Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) is a vital part of our nation’s social safety net. But it can also be a lifelong trap. Congress should carefully consider reforming SSDI so that more disabled workers can eventually find their way back into the workforce.

“Disability insurance is providing a much-needed safety net for 9 million Americans, but basic flaws in the program’s structure mean that many never work again,” writes Olga Khazan in The Atlantic.

One such flaw is the way that other welfare programs, such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), have limits, but SSDI doesn’t. When other benefits run out, some people seek to get qualified for SSDI.

“Unlike with TANF or unemployment benefits, which have strict time limits, once people get on SSDI, they can collect benefits for years,” Khazan writes. “This has made it a very attractive option for people who have few options left, and it’s what’s caused spending on the program to shoot up nine-fold in the past four decades.”

Of course there are people who truly need SSDI.

“Many people who are on disability were born with severe mental or physical impairments that keep them from working,” she writes. “They need that money to survive. Still others suffered gruesome on-the-job injuries, as I’ve written, that make them unable to perform the kind of manual labor they were trained to do. SSDI, paltry as it might be, offers them a way to keep on living.”

But many SSDI recipients can work — and want to. But the program itself discourages returning to the workforce, all the while paying out a paltry $13,000 a year on average.

A big reason recipients don’t return to work is that the checks stop as soon as they do start work, in most cases. Losing that benefit, and also losing Medicaid at the same time, means that few people are willing to take the risk.

Of course, the worst thing Congress could do would be to simply cut funding for SSDI (or let it go broke on its own). That’s not reform, that’s laziness.

“It is also important to recognize that the program is poorly run,” says Howard Gleckman in Forbes magazine. “Many people who should not get benefits do. And many who should do not. It takes far too long for the program to process applications. And the program is a powerful disincentive to work — a problem that should trouble both liberals and conservatives.”

But now, with the program scheduled to go broke in just a few months, there’s a new hope for reform.

“Until now, many disability advocates are been unwilling to engage in a debate over SSDI, fearing that any effort to reform the program would only result in benefit cuts. And some conservatives are indeed only interested in cutting the program. But there are people across the political spectrum who are honestly looking for ways to improve the program.”

It’s time to fix the program, not end it — and not merely cut it.

SSDI must be a resource, not a trap.