Surviving Disability Claim Appeal
UPDATE 6 August 2019:
I thought I only had to survive this long to get what I was entitled to. However, a combination of new rules instituted by Trump-administration in his second week, and a mistake by my lawyer, caused me to lose the hearing, and now we are at another level of appeal. Believe it or not, my lawyer 'forgot' to include the X-rays of my spine as evidence. The Trump-rules were instituted in his SECOND-WEEK in office, pre-written by policy-wonks to cut entitlement-spending by providing new reasons to deny people's disability-claims. Since these new rules went into effect, a few months before my hearing, the rate of disability approvals at the administrative hearing have dropped from 50% to 27%, which represents $20 Billion in denied back-payments.
The good news is that I procured another part-time work-at-home job, teaching little kids in China basic-English on the Internet, one-to-one. This job should bridge the gaps in the test-scoring job, and hopefully make it through the appeal, if I can raise the rest of the money towards my goal, to pay the September rent. In September, when the kids go back to school, is when that job will take off.
INITIAL POST:
I injured my back doing factory work, in 1987. I blew one disc completely, and damaged several others, and was determined to be a "Vocationally-Handicapped" with "Degenerative-Disc Syndrome," that would continue to get worse across time. Despite chronic-pain, I had a 20 year career in public-service as a librarian and teacher. I was going to be in pain anyway, so why not also do something meaningful?
When those education-jobs dried up in the recession, I still didn't file for disability. Rather, I took jobs that made my back-problem even worse. Then I was in a car-accident that made it worse yet, but still I didn't file for disability. Even when I was in so much pain that I quit my job, I still didn't file. I still believed that with some rest, I could still return to work. Only when my conditioned continued to worsen, even just doing part-time work-from-home on my computer.
But, because I am able to do some work, I was initially denied SSD, and have to go for an appeal-hearing somewhere around August, almost three years after I initially filed. I have sold everything valuable enough to be sold, and tapped family for every dollar they could spare, but still will be homeless before my hearing. I need five months worth of rent-assistance to get me through the hearing and the decision.
I am the like horse in Orwell's Animal Farm, being shipped off to the glue-factory. If I win the SSD, I will get a large back-payment, and I pledge to give back twice as much money to other worthy gofundme-causes, as is raised here for me.
