SSI vs. SSDI

There are two different disability programs, one is Social Security Disability (SSDI) and one is Supplemental Security Income (SSI) Disability.  It is important to know that there are two programs.

Same:  Some rules for eligibility and receiving benefits are the same for both disability programs.

1. There must be medical (physical or mental) reasons that keep you from working.

2.  You cannot be earning $980 (2009) gross per month (as an employee).  There are other rules if self-employed.

Different:  Some rules for eligibility and receiving benefits are different depending the disability program.

*Particularly by Social Security Administration staff.

All original content © 2009 Patricia A. Petow.  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

Information overload probably isn’t the problem we think it is.  Or is it?

The article below, entirely quoted, is from part of the online supplement to the November/December print issue of the Columbia Journalism Review.

Clay Shirky teaches at the Interactive Telecommunications program at New York University and is the author, most recently, of Here Comes Everybody, about how new means of communication are changing the social environment. CJR’s Russ Juskalian recently spoke with Shirky about knowledge, the Internet, and why we shouldn’t worry about information overload.

CS: Yeah, that’s certainly part of it. I mean, the thing that people say about young people is just that they understand the technology so well. Well, I teach in a graduate program, I see twenty-five-year-olds all the time. They actually don’t understand the technology particularly well. I think I understand quite a lot of it quite a bit better than they do, which is the reason why I’m teaching there and they’re students. The advantage they have over me is that they don’t have to unlearn anything. They don’t have to unlearn the idea that a card catalog is a helpful thing to have. That you need a librarian to find things. That you have to figure out where you’re looking before you what you’re looking for. None of those things are true anymore. And so one of the problems that old people like me suffer from is just we know too many solutions for problems that no longer exist. And it kind of freaks us out to realize that all the things we mastered don’t really add up to much value anymore.

It’s not so much that young people are smart and old people are scared. It’s that young people don’t have to unlearn all the stuff that old people do have to unlearn if we want to understand this world. And unlearning is just about the least fun activity in the world. So, you know, it’s easy to understand why people don’t want to sign up for it. But it’s also kind of pathetic that the people going around talking about information overload don’t stop to factor in the idea that if the twenty-year-olds aren’t complaining about information overload, it probably isn’t the problem we think it is.

My references:

http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/

http://www.cjr.org/overload/interview_with_clay_shirky_par.php?page=all

All original content © 2008 Patricia A. Petow. All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

Book Review

An advance look at a repeat “torture study” in an academic setting has been posted today by The Bay Area News Group under the headline, “Shocking revelation: Santa Clara University professor mirrors famous torture study.” The study will be published in the January issue of the journal American Psychologist. See, http://www.mercurynews.com/peninsula/ci_11283475.

The willingness of participants to inflict shocks is one of the topics in Influence: Science and Practice, 5^th ed., by Robert B. Cialdini, a professor of psychology at Arizona State University. The original series of experiments was conducted by a professor named Stanley Milgram and published as “Obedience to authority,” in 1974.

I highly recommend your reading Influence. The book examines the principles of influence in chapters on reciprocation, commitment and consistency, social truths, liking, authority and scarcity. Cialdini substantiates his assertions with descriptions of controlled psychological research as well as interviews, quotes and systematic personal observations.

My short take on Influence is we need to get real with ourselves and be wary of everybody else.

Cialdini concludes with an analysis of why we don’t use “all of the relevant available information.” (Issues involving the war in Iraq are in my head as I read this section.) In his discussion of the need for shortcuts or “modern automaticity,” Cialdini observes that the modern era is called the information age, not the knowledge age. He argues that “[i]nformation does not translate directly into knowledge. It must first be processed—accessed, absorbed, comprehended, integrated, and retained.”

“Shortcuts Shall Be Sacred”

Cialdini says that we have created a “paralysis of analysis” by the intricacy and richness of modern life, the abundance of change, choice and challenge. The response, he says, is that “we will revert increasingly to a focus on a single, usually reliable feature of the situation.”

Cialdini states that compliance professionals who use the triggers of influence are likely to be successful. He warns that the use of triggers by practitioners can be exploitive when the trigger is not a natural feature of the situation but is fabricated and those fabrications must be opposed.

Cialdini’s exploration of reciprocation, commitment and consistency, social truths, liking, authority and scarcity provides the information that we need to process.

Would you increase the electric shocks because an authority figure told you to do so?

All original content © 2008 Patricia A. Petow. All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

]]> http://socialsecurityandssidisabilityblog.wordpress.com/2008/12/21/information-overload-part-i/feed/ 0 petow http://socialsecurityandssidisabilityblog.wordpress.com/2008/12/14/waltham-mass-social-sec-phone-is-not-617-993-3051-at-local-office/ http://socialsecurityandssidisabilityblog.wordpress.com/2008/12/14/waltham-mass-social-sec-phone-is-not-617-993-3051-at-local-office/#comments Sun, 14 Dec 2008 17:21:41 +0000 petow http://socialsecurityandssidisabilityblog.wordpress.com/?p=64 ]]>

617-993-3051, the telephone no. of Attorney Patricia A. Petow has been incorrectly listed by Google Maps as the telephone no. of the local Waltham Social Security office.

617-993-3051 is not the telephone number of the Social Security Waltham, Massachusetts local office.

617-993-3051 is the telephone number of Attorney Patricia A. Petow, who concentrates her private law practice in Social Security & SSI Disability claims.

