It is money you paid in. You qualify and the amounts of benefits are dependant on how much you contributed. Yes, just like any other insurance program, many people die before collecting a dime, and many others collect more than they put in- that’s how insurance works. But it is a 100% funded by contributions old age retirement insurance program.
I am on Disability. A few notes:
1 - SSDI - I = “insurance”. Some people will get paid early.
2 - I paid into it. I had ~140 quarters into SSI, most of those to the max. I definitely made my contributions. Yes, I know, not my money out. I paid for this insurance policy though, and I’m using it.
3 - The amount of payment is low. Anyone trying to live on the amount would be fucked, outside of a rural area. Said rural area may not have the medical attention that you need.
4 - I also paid for a private disability policy. I had no idea what was coming but I was raised in a family of “prepare for the worst”. I’m living off of this policy. Odd, no one says it’s welfare.
This applies to SNAP “food stamps”. This document from the USDA gives lots of breakdowns of usage from 2015. There might be newer ones, but this is what came up first in my search, so it’s what I’m reporting on.
So, certainly more women than men receive this benefit, but a 60/40 split is pretty far from “no men”.
In 2016 there were 637,472 adult recipients of TANF. Of those 85% were women and 15% men.
Happy to hear your input. Just a suggestion - you might wish to be a little more careful w/ your acronyms (or your typing). SSDI generally refers to Social Security Disability Insurance. Actually not an acronym I’ve encountered much in my past 30+ years working w/ SS disab law.
There are 2 categories of SS disability benefits. The first, DIB - Disability Insurance Benefits (or Title 2) - definitely has an earnings/insurance element. Generally 20 out of the past 40 qtrs. The second, SSI - Supplemental Security Income (Title 16) does not.
Sorry if I sound pedantic, but if confuses an already complex discussion for you to refer to having paid “quarters into SSI.” I assume I know what you mean, but as written, it is nonsense.
On a tangent, my personal objection is with the very term “disability.” It means ENTIRELY different things under SS, the ADA, VA and I’m sure elsewhere. Many people (even ones who are currently working) refer to their health conditions as their “disability.” People/agencies using the same word with EXTREMELY different definitions results in considerable confusion.
My personal preference (colored, I’m sure, by my work experience), is to equate disability with SIGNIFICANT limitations - essentially an inability to perform ANY work. In my opinion, when people talk about having a “disability”, they generally are describing what I would consider an “impairment.” In MY preferred usage (and SSA’s), an impairment might preclude someone from performing certain types of work; a disability precludes all (or most) work.
Just throwing that out there. No expectation that any word usage will change. But we can each strive to get our acronyms correct! 
So regular people who don’t have earnings in a certain year get to shelter more of their wages from taxation the next year, right? I mean, shouldn’t they be allowed to carry forward their earnings losses?
What? They can’t?
to answer the OP actually yes there is a cash benefit with ebt for adults it’s called “general relief” it’s pretty much for down and out people …although there are conditions attached like job classes workshops the recipients are mostly male with about 25 percent single women
It’s the modern day version of the "relief "program started by FDR back in the 30s under the new deal…
here’s the CA version of it …http://dpss.lacounty.gov/wps/portal/dpss/main/programs-and-services/general-relief/
That may well only be a program that’s specific to California, or Los Angeles County. As others have noted, what sorts of government assistance is available (and to whom) varies by state, and “welfare,” as it was commonly known, largely changed (or went away) 20+ years ago.
Looking at the Illinois site on government benefits, under “cash assistance,” it only lists:
- TANF (for pregnant women and families with dependent children)
- AABD (for blind and disabled seniors)
- Refugee Resettlement Program (only for refugees and asylum-seekers)
AFAIK, there is nothing like “general relief” here in Illinois. It doesn’t look like there’s much available (and no direct cash payments) if you’re under 65, not a parent of a dependent child, and not getting payments from Social Security (as Dinsdale and Sunny Daze described).
Yep. There is nothing correct about calling Social Security an “Entitlement” or “Welfare”.
As noted, it is an insurance program to protect families and children against loss of a wage earner, individuals from disabilities and from poverty in old age.
Did you ever wonder what that FICA note on your paycheck means? (Hint : The “I” is for insurance)
Social Security is absolutely an entitlement.
Honestly, using the term “welfare” at all is stupid. There are specific programs with specific names, none of them are called “welfare” any more, and in my experience anyone actually using the term is trying to deceive or make a point while being able to handwave objections away by continually redefining it to cherry pick the answer they want.
and there’s a more technical definition under which it’s still an entitlement. An “entitlement program” is one under which everyone who is eligible receives the benefit as opposed to one like Section 8 where the budget allows a certain amount of money and when the money runs out, it’s gone -even if there are more applicants who meet the eligibility criteria. That’s why Section 8 has waiting lists and Social Security doesn’t.
We can thank Ruth Bader Ginsburg for the fact that men can receive TANF and Social Security benefits for their children in the event of the mother’s death. That wasn’t always the case; those benefits were created FOR WOMEN ONLY until enough men who were otherwise qualified spoke up.
Yep, one of my cousins is on SS Disability because of schizophrenia (he is on heavy meds, and when not, he hallucinates and has some really disordered thinking). AFAIK there is nothing else physically wrong with him. (At least nothing that would prevent him from working.) I think he has tried to work part-time at some very menial jobs a couple of times since he was awarded disability benefits, but it never works out. Which is really sad, because until it cropped up seemingly out of nowhere in his 20s, he was a perfectly normal functional guy.
I’m no tax-filing guy, but just in the spirit of fighting ignorance, I thought people can carry forward capital losses in the same way corporations do?
If you sell a chunk of stock and take a 10k loss, say, you can write down 3k this year, and 3k the next year, then 3k the next. Or such was my general understanding…now the point that most people don’t have capital gains and losses and live on regular income alone is still a very fair one, but on an apples to apples basis, I think people can carry forward capital losses to subsequent years just like corporations.
Agreed - and in the modern, conservative dictionary, entitlement carries a heavy connotation of “something someone is getting (from my taxes) that they don’t deserve”.
Worldwide, social insurance benefits do not meet that definition.
On the contrary, Net Operating Loss carryforwards can be used by individuals as well as corporations. (The TCJA did eliminate carrybacks for individuals.)
The IRS has a whole booklet that explains how this works.
Publication 536 (2018), Net Operating Losses (NOLs) for Individuals, Estates, and Trusts
And more women get it because more women are in poverty
I think you can also say “more women get TANF because more men abandon their children”.
I mean, if there was a net profit to be made by having kids for the “welfare money” (an accusation you still hear), you’d think that more men would be fighting for custody of all those children.
Thank you all.