$125,000/YR in Disability Payments

[Ben]

Completely unexpected to me, in this story of former US Representative Jesse Jackson Jr, was this:

He draws $125,000 in taxpayer-funded annual workers’ compensation and disability payments and lives in Chicago, the Chicago Tribune reported.

How the hell do you get six figures a year in worker's comp and disability? If he was a quadriplegic, I might understand, sort of. I don't know that much about either worker's comp or disability, so maybe I'm just being ignorant? This just sounds criminally high to me.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2018/03/02/jesse-jackson-jr-seeks-to-unload-2m-house-amid-unemployed-wifes-lavish-lifestyle-report.html

[Kingcreek]

None of the Jackson clan have ever had a real job, just politically connected to the Chicago machine. To understand it, you have to see it through the lens of Chicago politics i.e. Organized crime.

[Scout26]

former US Representative

Your answer was in your question....

[grampster]

I thought his heiney was in prison.

[RoadKingLarry]

I thought his heiney was in prison.

If it ain't it ought to be...

On a more positive note...
My duaghter-in-law's sister had a hearing for her disability claim a few days ago. Some how her mother's "condition" and disability status was brought up as justification for her claim. The judge denied her claim and stated that he was going to have a look at the mother's status as well..

[Scout26]

I thought his heiney was in prison.

He and his ex- took turns in prison so that one could be out to take care of their kids (it's good to be the king).  He was in a half-way house last I heard...  But he's probably out by now..

[grampster]

   My son has a friend who has been on the heart transplant waiting list.  Yet it took him two years and a lawyer to "qualify" for SS disability.

[Fly320s]

Article from last year detailing why Jackson gets paid.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-jesse-jackson-junior-federal-benefits-met-20170222-story.html

[cordex]

Wow, bipolar and depressive .... caused by work?

[sumpnz]

When/if I wind up on disability I'll be drawing around $160k all told.  But that's because I bought, with my own money (when I was making a lot more than I do now) a private disability policy that will be in addition to what I'd get from my employment benefits/SSDI.  More than half of that total will be non-taxable too.

However, even with that, I think I'd be limited to something 5 years for mental health related benefits.  And incarceration voids the policy too. 

If his name wasn't connected to such a politically powerful family he'd be up a creek, just like the rest of us.

[Firethorn]

However, even with that, I think I'd be limited to something 5 years for mental health related benefits.  And incarceration voids the policy too. 

You know, I wonder if the last bit is actually a 'good thing'.  I recently looked it up, something like 55% of our prison and jail populations have a mental health problem in addition to a criminal one.  Elsewhere I have used this to shut up a person who said 'But the mentally ill aren't criminals!'  Sure, being mentally ill might not point to you being a criminal.  But the reverse is certainly true.

I'm not saying that the mentally ill cannot commit a crime, but I am of the belief that the cruelest punishment is one that doesn't work.  As such, as expensive as it might be, treating the mentally ill, in prison and out of it, can help keep people from being imprisoned, whether for the first time or not.  Jail and prison is expensive, avoiding that expense can be justified even at relatively high spending levels.

Wow, bipolar and depressive .... caused by work?

I'd imagine that being a congressman is stressful work?  The amount he gets is mostly because congresscritters make good money.