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Disability
Mar. 27th, 2013 09:49 amSo, NPR recently ran a fascinating article about the explosion in Americans on Social Security disability (SSD). Basically, as the welfare roles declined, SSD went up. The "shorter" version of this story is in the graph below:
Those graphs are on the same scale, and it's a near 1-to-1 correlation. When NPR went digging as to why, they found a number of answers, which boil down to:
1) States are hiring consultants to get people out of welfare and into SSD. The Feds pay SSD, and the states pay welfare, so it's cheaper to cost-shift.
2) If you don't have a good education, in many parts of the country you can't get a job where you're not on your feet, and all the on-your-feet jobs available are shitty. Shitty as in "stock shelves at Wal-Mart for low wages, long hours and no benefits" shitty. You can make as much on disability as you can at Wal-Mart.
3) The American workforce is getting older. In my Rotary club, we have a 70-year-old man who's still working. Of course, he's a lawyer, and spends most of his time behind a desk. There's a reason factory workers tend to retire before they get to age 65 - the human body wears out over time.
Now, the libertarian answer to all of this is some version of "let them eat cake" but here in the land of reality that won't cut it. I'm not sure I have solutions, but the first step of addressing a problem is recognizing you have one.
Those graphs are on the same scale, and it's a near 1-to-1 correlation. When NPR went digging as to why, they found a number of answers, which boil down to:
1) States are hiring consultants to get people out of welfare and into SSD. The Feds pay SSD, and the states pay welfare, so it's cheaper to cost-shift.
2) If you don't have a good education, in many parts of the country you can't get a job where you're not on your feet, and all the on-your-feet jobs available are shitty. Shitty as in "stock shelves at Wal-Mart for low wages, long hours and no benefits" shitty. You can make as much on disability as you can at Wal-Mart.
3) The American workforce is getting older. In my Rotary club, we have a 70-year-old man who's still working. Of course, he's a lawyer, and spends most of his time behind a desk. There's a reason factory workers tend to retire before they get to age 65 - the human body wears out over time.
Now, the libertarian answer to all of this is some version of "let them eat cake" but here in the land of reality that won't cut it. I'm not sure I have solutions, but the first step of addressing a problem is recognizing you have one.
