I think "miniscule bit of money" is only looking at the individual case but on a macro scale it's incredible siginficant and "ruins" things...

I think you're, at the heart of it, really arguing for basic income which,I admit would (probably) be more "fair" than what we have now. Honestly, I don't think I can argue against BI too much.

I think what disgusts me most is that while I was a child/teen my dad collected SSDI in my name, as a dependent, while not doing jack shit to care for me in any sense of the word. It was an extra $100 a month or something. For him to claim he needs that money to "support" me is a gross injustice of the world and makes me physically ill to think about. The SSA should at least make sure that my dad was contributing $100 a month to my care - he absolutely was not. He would have kicked me out and made me sleep on the street if my mom didn't prevent it.

Again, I think I'm probably projecting rather than adding to the conversation as an "average" person....

No, the SSA shouldn't be doing anything of the sort. That would be a ludicrous expansion of their role and a waste of money. If you want to be mad at the government that your childhood was shit then at least complain about child welfare departments or something more relevant than you not thinking your dad spent his ssdi check directly on you.

Not only does it make it more difficult for people who are supposed to benefit, it is literally spending money that should be helping people on preventing them from receiving that help.

It’s not miniscule. $8k does not seem like a lot, but when the median household income is $56k, it’s 14% tax drain on that family. That is huge.

The article mentions $260B yearly cost. That’s about $2k in taxes per working adult.