This applies to people who can and do continue to work. You just need an SSI status that isn't likely to be resolved within X period of time. I believe depression and anxiety disorders are the most common cause of lifetime disability. Here's a comment from a Reddit thread yesterday, which mirrors my experience:
I have friends from high school who are on SSI for depression and continue to work for extra income. They're mostly lazy and none of them live what we'd think of as awesome lives. But I wouldn't in a million years think of them as anything close to permanently disabled. If someone put foot to ass they'd be capable of supporting themselves and probably better off and happier in the long run for it (which is a whole different discussion entirely).
My experience is that a great many people with the type of depression and anxiety disorders that get them placed on SSI are really not capable of holding a full time job. Many of them are prone to emotional outbursts, can't follow simple directions, engage in self-sabotage, can't keep appointments, have bizarre delusions about the way the world works, and are chronically addicted to drugs and/or alcohol. They might be able to do occasional part time stuff on a freelance basis, but they are not long term employable. In the past such people would end up in skid row or locked away in a mental health facility.
To put it another way, I consider myself extremely lazy. Yet as much as I hate working, there's no way in hell I'd trade having a job for the hopeless subsistence existence of an SSI recipient. We're talking less than $20k/yr even in a high cost of living state. One is not allowed to save more than $2,000. If someone's judgment is so impaired that they see this as a fruitful voluntary life plan, then the workforce is better off without them, in my opinion.
This aligns with my experience and observations as well. The other thing is, with the evisceration of "welfare" (AFDC) and its replacement with TANF in the Clinton years,
... SSI disability benefits have basically become the new "welfare", for those "lucky" enough to qualify. As you rightly noted, barring a real physical injury, the most probable pathway for the largest number of people involves psychiatric and emotional issues.
I'm not one of these right-wing "just get a jerb!1" populists, nor am I alleging widespread fraud. I don't doubt for a second that most disability benefit recipients really do have psychiatric encumbrances to work. Your account just happens to be a situation to which I've been repeatedly exposed:
> They're mostly lazy and none of them live what we'd think of as awesome lives. But I wouldn't in a million years think of them as anything close to permanently disabled. If someone put foot to ass they'd be capable of supporting themselves and probably better off and happier in the long run...
https://www.reddit.com/r/news/comments/4eij5y/obama_to_forgi...
I have friends from high school who are on SSI for depression and continue to work for extra income. They're mostly lazy and none of them live what we'd think of as awesome lives. But I wouldn't in a million years think of them as anything close to permanently disabled. If someone put foot to ass they'd be capable of supporting themselves and probably better off and happier in the long run for it (which is a whole different discussion entirely).