Disability can wreck finances

“It was a nightmare. Nobody anticipates becoming disabled,” she said. As Sherman, now 46, learned the hard way, a disabling illness or injury can destroy a family’s finances and is the most common reason cited for both bankruptcy and home foreclosure.

And the rate of disability is soaring, thanks to an aging population, increasingly stressful working conditions, rising obesity and — as in Sherman’s case — medical advances that can keep badly injured people alive but still leave them unable to return to work. The government reports that the rate of Social Security disability claims soared over the last two decades to more than 4% of the adult population currently from 2.2% in the 1980s.

Full text