How Common Is Social Security Disability Fraud?

While fraud does exist within the Social Security Disability system, this can be said of any system that grants benefits. As Tulsa SSDI lawyer Steve Troutman explains in this video, people faking disability claims is not the real problem with Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI). The bigger issue is that for every person receiving SSDI benefits who should not be, our attorney believes there are about five to ten people with disabilities who truly need the benefits but have been denied. Much of this has to do with strict Social Security Administration work requirements.

When filing an initial application or appealing a denial of an SSDI benefits case, it is in your best interest to speak with a disability attorney about the strength of your case. Our disability law firm offers free evaluations of your case for SSI and SSDI applicants as well as those who have already applied and been denied.

Video Transcription

I think with regard to the issue of fraud, I think there are cases of fraud. There’ve been nationally publicized cases of fraud. Social Security’s own statistics indicate that the fraud and abuse is rather small, in the neighborhood of one percent. I don’t think it’s different than any other system. I think any system where people are getting benefits, there are people who are going to try to take advantage of the system. I certainly know of cases or have heard of cases where someone received benefits, continued to work, got cash under the table, those are the real obvious ones. The less obvious ones are the ones where maybe someone received benefits and just didn’t want to work, so they’re just not motivated to work. For every case that I run into where I really think a person is on disability and shouldn’t be, I could cite five or ten cases where I think people were denied that shouldn’t have been. I think that the, I simply think that the system is so set up where it’s hard to convince Social Security a person’s disabled. If Social Security can find one job that a person could do anywhere, not even in your location but in your region, they will deny you by saying that you should go find that one job. I can’t tell you the number of cases that I’ve seen where it just breaks my heart that on such a small number of jobs, Social Security would deny someone’s claim. The difficulty of convincing Social Security that someone’s disabled makes it much more likely a person is denied their deserved benefits than the other way around. To have a free evaluation of your disability claim, call us at (918) 587-0050 or visit us at TroutmanLaw.com.