Originally Posted by mulp

You are apparently quite lazy, not prone to work. Making some assumptions based on your postings, I figure you were when Reagan took office and earned:
1998 $1000
1999 $2000
2000 $3000
2001 $4000
2002 $5000
2003 $6000
2004 $7000
2005 $8000
2006 $8000
2007 $8000
2008 $8000

Your disability benefit is $614.00, plus $479.00 for each dependent to a maximum of $958.50 per month, inflation adjusted.

The total FICA you paid plus what your employer paid is no more than $9180 for your working lifetime. And you and your employer are paying only $102 a month for the disability insurance plus the survivor benefit to your dependents ($479/mo) plus your retirement ($561.00/mo) plus your spouse's retirement benefit ($639).

Social Security can't possibly go bankrupt; at worst your gets reduced to 65-70% of the stated benefit to match the FICA taxes being collected and the number of people getting benefits. Unless everyone in your generation is as lazy as you are.

So, given the benefits that are worth at present hundreds of thousands of dollars when you have only earned $60,000 lifetime and only paid $9000 lifetime, and are paying only $51 a month matched by your employer, its seems to me that you are getting a pretty good deal.

And for your poverty income level, you sure are a one of those suckers who like to buy insurance; a fellow I worked for decades ago had me and a friend do computer illustrations (1970) so he could sell more and more insurance, borrowing from one policy to buy other policies and generating tax deductions to help pay for the additional policies. Of course, what he was getting was the commission equal to the annual premium if the premium was paid the second year. Of course, you have no income to shelter... But he did say that once you got some people hooked they would just keep buying more and more insurance even when it didn't make sense.

So, how long do you need to make payments on the disability before you drive into the tree to become disabled and increase your income from $800 a month to $17,000 a month?

And if you claim you earn more money, then an income of $100,000 a year (which is much much less than you must earn with $17,000 a month in disability insurance) for just five years provides a disability benefit of $2340.00 a month plus $1787.00 for each dependent to a family maximum of $4170.40 per month.

On the protection of benefit; are saying that in Texas the funds you save for retirement are protected from creditors and personal liability claims, so all you need to do is put your assets in retirement and you are protected from them being claimed in a court judgement like your SSI benefit is? Someone can get a judgement for $2M against you at age 25 and they won't see any of it if you are penniless while your SSI retirement remains intact.

And I wish I could find someone to sell me insurance at the rates you get. As an individual, such policies aren't available to me, and as an employee, getting benefits like you list, cost me per month what you pay while providing a fraction of the benefit; my disability insurance in 2000 cost about $150 a month but provided only about $70,000 a year less whatever Social Security paid. And that was working for a Texas based corporation with employees all over the world.