Posted on 04/09/2013 10:51:42 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
In the past three decades, the number of Americans who are on disability has skyrocketed. The rise has come even as medical advances have allowed many more people to remain on the job, and new laws have banned workplace discrimination against the disabled. Every month, 14 million people now get a disability check from the government.
The federal government spends more money each year on cash payments for disabled former workers than it spends on food stamps and welfare combined. Yet people relying on disability payments are often overlooked in discussions of the social safety net. The vast majority of people on federal disability do not work.[1] Yet because they are not technically part of the labor force, they are not counted among the unemployed.
In other words, people on disability don't show up in any of the places we usually look to see how the economy is doing. But the story of these programs -- who goes on them, and why, and what happens after that -- is, to a large extent, the story of the U.S. economy. It's the story not only of an aging workforce, but also of a hidden, increasingly expensive safety net.
For the past six months, I've been reporting on the growth of federal disability programs. I've been trying to understand what disability means for American workers, and, more broadly, what it means for poor people in America nearly 20 years after we ended welfare as we knew it. Here's what I found.
(Excerpt) Read more at apps.npr.org ...
Why is this shocking?
It’s surprisingly easy to get mooch status.
A former friend now gets ALL of her bills paid for (rent, food, phone, etc), because she got herself classified as a loser moocher lesbo bi-polar psycho.
Now WE are paying for her internet, cat food, vet bills, and just about everything else...and the hateful ingrate complains that evil conservatives like me point out her shameful moochieness.
SHAME ON THEM.
And PS....when the SHTF, she knows where I am, but also knows the pooches gotta eat, and if you refuse to pull your weight, becoming Puppy Chow around here will be the least of her worries.
This is a decent article — surprising for NPR. It is crystal clear that a huge chunk, if not all, of the growth in disability results from people who have a medical condition but who aren’t truly disabled. It makes clear the growpth results from poor people not being willing or able to retrain themselves, or move, to get other jobs. It says that SSI disability has turned into a substitute for Welfare in a lot of communities. All true.
According to the Labor Dept., 11,742,000 people are currently unemployed
See here:
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/UNEMPLOY
In addition, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics says that there are 89,967,000 working age Americans that are “not in the labor force”. That is a new all-time record, and that number increased by a whopping 663,000 during the month of March alone.
See here:
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/LNS15000000
I wonder if we should add the 11 Million to the 89 Million, because if that is the correct methodology, we have nearly 100 Million who are not working in America.
That’s almost equal to the population of Spain and Italy combined.
Startling? Hardly. People have begun to figure out how to game the system, and leftist beaurocrats happily go along with it. More people in the system = job stability for them = more government. Licking the boots of their overlords.
Why shouldn’t people scam the system with fake disability? If you want to try to work hard and get ahead, you are punished, but if you are lazy and dishonest, you get rewarded. What do you think people will pick?
From the UK, where they recently announced a test requirement for public assistance:
As well as the 878,300 who chose to drop their claims, another 837,000 who did take the a medical test were found to be fit to work immediately, while a further 367,300 were judged able to some level of work.
Only 232,000 (one in eight of those tested) were classified by doctors to be too ill to do any sort of job.
IOW a whole bunch of folks decided not to even TRY, once the test was in place.
Do you think The U.S. could take a hint?
Yeah, me neither.
X2 for being nuts and X4 for a bad back. I can understand more crazy people but the huge jump in bad backs. The only conclusion I can come up with is that 40 years of OSHA has harmed thousands of workers; OSHA must go!
My drug-addled loser ex LIVES for the day he’ll be granted disabled status; that there are others like him doesn’t surprise me one tiny bit.
I’m normally not a vengeful person, but I can’t begin to tell you how I look forward to getting a portion of his social security when I’m eligible.
Eh. A girl can dream, can’t she? There’s not going to be any of that left for either of us in another decade....if not sooner.
YOYO (You’re On Your Own)
Suddenly you got half the nation on the dole and the only reason the problem hasn't gotten worse is because half of us still have a little pride and work ethic. But trust me, the resistance of the working half of this nation to take the freebies is starting to wear down. We can only keep pulling the wagon uphill for so long - especially as more and more able bodied people keep climbing into it.
Years ago, nobody would think of filing for disability for high blood pressure. But then again, years ago, nobody would offer to pay you to sit at home and watch television because you have way too much salt in your diet and don't exercise enough.
Bad backs is easy to explain...have you seen all of the morbidly obese people at the local wal-mart? Carrying an extra 70-100lbs is a major strain on the spine!
The way to get the gigantic numbers of parasites out of disability has long been used by the military.
Set up review boards for disability review. This is far easier than it sounds.
1) If someone has an “obvious” disability, like a missing limb, major surgeries of vital organs, etc., they go on the list permanently, with no more reviews.
2) If someone has a partially objective and partially subjective disability, where recovery or some recovery is possible, they have a percentage of disability, not 100%, and a review about every 5 years.
3) If someone has subjective disability, they may get reviews every 1-5 years, and may require recertification from an independent doctor, different from their primary care.
When they started reviewing people in Great Britain,
half didn’t even show up for the review.
Exactly. Two things make people work: one is fear, the second is a moral education from parents and society that emphasizes the value of hard work and self-sufficiency. The moral education component is long gone -- society has beat into peoples' heads that there is no shame in being on Welfare or not working. Now the fear component is being taken away too since pretty much everyone who wants it can get some type of government check. People who otherwise would be out looking for work can now collect disability.
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