Supporting Work: A Proposal for Modernizing the U.S. Disability Insurance System - California

When Congress created SSDI in 1956, disability and employability were viewed as mutually exclusive states. As a result, the 1956 law defines disability as the “inability to engage in a substantial gainful activity in the U.S. economy”—in other words, the inability to work. This proposal would assist workers with work-limiting disabilities to remain in their current jobs or to transition to more suitable jobs and would assist employers to accommodate workers to perform their jobs.