[Crowbob]

From a legal/administrative perspective, being ‘disabled’ does not automatically follow from one who has a ‘disability’. Many people have disabilities but are not disabled and vice versa.

For Social Security Disability (SSDI) the definition of ‘disabled’ is not the same as the vernacular ‘disabled’.

For SSDI being found disabled meant one must have been found to be ‘completely and totally unable to perform all types of work permanently (12 continuous months) due to a medically determinable physical or mental impairment that is permanent or expected to result in death.’

However, over the years the definition has been diluted and expanded to mean a person is reasonably expected to be unable to perform substantial gainful activity (SGA) due to a medically-determinable…’

Eventually, it included verbiage wherein a person who cannot reasonably be expected to do his prior work and if his skills (if he has any) are not transferable to other work within his residual functional capacity (RFC) which prevents him from performing SGA considering his age, education and work history.

Presently, ‘disability’ for SS benefits (or SSI payments) includes what boils down to having the stamina to appeal denials up the ladder to eventually get heard by an administrative law judge (ALJ) who is completely devoid of medical or vocational knowledge who will say, in essence, ‘You’re disabled’ even in the absence of any disability.