IF I OWN MY OWN BUSINESS AND HAVE A DISABLING CONDITION THAT PREVENTS ME FROM TECHNICALLY "DOING WORK" WITHIN MY BUSINESS, AM I ELIGIBLE FOR RECEIVING SOCIAL SECURITY DISABILITY BENEFITS?

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NY celebrates the Social Security Administration’s 75th Anniversary

Posted on Aug 29, 2010

Seventy-five years ago on August 14, 1935 President Franklin Roosevelt saw his dream of a program to provide family income protection to disabled, unemployed, and elderly workers and their families come true.

To honor this important day, Governor David A. Paterson declared that August 2010 would be the Social Security Diamond Anniversary Month across New York State. Many organizations and community leaders have come forward at a variety of events across the state to show their support for the Social Security Administration and the services it provides to disabled workers, their families, and the elderly.

In New York alone, SSA provides disability benefits for over 453,000 workers, keeping them out of poverty and allowing them to provide for themselves and their families while they are unable to work due to illness or disability.

The protections afforded to New Yorkers because of the Social Security Disability program are so very important. If there were no Social Security, 55 percent of disabled workers and their families, 47 percent of elderly households and 1.3 million children would live in poverty.

In President Roosevelt’s words, "We can never insure one-hundred percent of the population against one-hundred percent of the hazards and vicissitudes of life. But we have tried to frame a law which will give some measure of protection to the average citizen and to his family against the loss of a job and against poverty-ridden old age."

The Social Security Administration and the disability program in particular certainly have their issues, but we should take a moment to reflect on the important service that these programs provide for disabled New Yorkers.