I wonder if speaking ebonics qualifies you for SSDI.
Hat tip Boston Bob
Feds Consider Puerto Ricans Disabled Because They Speak Spanish
The Social Security Administration (SSA) approved disability benefits for hundreds of Puerto Ricans because they do not speak English, despite the fact that Puerto Rico is a predominantly Spanish-speaking territory.
According to a new audit by the Office of Inspector General (OIG), the agency is misapplying rules that are intended to provide financial assistance to individuals who are illiterate or cannot speak English in the United States. Under the rules, Puerto Ricans are allowed to receive disability benefits for their inability to speak English as well.
“We found the Agency did not make exceptions regarding the English-language grid rules for claimants who reside in Puerto Rico, even though Spanish is the predominant language spoken in the local economy,” the OIG said.
The audit said a person applying for disability in Puerto Rico who cannot speak English “may increase his/her likelihood of receiving disability benefits.”
The agency does not currently have a system in place to keep track of the number of beneficiaries who receive disability insurance for not being able to speak English.
However, the OIG was able to identify 218 cases between 2011 and 2013 where Puerto Ricans were awarded disability due to “an inability to communicate in English.” Furthermore, 4 percent of disability hearings in Puerto Rico involved looking at the individual’s ability to speak, read, write, and understand English.
Though 95 percent of Puerto Ricans speak Spanish at home, according to the rules a Spanish-speaking nurse in Puerto Rico would be considered “unskilled,” the OIG said.
The SSA told the OIG that the rules are applied one-size-fits-all.
“SSA managers at various disability decision levels stated Social Security is a national program, and the grids must be applied to the national economy, regardless of local conditions,” the audit said.
The SSA takes into account an individual’s education level when considering awarding disability benefits if they do not qualify for medical reasons. Part of the education requirement involves looking at a person’s ability to speak English, to determine whether it limits his ability to find a job.
Last year Sen. Jeff Sessions (R., Ala.) raised concerns that the Obama administration was broadly applying the education rule under the Social Security Act to allow individuals to receive disability payments solely because they cannot speak English.
He noted that the Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) rolls swelled 230 percent between 2000 and 2010, while the U.S. population only grew 9.7 percent.
Former SSA judges have also testified that individuals have been approved for disability in the United States without having to prove they cannot speak English.
The hundreds of Puerto Ricans noted in the OIG’s report have received disability insurance despite a 1987 U.S. District Court ruling that appears to contradict the SSA’s policy. Benefits were denied on the grounds that “it is the ability to communicate in Spanish, not English, that is vocationally important in Puerto Rico.”
“It should be noted, however, that the court explicitly declined to apply this rationale outside of this one case,” the OIG said.
The SSA agreed with the OIG’s recommendations to figure out how many individuals have been “awarded disability based on their inability to communicate in English,” and to “evaluate the appropriateness” of applying the English-speaking rules to Puerto Rico.
The SSA is currently gathering information for a proposed regulation that “could lead to changes” to the English-speaking rule, the agency said.
“Specifically, we are soliciting public comments and supporting research on how the inability to communicate in English affects an individual’s ability to adjust to other work that exists in the national economy,” the SSA said.
Had to look for the little green onion – but it’s not Friday and I don’t see it.
I too am disabled under current standards. I’m much smarter and better-educated than average, and I find that common proles often can’t understand what I’m saying or why I act the way I do. Moreover, the work and government environment is not designed for me. Clearly I don’t fit in with the current social economy and I am therefore disabled. I should be eligible for thousands of dollars a month in benefits due to my disability. Actually, I’ll need about $18,000 a month to maintain a minimal standard of existence (in the manner to which I have become accustomed). Where do I collect my check?
I don’t speaka da Chinese, I wonder if I went to China if I would qualify disability benefits there? Or because I don’t speaka da Spanish if I would get disability benefits in Mexico? This shit just boggles my mind.
Things I heard local ‘Ricans say in just the past two days;
“Where’s my social security money?”
“Where do I go to find more free shit?”
“Where can I find plastic bead curtains for the kitchen?”
“Do you know where I can buy a cheap whore?”
“Which aisle has the Goya products?”
“I think we need to change the plastic on the sofa.”
“I need to buy 20 inch rims for my Cheby”
.
They speaka da Engleesh just fine, when they want to.
Fuck Puerto Rico and everyone in it.
When I was doing the jungle thing down Central America ways back in the mid 90’s, it took me about 6 months to get fairly fluent in Spanish. Total immersion works, but only if you want it to work and you apply yourself.
That said, I offer an anecdote re: the fucking Ricans…
We had an injured soldier report come down to us and, because he was one of my guys, I had to go down to the trauma center to find out what the fuck was going on.
I get there, and in the room, there’s Doc (some white dude), a nurse (some older white lady) and two MP’s. Not unusual to see them show up when there’s an injured soldier, as it has to be reported. I didn’t recognize either one of them. In fact, at first glance they looked like locals – 5 foot nothing, dark features and hair – but they were in American uniforms.
