Jeff Sessions: More Americans Are Collecting Disability Than Finding Jobs

Townhall.com ^ | July 18, 2012 | Daniel Doherty

[Kaslin]

Take a look at these two charts, courtesy of the Weekly Standard’s Daniel Halper:

This is an alarming trend. The United States, increasingly, is becoming a nation where more and more Americans are collecting government checks than finding jobs. And, considering only 1 percent of Social Security disability recipients ever return to the workforce (according to Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions), this disturbing tendency will have significant and perhaps sweeping implications. These numbers also come on the heels of The One’s decision last week -- as Guy explained yesterday -- to unilaterally dismantle then-President Clinton’s historic (and successful!) welfare reforms of the 1990s. This, in effect, takes a giant ax to the legislation’s work requirements, creating a disincentive for welfare recipients to seek "real" employment opportunities, and thus fostering more government dependency. Sadly, too, more Americans are on food stamps than ever before (about 45 million), and Congress seems woefully unable – or unwilling -- to work across party lines and solve the nation's fiscal challenges.

This is a crucial time for our country -- after all, this year's presidential contest could be the most important election of our lifetime -- and we need a chief executive who espouses policies that will reignite the entrepreneurial spirit of the Americans people, thereby creating economic opportunity in this country for the tens of millions of Americans who are unemployed, underemployed or have stopped looking for work. Indeed, there are stark differences between the two candidates running for president this year -- not the least of which is President Obama’s jarring conviction that entrepreneurial success in America derives not from hardworking individuals, but from government institutions. This is a philosophy we simply cannot afford for another four years.

[Terry Mross]

There are four or five stages. A lot of those 80,000 could have been in the system for two years or more before they got their first check.

There are a few freepers who will tell you they or their spouses have been fighting for two years or more. You said “They WERE being turned down but not anymore”. That’s just not fatual. And yes, 90% of FIRST TIME applicants are turned down. And if that works out to a million a month applying, then so be it. So many people are applying that SS is tigtening up.

One way they’ve tightened up is it used to be that if you can’t do the job you’ve been doing for the last nine years, you qualify. Then they changed it to if you’re over 55 and can’t do the job you used to have, you’re qualified. Now they changed it to if you can sit a desk and answer the phone you’re not qualified.

I know a lawyer who’s done this for over 20 years. He said he’s convinced SS is so backed up that they’re automatically turning down first time applicants. He no longer takes a client unless HE’S convinced the applicant is disabled.

These law commercials you see running? Lawyers only work on cases that have been rejected the first time because they get a percentage of back pay. There is no back pay if they’re approved on the first try. That means a lot of people are getting turned down.

As for not having to work to get welfare, that has nothing to do with SS disability.

[CodeToad]

“That’s just not fatual. And yes, 90% of FIRST TIME applicants are turned down. And if that works out to a million a month applying, then so be it. “

I can’t help it if you appear to be bad with math and don’t like what YOUR stat shows, that about a million a month apply for disability. The number that 80,000+ a month are getting disability is a fact. If you claim 90% are turned down on first try, it doesn’t matter when they finally get approved, 80,000+ a month are getting approved and that means at least about a million a month are applying.

[CodeToad]

“That’s just not fatual. And yes, 90% of FIRST TIME applicants are turned down. And if that works out to a million a month applying, then so be it. “

I can’t help it if you appear to be bad with math and don’t like what YOUR stat shows, that about a million a month apply for disability. The number that 80,000+ a month are getting disability is a fact. If you claim 90% are turned down on first try, it doesn’t matter when they finally get approved, 80,000+ a month are getting approved and that means at least about a million a month are applying.