Yes, but I bet those mentally handicapped people show up every day, on time, and put in a full day’s work.
If on random days one is simply unable to get out of bed, afraid to go outside, or in such pain that he/she has to use prescribed morphine just to be able to perform basic self-care, that’s a different story.
Do a little research on fibromyalgia, bipolar disorder, and borderline personality disorder and you might view this differently.
Based on my admittedly limited anecdotal sample, the people I know would absolutely love to be able to get out of bed every day and go to work. Some have tried, over and over again, to function in work situations and everydamn time the disability gets them fired or forced to quit, sometimes landing them in the hospital. It’s very sad, and no one would choose to live that way if they could avoid it.
Yes, it’s based in part on prior income. That’s still not much to live on, at least around here. Rents even in low-income areas are going to take up most of that, leaving a few hundred a month for utilities, food and clothing. I’m not saying a person couldn’t survive on that, but it’s not easy.
It can depend too on where you live. NJ does a better job than most in offering people ways to get by and I think every town I’ve lived in (3) has some sort of public housing which some 20-30 years after the Mt. Laurel decision is worthy of being called “housing” too. But for people on SSDI and who’ve never worked, you’re still not livin’ the good life.
Yes, the subsidized public housing is a good thing. However, it’s not easy to get into. There are loooong waiting lists. If you already have a place to stay, such as a friend or relative’s spare room or living room sofa, you’re always at the bottom of the list. Definitely not something one would choose.
When I hear people complaining about others being on SSDI, I am tempted to ask if they would voluntarily change places. Yeah, like I’d prefer to give up my sanity or my health in return for a thousand a month. No thanks.
That has nothing to do with what I said, or what the article is alleging.
But those people ARE often trying to work. That is part of the point of the article. In many cases, they can’t find work, and thus decide to go on disability.
Just because there are more people who are technically disabled than people who claim disability checks means very little wrt how much fraud there is in the system. If anything, it shows how the definitions of “disabled” vary enough that many people who are disabled can and do work in spite of their disabilities even though the government would essentially pay them not to. Tax payers want to believe the people getting these checks truly are unable to work because of their disability, not that they choose not to because it not worth the effort.
Dude, did you even read the article? They point that out, and remark that the doctor’s system makes a certain amount of real world sense. The issue is that disability is not meant to support people who can’t find a job based on their lack of job skills.
Again, that is likely true, which is basically the point. The system was designed to support people who cannot work; not those who can only work certain jobs that cater to them, their skill set, their limitations, and that only exist in good economic times, etc. etc.
Let me put it in another way: Lots of people with relatively minor disabilities have jobs, and do not show up in the statistics. When the economy goes bad, many of them lose their jobs and apply for disability. Later, they may find a job again.
Or, they are married and their partner can support them when the economy is good. Most people don’t like to be on welfare, and avoid it if they can afford to.
Many of the people I have know who are on disability needed it (and sought it out) as an income for a stay at home parent. IE, because of childcare costs, working a minimum wage job for mom (or dad) was pointless, but they also couldn’t stay home without some sort of extra income… So they suddenly developed various, difficult to disprove, conditions. I think this is another area where some sort of inexpensive public (pre K) childcare would have an impact.
The “This American Life” episode fleshes some of this out. What seems to be happening is that there are a lot of people who have very limited skills, and those skills only allow them to take physically demanding jobs. What would be a minor inconvenience to me as a computer programmer would be a major problem to someone whose only skill was heavy lifting.
One example I found interesting was when they interviewed one woman who said she was unable to perform any work. They asked her if she could do any job at all, what would she want to do. She said she would want to be the person at the Social Security office who decided who got benefits. Not because of the power she had, but simply because she got to sit all day. She didn’t know of any other jobs where one could work sitting down all day long.
How about the definition being that you are physically or mentally unable to work. Not being being a productive, efficient, or valuable employee does not rise to the standard of a disability in the eyes of most. At least not one that should compel the state to take care of you forever with little to nothing in return.
I would not necessarily call it a moral failing on the part of the workers or the people who run this country. I don’t think anyone planned this, and few people on either side are operating in bad faith. The reality is that the market has led to lots of human capital being wasted, and that nobody really has a good plan to address it beyond pay them to stay hidden, or lock them in a cell.
Again, nobody is disputing that this is the economic reality, just that we should nto therefore classify those people as disabled as it’s not a disability that prevents them from working. Let’s take an insane example. Let’s say the NHL finally decides to contract by removing 4 teams. Obviously, there will be fewer professional NHL hockey players as a result. Let’s say one of the guys is unable to find a new team is overlooked because he is thought to be too injury prone. Would you be okay with him going on disability ad infinitum because the economics of pro hockey changed in such a way to make him expendable? What if he wasn’t injury prone, but rather just too old, too relatively unskilled, or too whatever? Should anyone be able to go on disability just because the economic winds are not blowing in their favor?
