Posted on 12/03/2012 4:18:35 AM PST by Kaslin
Americans are very generous to people with disabilities. Since passage of the Americans With Disabilities Act in 1990, millions of public and private dollars have been spent on curb cuts, bus lifts and special elevators.
The idea has been to enable people with disabilities to live and work with the same ease as others, as they make their way forward in life. I feel sure the large majority of Americans are pleased that we are doing this.
But there is another federal program for people with disabilities that has had an unhappier effect. This is the disability insurance (DI) program, which is part of Social Security.
The idea is to provide income for those whose health makes them unable to work. For many years, it was a small and inexpensive program that few people or politicians paid much attention to.
In his recent book, "A Nation of Takers: America's Entitlement Epidemic," my American Enterprise Institute colleague Nicholas Eberstadt has shown how DI has grown in recent years.
In 1960, some 455,000 workers were receiving disability payments. In 2011, the number was 8,600,000. In 1960, the percentage of the economically active 18-to-64 population receiving disability benefits was 0.65 percent. In 2010, it was 5.6 percent.
Some four decades ago, when I was a law clerk to a federal judge, I had occasion to read briefs in cases appealing denial of disability benefits. The Social Security Administration then seemed pretty strict in denying benefits in dubious cases. The courts were not much more openhanded.
Things have changed. Americans have grown healthier, and significantly lower numbers die before 65 than was the case a half-century ago. Nevertheless, the disability rolls have ballooned.
One reason is that the government seems to have gotten more openhanded with those claiming vague ailments. Eberstadt points out that in 1960, only one-fifth of disability benefits went to those with "mood disorders" and "muscoskeletal" problems. In 2011, nearly half of those on disability voiced such complaints.
"It is exceptionally difficult -- for all practical purposes, impossible," writes Eberstadt, "for a medical professional to disprove a patient's claim that he or she is suffering from sad feelings or back pain."
In other words, many people are gaming or defrauding the system. This includes not only disability recipients but health care professionals, lawyers and others who run ads promising to get you disability benefits.
Between 1996 and 2011, the private sector generated 8.8 million new jobs, and 4.1 million people entered the disability rolls.
The ratio of disability cases to new jobs has been even worse during the sluggish recovery from the 2007-09 recession. Between January 2010 and December 2011, there were 1,730,000 new jobs and 790,000 new people collecting disability.
This is not just a matter of laid-off workers in their 50s or early 60s qualifying for disability in the years before they become eligible for Social Security old age benefits.
In 2011, 15 percent of disability recipients were in their 30s or early 40s. Concludes Eberstadt, "Collecting disability is an increasingly important profession in America these says."
Disability insurance is no longer a small program. The government transfers some $130 billion obtained from taxpayers or borrowed from purchasers of Treasury bonds to disability beneficiaries every year.
But there is also a human cost. Consider the plight of someone who at some level knows he can work but decides to collect disability payments instead.
That person is not likely to ever seek work again, especially if the sluggish recovery turns out to be the new normal.
He may be gleeful that he was able to game the system or just grimly determined to get what he can in a tough situation. But he will not be able to get the satisfaction of earned success from honest work that contributes something to society and the economy.
I use the masculine pronoun intentionally, because an increasing number of American men have dropped out of the workforce altogether. In 1948, 89 percent of men age 20 and over were in the workforce.
In 2011, 73 percent were. Only a small amount of that change results from an aging population. Jobs have become physically less grueling and economically more rewarding than they were in 1948.
The Americans With Disabilities Act helped many people move forward and contribute to society. The explosive growth of disability insurance has had an opposite effect.
I disagre that American are happy with the ADA.
It’s almost a total waste of money.
Curbs in cities cut down for rmps that almost no one uses, Special buses, handicapped urinals ,making everything handicapped accessible is a large waste of resources and expense.
Putting in electronic doors that are barely ever used business’s having to Make their businees accessible to handicapped workers when they employ no handicapped workers.
I don’t mean to sound like a hard ass here, but the money we have tossed at the ADA act has been disproportionate in the max to the needs of the handicapped.