The Waltham, Massachusetts local office of Social Security can be contacted by calling the 1-800-772-1213 nationwide Social Security toll-free telephone number.

As of Monday, December 8, Google Maps, incorrectly listed 617-993-3051, as the Waltham, Massachusetts local office of Social Security for searches that included the phrase, “local office,” Waltham, Massachusetts and Social Security.

Otherwise, when searching for Waltham, Massachusetts Social Security, the Google Map lists the 1-800-772-1213. If you go to the Social Security website and click on “Find a Social Security Office,” and you know the zip code for Waltham, Massachusetts, Social Security, you get the 1-800-772-1213 telephone number and a Mapquest map.

You can reach Attorney Patricia A. Petow at 617-993-3051 or by email at ppetowusa@yahoo.com. Her website is www.petow.com

All original content © 2008 Patricia A. Petow. All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

617-993-3051 is not the telephone number of the Social Security Waltham, Massachusetts local office.

617-993-3051 is the telephone number of Attorney Patricia A. Petow, who concentrates her private law practice in Social Security & SSI Disability claims.

The Waltham, Massachusetts local office of Social Security can be contacted by calling the 1-800-772-1213 nationwide Social Security toll-free telephone number.

Since Monday, December 8, Google Maps, has incorrectly listed 617-993-3051, as the Waltham, Massachusetts local office of Social Security for searches that included the phrase, “local office,” Waltham, Massachusetts and Social Security.

Otherwise, when searching for Waltham, Massachusetts Social Security, the Google Map lists the 1-800-772-1213. If you go to the Social Security website and click on “Find a Social Security Office,” and you know the zip code for Waltham, Massachusetts, Social Security, you get the 1-800-772-1213 telephone number and a Mapquest map.

You can reach Attorney Patricia A. Petow at 617-993-3051 or by email at ppetowusa@yahoo.com. Her website is http://www.petow.com

All original content © 2008 Patricia A. Petow.  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

Billions in government bailouts have been approved for Wall St. and/or financial institutions and/or relief for mortgage lenders and/or homeowners and additional billions may be approved for the US automotive industry.

Despite some discussion, no regulations have been passed to limit executive compensation.

There is a simply way to find a figure appropriate for executives.  Congress should mandate that compensation for all executives of companies taking government bailout money should match what Social Security has estimated will be the average monthly  benefits to be paid as of January, 2009.  That average monthly amount is $1,153 for Social Security retirement beneficiaries (or $1,064 for workers collecting Social Security Disability benefits).

Choosing this amount will first of all resolve the issue of what should be paid to executives.  Secondly, using the average monthly Social Security benefits amount would focus on the importance of the Social Security safety net to its recipients.

All original content © 2008 Patricia A. Petow.  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

www.nara.gov

http://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/index.html

http://www.thegreenpapers.com/

http://www.thegreenpapers.com/G04/ElectorAllocation.phtml

All original content © 2008 Patricia A. Petow.  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

During the long primary season, I, and I am sure many others, thought about how the primaries could be better structured. 

As a preamble, it must be acknowledged that at this point in time, there are only two national political parties.   Secondly, the method of voting to nominate a presidential candidate, which allows one choice only (no proportional representative or second choice voting), limits the voter’s input. The two major U.S. parties are both voluntary membership organizations and pseudo-public entities.  Although the two parties make their own rules as to how they wish to nominate a presidential and a vice presidential candidate, they also are subject to state election law and use public resources in conducting elections.

It has to be noted also that although traditionally American voters have made judgments in voting for president about both the person and the issues, the long primary season has emphasized the personal and de-emphasized the differences between the parties and thus shortchanged the voters.  Additionally, the long primary season has demonstrated that many dollars that could be better spent have been wasted on foolish ads and television spots. 

First, I don’t think that New Hampshire and Iowa need to always be the first primary and the first caucus respectively.  Caucuses have limitations and should be abolished or be entirely non-binding and not paid for by the public. 

A series of four to six regional primaries should replace the current system of primaries and caucuses.  The regional primaries should be scheduled sequentially on a rotating basis from presidential year to presidential year with due consideration for the constraints of U.S. weather patterns.  The primaries should be spaced one month apart and scheduled to be completed one month before the political party conventions.

Secondly, so long as the United States has an Electoral College, the one winner of a state primary should be binding on the state’s delegates.

Thirdly, the candidate who is the runner-up in the primaries should be the party’s vice presidential candidate unless the convention votes otherwise by a significant number, such as two-thirds or three-quarters of the delegates.  By having the runner-up  presidential candidate be the default vice presidential candidate, the candidates will be constrained to conduct the primary contests in a more civil manner and in a manner not to give aid and comfort to the other political party and the selection of a vice presidential candidate will be one whom the voters think as highly qualified.

If these rules were in effect, the electorate in November would have much different choices.  But the suggestions here are not meant to discourage voting for the nominees of the respective parties.

All original content © 2008 Patricia A. Petow.  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

A bill has been introduced in Congress to require prompt hearings after a request for hearing is filed with the Social Security Administration.

Rep. Kathy Castor, a Democrat, announced that she is introducing a bill that would require that a hearing be held between 60 and 75 days from the date it is requested, and that a final decision be given no later than 15 days after the hearing.

See http://thedisabilitylawfirm.blogspot.com/2008/07/tampa-congresswoman-offers-bill-to.html

All original content © 2008 Patricia A. Petow.  All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.