. Plus, it’s positively sluggish by today’s standards and extremely bulky to boot. Can you tell that I don’t like it much?
Isn’t it funny how the commonest item can just set you off on a trip down memory lane? I was rooting around in one of my closets today, and came across a couple of old Latin