Oh Well cutting down all of the curbs gave jobs to Mexican concrete workers.
I have to wonder if those currently transitioning from unemployment (which you have to be able to work to collect?) to disability are waiting anywhere near that long?
I recently interviewed a woman 24 years old who has six kids (one set of twins).
She had left the Employed? and Employer? questions on the info sheet blank so I asked if she had a job.
“Yep, she replied, “My job is to get all my kids on disability. My Mama did that for me and now I want to do it for my kids. I gotta figure out a way to get the lawyer’s money and we’ll be all set.”
As I looked through her paper work, I noticed she gets a disability check of $600 something a month. Her youngest child was also on disability getting $400 something a month.
In addition, she had her two youngest kids in WIC, and was receiving housing assistance, and food stamps.
I was pissed off at the system for the rest of the day.
Another fav of mine is to ask an interviewee if they have a job and have them spit at me, “I get a government check!”
And I won't get started on all the DI fraud I see all the time.
I dunno - I rather like the handicapped bathroom stalls at work. Lots of elbow room.
I kept looking for the “like” button for your post. Exactly correct!
I know and have known several of men like this they can hunt ,fish and do all kinds of fun things. But it is to painful to do any type of work.
You have to have worked to collect Social Security Disability too. Way too many people on it who aren't disabled and those who are truly disabled have a hard time getting it.
Unemployment is a whole other subject but that gravy train is coming to an end rapidly. December, for hundreds of thousands.
Well, you get fat welfare momma pretending she’s crazy, and she’s got six kids pretending they have ADD and she’s pulling in close to $5,000 in cash each month. Add in food stamps, medicaid and section 8, and she’s living the easy life. Never worked a day in her life, BTW.
Party time on your dime.
I use the masculine pronoun intentionally, because an increasing number of American men have dropped out of the workforce altogether. In 1948, 89 percent of men age 20 and over were in the workforce.
He’s got a point there, a small one though. How many men have been pushed out of the work force through the feminization of it?
Wide stance too!
AKA “the luxury box”.
Now, the real issue for us here is SSDI, not ADA. ADA is pennies by comparison, even if we have spent ridiculous amounts of money on it.
See my previous post up thread.
My experience is that the process of getting on DI takes about two years on average. And if you don’t have a lawyer you stand little to no chance of getting the benefit.
How the lawyer gets paid is interesting: At the time you apply for DI, an account is set up for you. When you get on DI, assuming you do, lots of folks do not, back payments are made to you. This can be thousands of dollars.
The lawyer’s fee is taken from the back payments. The fee is capped, I believe, at $2500.
A six month wait is nothing for a decades-long benefit.
I am disabled. I have kidney failure. Prior to my illness I was earning in excess of 4k a month working as an avionics technician. Now I receive around 1k a month in disability. I pray everyday that I’ll someday be able to get off dialysis and walk again so I can go back to work. I don’t know if that will ever happen. I would give anything to be able to go back to work, not just for the money but for the fulfillment I always felt with being able to do something productive and meaningful. I know how hard it is for some people to get on disability and how easy it seems to be for other people. The dirt-bags that are constantly gaming the system really tic me off. It makes it so much harder for people that really need a little help to get it. Please don’t think that everyone that receives disability got it by conning the government. There are those of us that are in need and grateful it’s there, and in most cases we would rather be out there working and could actually make more money if we could.
I see you've met my step-sister's husband. Poor fellow. Can't work. Can ride horses, hunt, do carpentry, fish... but he's got a bad back, you know, so... happily he can sue people.
They couldn’t serve as an office receptionist?
“I have to wonder if those currently transitioning from unemployment (which you have to be able to work to collect?) to disability are waiting anywhere near that long?”
I doubt it. They seem to be trying to add as much debt as possible as quickly as possible. How much more apparent does it have to get for people to wake up? Obama is purposely destroying this country so the one worlders can take over. Think UN and how much he has already ceded to them. We can only pray our way out of this mess for we are up against some serious evil.
If you’re on dialysis, I’m pretty sure you’re not faking it. ;^) Hang in there.
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