Has disability become a 'de facto welfare program'?

NBC News ^ | March 28, 2013 | Barbara Raab

[rightwingintelligentsia]

When President Clinton signed "welfare reform" into law in 1996, he promised to end welfare as we know it. Now, some new reporting suggests we've created a new kind of welfare -- only most Americans aren't aware of it.

The number of people who depend on checks from Social Security's disability programs has soared in recent years, according to NPR's series "Unfit for Work: the Startling Rise of Disability in America." The reports, which began over the weekend and continue this week, raise the question: How disabled are the recipients, really? As you might imagine, they have touched a nerve.

A quick primer: the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program provides monthly cash assistance to people who are poor and disabled, including families with disabled children. The basic monthly SSI cash benefit is a set amount -- currently $710 for an individual and $1,066 for a couple. The Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) program also provides monthly cash assistance, to disabled people who have worked in jobs covered by Social Security. People who leave the workforce and go on disability also qualify for Medicare.

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After six months of investigation, NPR reporter Chana Joffee-Walt concluded that Social Security's disability programs have become "a de facto welfare program for people without a lot of education or job skills." In the past three decades, she reports, the number of Americans who are on disability has skyrocketed:

[circlecity]

"I'm not sure how all the lowlifes end up drawing disability checks because at least in her case, you have to go to war in order to get on the service and even then, it doesn't look like she is going to be approved."

That was my point. White, middle class people with true physical infirmities can hardly get it and even those who are successful work for years to get it approved. If you're an unemployable inner city drop-out with a drug and alcohol problem you'll be on the dole within 6 months.

[circlecity]

Not only has it become a welfare program but Obama knows that everyone that gets on disability no longer counts as unemployed on the monthly unemployment statistics.

[cuban leaf]

I heard that report yesterday on my way home from work. It was an example of some of the rare, but really good stories that come out of NPR.

[Huskrrrr]

My father is a bastard,
My ma’s an S.O.B.
My grandpa’s always plastered,
My grandma pushes tea.
My sister wears a mustache,
My brother wears a dress.
Goodness gracious, that’s why I’m a mess!

Hey I’m depraved on account I’m deprived!

[Parley Baer]

“The number of people who depend on checks from Social Security’s disability programs has soared in recent years”

This is precisely why Social Security is going broke. Anyone who has spent anytime in a Social Security office can see that those say over 60 are few and far between. There are mostly younger people on or getting disability. No mystery here.

[Jean2]

Speaking as a person who has been disabled since birth; stories likes this really make my blood boil!

I could I supposed jump on the disability grave train but I choose not to. Then you have people like the poster whose mother is genuinely in need of it but can get it. What a country!

[DoodleDawg]

I find it kind of interesting that NPR, that bastion of liberalism, would be the one to report on this.

[cdcdawg]

“I worked for attorneys who did disability cases. Seems standard for the first claim to be denied but once a lawyer is involved, it is approved. They deny that’s how it works, but from what I saw, that is exactly how it works.”

Indeed, that is precisely how it works. Interestingly, you don’t have to be a lawyer to handle those cases. While the case is pending, the benefit period is running, so the attorney gets a percentage in the neighborhood of 15-20% of the back benefits, if awarded. Because the claims are all pretty similar from procedural and documentation perspectives, attorneys can easily set up a mill. The biggest hurdle for them is the marketing costs. It’s a lot like a high volume bankruptcy practice. Locally, the administrative judge has now retired from the bench, and is representing claimants.

[Zuse]

I know a few “disabled” folks who could have a job. However, no employer in their right mind would hire them.

[concerned about politics]

When Bush passed the Welfare to Work Program, millions of welfare slugs moved to SS disability. They didn't want to get a job like everyone else. It was easy because doctors feared the left wing trial lawyers.
That's why the number is so high. It replaced welfare.
If you add disability and welfare together, that's how many people are now living off other peoples paychecks today. It's not a pretty picture.

This is why every able bodied person should be denied services. If they can pick lettuce, they're off the dole. Those who claim they can't pick lettuce should be regularly monitored to guarantee the American citizens paying their way aren't being taken advantage of.

I've seen a couple of guys collecting SS for bad backs pull engines out of cars. One woman in our town claims to be too nervous to work, yet she runs an under the table day care center that only accepts cash.

[Adder]

There were stories from a year or so ago, if anyone recalls, where folks who exhausted their unemployment bennies were being signed up for disability, virtually automaticly.

And how can you criticize the disabled, cretins? Slick move, I must admit. I didn’t see such blantant dishonesty and fraud coming.
We need a giant reset in this nation...lots of hangers on need to be wiped off and flushed away.

[cuban leaf]

Here is the original NPR story. It’s actually pretty darned good:

http://apps.npr.org/unfit-for-work/

[Arthurio]

Often enough, the “disability” is that they are FAT.

[meyer]

Yes, it has become. In fact, it has been a “de-facto” welfare program for a while. While there are many that are disabled and perhaps need assistance, there are many, many more that are scamming the system to get their piece of the “something for nothing” pie.

[MadIsh32]

Bingo

Obesity and fat people are literally eating this country into permanent debt.

[rlmorel]

Up here in the People's Republic of Massachusetts,they have a guy who has (I think) Cerebal Palsy who sits on a busy corner on Newbury Street right across from the Boston Common.

You see him out there all summer in his wheelchair. He can't talk, but he can move his head a little up or down and can just barely move his right arm. He sells cold soda for a buck and a half. Someone sets him up with a cooler full of soda, and you put the dollar in his box, and he reaches a shaky hand down to pull the cover up and you grab what you want out of the cooler.

After seeing this guy for years, I asked him if I could take his picture, because this is what typifies the American spirit...or used to.

There are a lot of people who should be damned ashamed of themselves (who could work, but don't) but liberals have impressed on people in this country the lie that shame is a negative thing that should never be used (unless the person being shamed is a conservative) According to them, shame is too "judgemental".

[Safetgiver]

If you look at it (as I have) the income tax filing is also a welfare program. EI credit? Only work as much as the system will let you and get back more than you paid in. Over 70? Get another $1450 in personal tax deductions. Sheesh.

[concerned about politics]

Often enough, the “disability” is that they are FAT.

Getting them off the dole and putting them in a lettuce field would be the best thing for them. They'd get the exercise they desperately need - and their weight is a burden on the American health care system, right? It's a win/win.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to pick lettuce. Most on SS and welfare could do it. Why import Mexicans to do the job when we've got millions of "desperate" people to do those jobs right here in America?

[Safetgiver]

So, we had a rash of injuries that month that resulted in more people going on disability than finding jobs?...Fire EVERYBODY in OSHA. Apparently they are NOT doing their job.

[ilovesarah2012]

I didn’t work for a “mill”, the ones who advertise throughout the middle of the day. It was a very small part of the practice. Attorneys do profit well from the cases, though. And if a non-attorney handles the process as I did for my husband, they are not entitled to anything other than what the disability recipient decides to pay them. Lawyers always call the shots.