“”That’s a kind of ugly secret of the American labor market,” David Autor, an economist at MIT, told me. “Part of the reason our unemployment rates have been low, until recently, is that a lot of people who would have trouble finding jobs are on a different program.”
Part of the rise in the number of people on disability is simply driven by the fact that the workforce is getting older, and older people tend to have more health problems.
But disability has also become a de facto welfare program for people without a lot of education or job skills. But it wasn’t supposed to serve this purpose; it’s not a retraining program designed to get people back onto their feet. Once people go onto disability, they almost never go back to work. Fewer than 1 percent of those who were on the federal program for disabled workers at the beginning of 2011 have returned to the workforce since then, one economist told me.
People who leave the workforce and go on disability qualify for Medicare, the government health care program that also covers the elderly. They also get disability payments from the government of about $13,000 a year. This isn’t great. But if your alternative is a minimum wage job that will pay you at most $15,000 a year, and probably does not include health insurance, disability may be a better option.”http://apps.npr.org/unfit-for-work/
Categorized | Affiliate Marketing 101
Is Disability The Other Welfare Program For The Unemployable?
Posted on March 27, 2013.
Yes.
Sadly there many who are simply put unemployable.
It’s a problem that no politician will ever touch, unfortunately.
I know a guy whos father wanted to get on disability so stopped taking medication and refused to even go for a walk because he wanted to be as sick as possible when he went to see his doctor because he wanted to get on disability. It worked too
I also know a guy that went on disability because he couldnt see. Well he got his eyes fixed 2 years ago (cataracts) and he is on disability still
Obama has turned SSI (disability) into the new American Dream: free sh!t from the government forever.
Tolerance is often demanded but seldom returned. Beware of the word tolerance. It is a very unstable virtue.
As a liberal, I do agree with you that disability is probably one of the most abused programs in the social safety net. There are many reasons for this. The main one is that it costs the government less to approve a claim than it does to fight it if a lawyer brings suit. Lawyers are the problem and most of the people in Congress who could change the laws or budget the money to fight these suits are also Lawyers. The only way this will change is for we voters to insist that our representatives do something about it but we Liberals will not allow the entire program to be trashed. There are people who need disability. They are not the problem. The rich Lawyers and Congress are the problem.
SSD. The Obama program to fiscal success. He has shown more how
to cheat and milk the system then anyone. Through his community
action leadership and BS. He has teams of people within his administration
that teach citizens on how to cheat and get away with it.
I am a 100% service connected disabled veteran, does that include me?
Older people will not be hired when O’Care kicks in. Age will be another factor in higher insurance costs paid by the employer. You can lose weight, you can quit smoking, but you can’t make yourself younger. I suspect there will be a lot of forged documents and a boom for the plastic surgeons in coming years just so people over 55 can get a job. The government is creating a whole new group of welfare recipients whether it be in the form of actual welfare or disability just because of the expense in covering older people. Some employers won’t hire and/or fire smokers and obese people. This will be no different for older people.
it’s true.
This is actually one I side with the cons on. Too many people getting disability who don’t really qualify for it.
Scamming the system is the american way it seems.
No, that’s bullcrap. Its so tough to get on disability that people with more than legitimate problems wait years and go to court, for a relatively small amount.
Yes the fact is that people on disability rarely go back to work, the blind do not see again you know.
Those with broken bodies don’t suddenly walk, and those with head injuries don’t always come back all the way, Gabby Giffords won’t ever be able to get her job back and perform it up to expectations, and she didn’t run, do you think she’s going to be capable of getting a job again?
To qualify for disability in the first place you have to expect to be out of your normal job for a year, since they delay, and demand reports from doctors from their side as well as your side, the person who is going to be OK doesn’t qualify and so doesn’t show up as someone who is on disability.
Making those statistics they used more than a little self serving.
If you are in a job that is only paying low wages get out or take on two or three if you have to. There is no excuse whatsoever for anyone not to work unless they really are physically unable. And with so many jobs now that can be done at home or on a computer this should free up some disabled. The abuse is rampant.
In my experience, it’s pretty hard to get SSI unless you are good at working the system.
I know a couple of people who were turned down, and they really should have qualified.
On the other hand, if you are good at working the system, it’s a good scam. I know a couple of people like that, too.
As far as I know it is the only program for the truly unemployable. Unemployment insurance and TANF are for temporary unemployment situations based on the economy or some extrinsic circumstance in which the situation for employment has been disrupted momentarily. Disability is based on a person’s actual physical limitations, a loss of intrinsic ability to perform work or be employed.
Edit: In reading the article you showcased, I noticed a judge trying to judge the disability claims of people in his courtroom. Every job isn’t sitting on your butt all day handing out opinions. Some peoples’ jobs require hard labor, accurate vision, or a steady hand, judge.
I volunteer in a psych hospital. One poor bipolar woman was denied disability for years after her disease caused her job perfomance to go down the toilet and get fired. As her unemployment ran out, she was living in the worst crack-ridden gang-infested dangerous neighborhood in my large Texas city, and even that she really couldn’t afford. It might be harder to qualify than you think.
The pernicious classification of “disabled” has become a scam for those who simply don’t want to work.
After over ten years of sitting in the “Support Enforcement” court designed to force (mostly) dead beat dads and moms to pay child support I cannot count the number of “disabled” people who claimed that their knees hurt or their backs hurt or — and this was common — that they were too tense or they had headaches or that they felt insecure or they had no “self esteem.” Social Security Disabilty has become a scam facilited by a parasitite-promoting “victim culture” which is sweeping across our legal system. IMO it is sponsored by democrats who know these “disabled” will vote for them.
I just love the experts who write beautiful essays + books about
-working
-moving jobs overseas
-welfare programs
-prisons
but has no solution….. just criticism = Americans
Feminists rule da courts, Jews rule da banks, gays rule our marriages. Da white man is being OPPRESSED day and day by the LIBERAL MARXIST AGENDA!
Da liberal Marxist-Lenist Maoist agenda is unpredictable. All you can do is git ur guns an protect ur freedums!