Last week, ABC News reported that the backlog of Americans waiting to see if they qualify for disability assistance from Social Security has swollen to one million people and that thousands have died while waiting for the agency to deal with their cases. What they didn’t report is that thousands have also lived while waiting for the agency to deal with our cases. And that can be just as bad.
I was born in 1968 in York, Pa. My birthparents were semitruck drivers, so we bounced around the country quite a bit growing up. As a child, I was placed in foster care, and by 21, after working for a time in a warehouse, I, too went into truck driving.
But the pain just got progressively worse and worse and worse. I finally saw a doctor, who told me I had degenerating discs in my back, neuropathy in both legs and sciatica. I had cut back my hours, and at that time a co-worker suggested I should apply for Social Security Disability. I thought about it — after all, I don’t believe much in taking handouts. But I felt like I had paid into it, so I should be able to benefit from it. I applied.
Time stretched on without me working. My wife had just started her own hair styling business — her dream. But as bills came due and weeks went with no word from Social Security, our savings began to run out. The agency fought me at every turn: When I would request updates, they would tell me that my case was moving along, and nothing more. Every few months they sent me another pack of papers to fill out: What were my current conditions, was I working, and so forth. I would dutifully fill the packets out and send them back in, and I would hear nothing. All the while, our money dwindled away.