[Carry_Okie]

In Hale County, Alabama, 1 in 4 working-age adults is on disability. On the day government checks come in every month, banks stay open late, Main Street fills up with cars, and anybody looking to unload an old TV or armchair has a yard sale.

And I get to tolerate 'California is a welfare case' posts while Californians FUND this kind of largesse.

BTW, the biggies are obviously back pain and mental illness, both of which are easily faked.

[Last of the Mohicans]

Good post Carrie. Those charts give new meaning to The South Will Rise Again!

[CivilWarguy]

Hale County, AL is 59% Black, according to the 2010 census.
I’m sure everybody is surprised to learn that a heavily Black county is also into disability scams bigtime.

[LostInBayport]

BTW, the biggies are obviously back pain and mental illness, both of which are easily faked.

Interestingly enough, the first graph in the article shows those two items in the lower percentages in 1961, but they have reached the top by 2011.

I'm not saying it is all fakery, as I am someone who has severe bouts of back pain (as in 'I've fallen and I WON'T get up 'cause it hurts like hell to move'), but the 'mental illness' part is certainly abused. I have personally witnessed more than one ambulatory, healthy-looking and coherent young man telling another person how he was just approved for SSDI. I find it hard to believe that these young men are 'unable to work'.

One area I would approve of increased funding would be in a benefits fraud division that actually got results, the way insurance companies would send agents into the field to get photographs of the permanently debilitated car crash victim frolicking on the ski slopes. I would love a job like that, assuming the guilty would get their benefits stripped away in the end and that the agency wouldn't become another day care for relatives of politicians.

[Myrddin]

And I get to tolerate 'California is a welfare case' posts while Californians FUND this kind of largesse.

I'm an Idaho resident working on a task that requires my physical presence in San Diego. The reward is that I have to pay CA state income taxes and carry the burden of a high cost of living and sales taxes, but I can't vote in CA elections.

That's going to change next Friday. A 90 day "funding gap" will make it necessary to vacate the rental room in San Diego and go home to Idaho. I'm going to make sure my state income tax is assessed based on where I'm sitting whether working or vacationing. I have endured 4 years living away from my home. Perhaps it is time to do something other than 55 to 70 hours a week for 40 hours pay.