Unlocking Opportunities for Americans on Disability Benefits

0:00 Speaker 1 Sunday morning, Labor Day weekend. With us today is a new friend. His name is Jim Alsup. And Jim Alsup has been a Social Security reformer, especially for people in need and have various needs. And he wants to talk something about it. And I enjoyed his company at a dinner party lately. And Jim, tell us about your company.

0:27 Tell us about how you help people.

0:31 Speaker 2 Well, my company is named Allsup Employment Services, and we focus on people that receive Social Security disability benefits, and we help many of these people go back to work.

0:46 Speaker 1 And what is happening now, and what would you like to see happen?

0:51 Speaker 2 Well, we have started talking with leadership in Social Security Administration itself and have provided a number... of proposed changes that would allow more and more of these people to go back to work by informing them of what they’re entitled to.

1:12 Speaker 1 And what is happening now? In other words, if I was disabled and I was on Social Security and I wanted to go back to work, what is happening now and what do you want to be able to see happen in the future?

1:27 Speaker 2 Well, what’s happening now currently is most people that get these benefits don’t know about the Ticket to Work program that’s designed to help them go back to work. So because most people don’t know about it, we have started working with the Social Security headquarters to propose changes that need to be made so more people know about it.

1:52 Speaker 1 And the fact is that these people do not know about it. Is that correct? And the fact is that... Is there anybody in Social Security opposed to it? And what reason would they be opposed to it? And tell us that first.

2:10 Speaker 2 Some of the staff there don’t like the program. They don’t want it. And they think that they view it as a threat for some reason. And so that’s why we’re working with new leadership now to... allow these people to be aware of the program and to be able to use it to help them go back to work,

2:35 and that’s the Ticket to Work program.

2:38 Speaker 1 Now, Ticket to Work program, in other words, right now, the program doesn’t exist or does exist, but you need a moderation?

2:48 Speaker 2 It already exists. It’s existed since 1999. But operational changes need to be made in how the program operates because the disability program today in Social Security, most people don’t know about tickets to work because the agency doesn’t tell them.

3:09 So we are working with agency leadership to help them make the changes that are necessary so the people that want to go back to work can go back to work, and there are a lot of them.

3:22 Speaker 1 Understood. So what else? We’ve got another minute left. What else would you like to tell people? Is there any specific portion of it that Social Security opposes?

3:34 Speaker 2 Well, what I would like to tell people is they’re going to be hearing more and more about coming Social Security reform. So Social Security cannot pay full benefits anymore by the end of 2032, which is only six years away.

3:52 So Social Security has to be reformed. And at my meetings in Washington, I tell everybody the first step of Social Security reform needs to be disability reform to help people go back to work and get off the rolls that are able to do it.

4:11 Speaker 1 Understood. Anything else you want to tell the American people on a Sunday morning Labor Day weekend?

4:18 Speaker 2 Just Google ticket to work. So you can learn about the program because it’s critical to everybody. And as I said, Social Security reform is coming, and Congress is starting to be aware of the necessity of Social Security reform. And step one of Social Security reform needs to be ticket-to-work reform to allow everybody who gets disability benefits under Social

4:49 Security to go back to work.

4:53 Speaker 1 Understood. Well, thank you so much for coming on this Sunday morning. And please keep us informed. If we could help in any way in Congress or the White House, you’ll let us know. Thank you so much. Thank you.