A closer look and I saw their unit flash on their right shoulder, which identified them as Puerto Rican National Guard. Okay, that adds up. We get Nasty Guard units rotating in and out all the time, so it makes sense we’d get some of those guys in sooner or later…
I’m standing there, talking to the injured soldier and the Doc about what happened, and the two Nasty Guardsmen are jabbering away in Spanish. They don’t know I speak and understand Spanish. They were talking about the injured soldier, so I tuned it out… until I heard one of them say “Los Gringos” in reference to us..
Okay.. That pissed me off. Being called a Gringo is a pejorative. Like me calling them “Cans” or some black dude a nigger…
Me: “Hey. Hey you two.”
PR’s: “Uh, jes?”
Me: “I just heard you refer to us as “Gringos”. The fuck is up with that?”
PR’s: “Uhhh… ” (they look at each other in a “oh shit” sort of way)
Me: “Last time I looked, you’re wearing an American uniform. The fuck is this “Gringo” shit about?”
PR’s: “Oh, uhh, well we didn’t mean anything by it..”
Me: “The fuck you didn’t. I know what Gringo means, and it don’t mean “that guy’s awesome”. You all make it a habit of coming into someone else’s house and insulting the fuck out of them?”
PR’s: “Uhh, no, but we still didn’t mean anything by it.”
Me: “As far as I’m concerned, you did. Using that word in a derogatory fashion shows that a mental separation exists in your mind – us vs. them – and it’s especially egregious that you use it in front of the very people you’re talking about, as if we’re too stupid to understand Spanish. Doubly so in light of the fact that you’re wearing an American uniform.”
Now, on a personal level, I didn’t give two shits that these two fucking Ricans called us Gringos. But I’ll be damned if these fucks are going to come into our house – our little training base – and have us host them, train them, feed them, etc, then have these motherfuckers turn around and insult us while we’re standing right in front of them, as if we’re so fucking stupid we won’t understand what they’re saying. Shit, half our cadre had been through DLI and could speak better Spanish than those two pukes…
The whole point of this boring ass story is that Ricans do not consider themselves Americans, unless it is to exploit us and get something from us – money, food, resources, etc… many of them treat us with disdain – as the two above shitbags did – while pleading for all the Free Shit they can get. Literally shitting in the hand that feeds you, and the morons in government keep on giving them free shit…
They want to consider themselves “not Americans”? Fine. Strip them of all Free Shit, citizenship and protection. Cut their asses loose. Not our problem anymore. And lots of luck with that.
Your one mother fucking hard ass, Billy. Gringos are white Americans or Americans in general. I heard a Hondo girl refer to a ‘black Gringo’. I suppose you think ‘cracker’ is pejorative. Yankee, Beaner, Nigger, you use that last word a lot on Americans even.
You so silly Billy boy, you think your Americans can just walk all over the superior but downtrodden brown people of the world. Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelt of elderberries!
If you can’t read all the government mandated posters explaining the rights and regulations employers are forced by law to inform employees of, how can a employee know their rights are being infringed upon by the greedy heartless businessman?
daz uh dissubillytee don cha nohw.
I looked it up on the interweb, American adults over the age of 45 can get SSDI if they are illiterate as well.
“Getting on the Grid
The Social Security “grids” are matrices that break down applications by age, education and residual functional capacity (RFC), meaning what kind of work you can still do. Illiteracy can only be a contributing factor if you are at least 45 years of age or older, and depends on your RFC. If you’re only physically capable of a sedentary job, then illiteracy supports a finding of disability. If you still can handle basic tasks such as assembly line work that don’t require literacy, then illiteracy doesn’t help a disability application; there needs to be additional factors present, such as a mental incapacity of some sort.”
OK
Mah bhack erts ize chant wurks da line no moz
That was quite a story about how you confronted those Ricans. How tall are you Billy? You display all the symptoms of Little Man Syndrome.
“You so silly Billy boy, you think your Americans can just walk all over the superior but downtrodden brown people of the world.” ————- La Coyote Gringette
So what? It’s called survival of the fittest.
If we didn’t do it to them, they would do it to us. Or, are the Brownies some kind of angelic species that does no harm to others?
Don’t forget how the Spanish brown people destroyed so much brown culture from Central America through South America, or do they get a pass for Colonialism?
Also, what the fuck is up with the “YOUR Americans” comment? I thought you said you were an American? Or do you just revert to your Beaner roots when insulting others? Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
This is just fucking unbelievable. Past being out of control.
Stuck, you got sucked in by one of Billy’s sock puppets.
Back in the 80s, I knew a guy that was in his early 20s and drawing social security. He was my handyman’s helper for all sorts of jobs because my then hub trusted us alone together and he worked cheap.
The reason he was on disability? He was graduated from high school and could not even spell his own name. I am not exaggerating, he would pull out his license (yep, gave him a freaking license AND paid for his car) to spell his name.
If you sent him to get supplies, and you did not spell/name the item EXACTLY as the packaging on his list, he literally would not be able to get what you needed.
When I first met him, I found him to be incredibly mechanically smart, but completely incapable of learning to read or write. I thought that impossible until I knew him a few years.
