Posted on 03/28/2013 9:35:53 AM PDT by rightwingintelligentsia
When President Clinton signed "welfare reform" into law in 1996, he promised to end welfare as we know it. Now, some new reporting suggests we've created a new kind of welfare -- only most Americans aren't aware of it.
The number of people who depend on checks from Social Security's disability programs has soared in recent years, according to NPR's series "Unfit for Work: the Startling Rise of Disability in America." The reports, which began over the weekend and continue this week, raise the question: How disabled are the recipients, really? As you might imagine, they have touched a nerve.
A quick primer: the Supplemental Security Income (SSI) program provides monthly cash assistance to people who are poor and disabled, including families with disabled children. The basic monthly SSI cash benefit is a set amount -- currently $710 for an individual and $1,066 for a couple. The Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) program also provides monthly cash assistance, to disabled people who have worked in jobs covered by Social Security. People who leave the workforce and go on disability also qualify for Medicare.
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After six months of investigation, NPR reporter Chana Joffee-Walt concluded that Social Security's disability programs have become "a de facto welfare program for people without a lot of education or job skills." In the past three decades, she reports, the number of Americans who are on disability has skyrocketed:
(Excerpt) Read more at inplainsight.nbcnews.com ...
Better than nothing, I'll take it.
What cracked me up was when some kneejerk leftist proclaimed how heartless people were that pointed out how more people went on disability than found jobs...
“those people are HURT!”
Really?
So, we had a rash of injuries that month that resulted in more people going on disability than finding jobs?
Was there some 9/11 scale trajedy that we missed?
My observation is all one needs to do to qualify for disability is drop out of high school and do a lot of drugs.
Is there any doubt that it is the New Welfare?
Disability for high blood pressure? Come on.
The Americans with Disabilities Act is the o’stoner care of its day.
Yes, disability has become a de facto welfare program. Actually, I am not sure “has become” is quite right. “Has been for some time” might be more accurate. I have seen people approved for conditions only slightly more severe than left-handedness, while a guy who lost a leg was denied. It’s a scam, and lawyers get very rich as a result.
I could get disability but I choose to go it alone.
My joints are junk so it pretty much wipes out my ability to do the factory work I did for much of my life but it didn’t stop me from learning to do something else.
There was an NPR report on this last week. States are hiring firms that work to get Welfare recipients off welfare and on disability, since disability costs are borne 100% by Feds and not the states. It’s a ‘cash cow’ for the states.
I was absolutely flabbergasted by the number of lawyer ads on daytime television promising to get you on disability just for a phone call to a toll-free number.
I was half tempted to make the call to say "I'm tired of working and supporting all these jag-offs on disability. I'd like to join them."
This article was brought to my attention by a liberal co-worker whose liberal husband happens to work for the SSA.
Even they are disgusted by this situation.
My husband receives disability. He is really disabled due to a head-on collision six years ago when cops were chasing a guy for a fictitious tag at speeds of 125 mph. The guy went around a blind curve, crossed the center line and hit my husband head-on. The other driver had very minor injuries. My husband spent five weeks in ICU and three weeks in rehab. He is in a wheelchair and in constant pain. Had to have a large section of his intestines removed. Had nine surgeries to put in pins and rods in his legs and pelvis. Several months ago he fell and had to have additional pelvic surgery.
There are many who are truly disabled. Many are not. My son’s girlfriend is 29 and receives a disability check. For the life of me, I can’t figure out what makes her disabled (or lazy). Supposedly has back problems but it doesn’t keep her from doing anything.
I worked for attorneys who did disability cases. Seems standard for the first claim to be denied but once a lawyer is involved, it is approved. They deny that’s how it works, but from what I saw, that is exactly how it works. Lawyers have a lot of influence in this country.
Working in the E R I see people every day who tell me they are “working on getting my disability” like that’s an occupation. Most of them disabled from alcohol drugs or just plain laziness. When I see some 20 something on disability for her “ nerves” and think about dragging the wagon for them while they sit back for the rest of their lives I want to vomit.
People go on disability for all kinds of reasons now, and like all government programs, there is no incentive to rein in costs. Having worked at a state employment agency for a while, I know that you get in more trouble for trying to keep someone from getting benefits who doesn’t qualify than you do for just handing out the dough.
That is why government has no business being involved in any kind of welfare or redistribution program. The only thing government ought to do is protect citizens from crooks and foreign enemies, and it doesn’t even do that very well. Anything beyond that is a recipe for legalized theft.
However, if you dare say that government should not “help” the poor and disabled, you are accused of being a horrible person. Everybody believes government can solve their problems.
“Every election is the advanced auction of stolen goods.” Mencken
I'm not sure how all the lowlifes end up drawing disability checks because at least in her case, you have to go to war in order to get on the service and even then, it doesn't look like she is going to be approved.
Thousands of those on the long term unemployment which ran out have been moved without challenge to ‘Social Security Disability.
Thats probably why NPR and other media are reporting it. There is a contentious relationship developing between the states and the feds as they battle over rapidly dwindling revenue sources, and like the big government statists they are the media will always side with the federal govenrment.
There is a new fast track Social Security disability program called SOAR. At least two thirds of applicants are approved. There is no question that Obama has turned SSI into a new Welfare program. And the old SSI was pretty much a Welfare program to begin with. The entire country wants to collect a government check instead of working. I have one in my family. He gets disability but for the life of me, I don’t see why. He can’t do heavy manual labor anymore but he can do pretty much everything else.
Both, apparently, are career choices.
Yes it has; like the parents of children on the “autism spectrum” (not real autistic children), it is simply a “white welfare” (or walfare without the bastards to merit the payments).
My mother was a social worker.
Welfare is a scam allowing able bodied people to do nothing and get paid for it.
Disability is more of the same.
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