Excellent article. Bump!
For those who have not been watching, disability is the new unemployment benefit.
As a volunteer triage interviewer at a local food/clothing bank, I see this all the time. As soon as the unemployment benefits get close to running out, the taker contacts a disability lawyer about getting their lifetime suck on the government teat.
Much has been made of the explosion in food stamps. Not much has been said about the corresponding explosion in disability checks. Food stamps are hard, you must recertify every six months. Disability is easy, once you qualify you’re good for life.
Massive, massive fraud. And we pay through the nose for it. Lots of fraud in food stamps too, but that’s another topic.
Another quick thought: notice the rapid increase in back pain as a reason for disability? That’s because back pain cannot be disproved. And the disability lawyers know that.
The sad sad thing about all this is that the truly disabled cannot get a claim processed in a timely fashion. I have seen a number of seriously ill, dying peopole who could not get their benefits in time, and their bills piled up and they finally died, which of course, nullifies the claim.