While I think someone capable should work if they are able, I also know there are not a ton of jobs for him.
As for Ricans that already pay MUCH less in taxes than we do, I’m not even sure they pay INTO SS at all, to get disability because they only speak their native tongue in the native state leads one to the only explanation truly needed.
US Government, bureaucracy, and its freaking union employees. WTF?
Trusting our government to do anything morally and efficiently proves how close our extermination looms.
El Cocksucker,
I don’t have any fucking sock puppets. I go by my fucking name, period.
Yeah, and you would try to goad me with that bullshit “little man syndrome” horseshit… I don’t need to prove shit to you, you fucking shit-colored, taco smelling wetback fuck..
I don’t have a problem with insults, especially in a barracks setting. I have made that EXCEPTIONALLY clear in the past. That you can’t fucking comprehend that isn’t a surprise, though repeating myself gets tiresome.
But, on a professional level, as a Non-commissioned Officer, I refuse to stand there while two enlisted Nasty Guard Rican fucks insult the shit out of everyone in the room with that “gringo” bullshit, especially when we’re the ones hosting them, feeding them, giving them someplace to sleep, training them, etc.
You can try to justify or blow that shit off as not being a pejorative, and if you had a shred of honesty in your fucking blood and bones, you’d know that it varies depending on which country you’re talking about. And where we were, it was most definitely a pejorative and an insult.
Last time I looked, your ass never wore a uniform and the extent of your knowledge of military culture, especially amongst those of us in Combat Arms, comes solely from movies and crappy video games.
Hardass? You bet your balls, frijo… Especially when it comes to motherfuckers like you.
Ooooh oooh Stucky, you little cutey boy, why you no come visit me? Aztlan-Cali is becoming the most happening place around, ever since we pushed all those pathetic pale little gringos back east. Especially the germans and their dirtier cousins like Arnold girly-man warts-n-egger. We don’t need that pathetic little “culture”, we gots real men here, men who make those pathetic austrians tremble and run away. Me and my senor “El” are moving on up. We’ve got Aztlan, we’ve got New York, and soon we’re taking over Jersey too. You better watch yourself, we too much for your americans to handle.
Fucking coincidence Billy shows up and is followed by one of his sock puppets, ho-hum, got any better ideas, little man?
TE says: Back in the 80s, I knew a guy that was in his early 20s and drawing social security. He was my handyman’s helper for all sorts of jobs because my then hub trusted us alone together and he worked cheap.
You could have taken this story farther; let’s see – young man, trusting husband, eventual divorce…you are holding out on us girl. Talk.
This is just another attempt to bring American taxpayers to their knees along with collapsing the US.Why is this B S tolerated?No one will own property .in a few years if the communists have their way.Will we let them?
When they can add unpaid water bills to real estate taxes and foreclose on your property due to the unpaid water bill, what’s to keep them from adding heating oil, electricity, gas, cable or unpaid library dues to your taxes and foreclose on your inviolable shanty?
I think EC is right here. I’ve never heard gringo, or cracker for that matter, used as an insult. Just slang for white man. I grew up around cubans, and I’ve employed a bunch of various central americans, I don’t think it would occur to any of them that I might be insulted..maybe it’s different in billy’s part of the world.
Wow, really? I was called a “gringo” by a very neighborhood thug in Mexicantown a year or so ago. I wouldn’t buy his crap, and he muttered, “gringo bitch” under his breath to his compadre.
And the blacks in De’toilet, love to call you Cracker and Red Neck, which tells their associates that you are racist and to be screwed with.
So, just because I’m white, that makes it NOT racist? How many Latinos you hear called Gringo or Cracker?
I think you all have drank the affirmative action Kool-Aid
@El, the Gringo Beaner. My first hub slept with everything that moved, including any coke whore he could afford. As such, he accused me of cheating on him nearly every week, sometimes every day, for the entire 8 years we were married. Right up until the month I moved out, he was absolutely wrong.
The fact he trusted me with Kenny, should tell you what Kenny was like.
Not to mention I’ve always been more impressed with brains, then brawn, Kenny was neither, what the hell would I do with a man that can’t even spell his own name? Discuss Atlas Shrugged, maybe When Money Dies, bwahahaa, I crack myself up.
And I’m getting tired. Too many late nights for the tax man and my family lately. Dammit, 4 am, gotta get back to it.
Told you before, you stupid beanbag stank assed Mexican. I don’t have any sock puppets or doppels.
I don’t need them.
That you try to make it look like I do with that “oh, look, what a coincidence” shit is just more dishonest, dishonorable behavior that you’d expect from a fucking Mexcrement.
Go back to what your kind is good at – picking lettuce, crime, raping 12 year old girls, sucking up taxpayer money, whining…
For you to be good at counterintelligence requires that you actually have some intelligence beforehand… and you don’t qualify.
“we gots real men here, men who make those pathetic austrians tremble and run away.” —- El Meany
“austrians” should be capitalized.
.
” and soon we’re taking over Jersey too” —– El Meany
Take it! Please!!!!