Which is the real problem I was trying to highlight. I don’t think it helps (generally) to demonize these people. I think it’s more productive to discuss what should be done when we have a rapidly changing world that does not afford a growing minority of people to meaningfully contribute in an economic fashion.
Thanks, but even in those cases, I’ve known a couple of people who have gotten training (one woman I remember got trained to do medical billing) while receiving benefits on the ticket to work program. Now granted, I don’t know how the program works and how much is funded through the state and how much by the feds. Maybe it’s all the state, but that would seem strange since they wouldn’t be getting anything out of it.
So, for example, if you have one arm, you should not get disability, but if you have zero arms, you can? Do you really think the decisions doctors, bureaucrats and judges take are that easy?
Take the 55 year old secretary who looses control over most of her fingers in her right hand in an accident. In a good economy, her boss keeps her on out of loyalty and friendship. When the economy goes bad, the higher-ups demand cuts, and unfortunately, she is the logical choice.
We can argue about the number of working fingers required to be “able to work”, or we could let the market decide.
If you want to see folks who have made a career of gaming the system, watch, “The Wild and Wonderful Whites of West Virginia.” It is interesting, to say the least.
Yes, I do. At least, it appears to be pretty easy in many cases. Did you actually read the linked article? To highlight some of the more egregious examples of questionable conduct.
Does this guy really seem like he CAN’T work or go to school or do something productive? Here’s another example:
So clearly there is sometimes a disincentive to working if you are already on disability.
The above is just one way we push people towards disability.
So clearly there are plenty of people who can work, but are encouraged not to. It doesn’t need to be some game where you try to talk about people with missing arms vs. those with no arms. The typical issues are usually far more clear cut.
The market doesn’t decide. That is made abundantly clear in the article. More importantly, the market “deciding” you are not a valuable employee doesn’t make you disabled by any reasonable definition of the word. It’s one thing if you just want to call it welfare, but it does a disservice to everyone to pretend many of these people can’t work.
Of course there is fraud. There is always fraud. Everywhere. It’s possible to reduce it, but you can’t avoid it.
Yes, I agree. What should we do about it? I won’t agree with a solution that refuses aid to those who need and deserve it. I’d rather accept some fraud.
Then come up with a strict definition usable in all cases. The borderline cases are where it gets interesting. If you can’t come up with it, maybe it doesn’t exist? Maybe it’s a subjective decision made by human actors in a changing world.
I don’t think anyone pretends that. It’s just that some people focus more on the fraud than all the help welfare actually gives to people who need it. And that is as it should be, as long as we can remember both sides of the issue.
I have two friends who began receiving SSDI within the past two years. Both of them formerly worked in IT, but were laid off on the wrong side of 50 years old, and both spent several years fruitlessly trying to find a new job.
One has cerebral palsy; he functions very well, but he has very low manual dexterity, and clearly walks and moves oddly (which, frankly, is something which is probably going to freak out a lot of hiring managers). It didn’t keep him from being employed for 30 years (at the same employer for his entire career), but it was enough that SSI approved his disability claim on the first try (which, as I understand it, is pretty rare).
The other had developed pretty bad arthritis throughout his body in the past few years, and that’s the disability on which SSI approved him, after about a year of working the case.
However, both of them would much rather still be working, and only pursed SSDI after realizing that they weren’t going to get another job.
I listened to the This American Life episode that covered this. It was pretty good.
I was all ready to bash the fake-ass disabled people until they dug in deeper and realized that it is completely rational for someone with a bad back to apply for disability when their skills only qualify them for physical labor. The polly-anna-ish recommendation is for that person to go back to school so they can get a nice desk job with benefits. But this ignores the reality of not having income in the immediate future. No income for survival and no way to pay medical bills so that you could possibly no longer have a bad back.
Thing is, that I can’t think of a practical solution to this. We will always have jobs that require physical labor and we will always have people who, for whatever reason, don’t have the skills to do other kinds of jobs. And if we take away the job requirement for welfare to pick up the unemployable masses, this is just transferring folks from one program to another. The only difference is that the states will carry the burden. Maybe we could create a job training program for those deemed mildly disabled so that people who can’t do one line of work can move into another. We could make participation a requirement for receiving financial assistance. But if I’m a 55-year-old janitor with two busted knees, am I really going to be able to get a job doing something else? What can I do? Become a receptionist? So I don’t know what can be done.